Allen Ginsberg 1981 Naropa class continues from here
Allen finds he has a little time at the end of the class – and so he dedicates it to an examination of a student (Tom)’s poem
Student: Three-fifteen.
AG: I’m sorry. You didn’t tell me. Nobody told me nothing.
Student: It’s supposed to end.. till three-fifteen, isn’t it?
AG: Oh. Well, then we have an hour. Oh, great. Okay. Shoot.
Student (Tom):
“Depth Perception. Climbing to the top of Devil’s Head, your true beauty went unnoticed from below, the glimmering of lights, from ear to chin, with a focusing of lines.
AG: “Went unnoticed” – Three syllable, three syllable, three syllable, four syllable, four syllable, three syllable, three syllable, three syllable, three syllable, four syllable, three syllable, three syllable. You know that?
Tom: I noticed it.
AG: It’s always interesting, if you’re going to do that, unless you’ve got something inevitable you want to do, it’s always interesting, you might as well make it all three syllables, or all four syllables. You get a funny (sound) – “Climbing to the top of Devil’s Head”, “from below, the glimmering of lights”, with a focusing of lines.” – Well, anyway, there is a funny kind of hypnotic rhythmic thing if you do keep it all consistent. Unless you’ve got something you’re trying to say. But if you have nothing you’re trying to say specially, one way of getting away with it is just have it all the same number of syllables, and you get something interesting.
So, anybody got anything to (say)? How does it… how do you proceed in a workshop?
Student: Well, isn’t it sort of like, changing the poem to make it a poem..
AG: Yeah, I’m saying if you’ve got already a poem that’s really interesting, than don’t change it. But….
Student: Well, nothing may be really interesting, but….
AG: Well, yeah, there might be something really interesting. “As if the earth under our feet were the excrement of some sky.”
Student: Yeah, but….
AG: That’s really interesting.
Student (2): Tom… we were talking about prepositions and stuff earlier. I think that “from ear to chin,” I think it makes as much sense, “the ring of lights, ear to chin.”
Student (Tom): Right.
Student (2): From Monday, I kind of know what you were looking at, (what) you were talking about. Karen (sic) disagrees, but….
Student (Karen): I did.
Student(2): Yeah, it makes it flow much easier. “Ring of lights, ear to chin, with the focusing of lines”. Just a thought.
AG: Well, actually, if you took out “true,” took out “went,” and took out “from,” you’d have all three syllables. “Climbing to the top of Devil’s Head, your beauty unnoticed from below, the glimmering of lights, ear to chin, the focusing of lines”.
Student (Randy Roark): Sounds nice.
AG: It’s interesting. One thing. Incidentally, speaking of the dilemma I was talking about when you write a lot and then you want to condense, if you have some principle of condensation (or) some principle of count of syllables, very often the necessity to bring it down will guide your mind to notice which syllables are fat. If you are.. Like in this.. Once you said that, then I started checking this out and said, “Well, “your beauty” is just as good as “your true beauty”. Or, you know, there’s certain words you can begin eliminating by… or, let’s see, you have a motive, if you have a motive to eliminate, like trying to keep it all in three syllables, then you begin to notice more clearly what might be eliminated.
Student (3): It’s interesting because Tom was commenting that people (were) throwing in extra syllables to make up the meter …
AG: Yeah.
Student (3): … and saying, like that had gotten very slack …
AG: Yeah.
Student (3): But it works the other way, too.
AG: Well, it works best when you’re trying to eliminate.
Student (3): Cut.
AG: If you’ve got.. If you’re cutting in order to satisfy a meter, you begin to dig what words are unnecessary. It’s amazing. It’s some kind of a mystical experience, I find – to find that when you start really getting close to the bone, thought really is close, the ultimate thought really is close to the bone and it’s not so hard to eliminate, because somehow or other they all just fit close to the bone.
However, what is this poem about? “Climbing to the top” – what is “Devil’s Head”? That’s a place here?
Student (Tom): Yeah. A place nearby.
AG: Is it visible from here or?
Student (Tom): No, it’s not that near.
AG: Okay. “Your true beauty went unnoticed….”
Student (Tom): The thing … the thing about “went..”
AG: You were climbing with a girl or something?
Student (Tom): Yeah.
AG: So, because you were busy climbing, you didn’t notice her true beauty. Right? Or?
Student (Tom) : “went on noticed.”
AG: Went “on noticed,” okay.
Student (Tom): But there …
AG: Okay.
Student (Tom): … also….
AG: It’ll usually be went “on/noticed from below.”
Student (Tom): There’s a kind of ambiguity there.
AG: Uh-huh.
Student (Tom): “On noticed” but it also could be “unnoticed.”
AG: Oh, then you could say then “your true beauty” … “your beauty went noticed.” “Your true beauty went noticed.” (Allen laughs) That sounds like (Robert) Creeley. “Your beauty went noticed.” I’m sorry, go on.
Tom: Um … uh … there’s a kind of ambiguity, like different ways to read it. “From below” could be down, like in the city.
AG: Oh, I see, you were looking up her skirt, or something. (Allen continues laughing) “Went noticed from below.” Is that the way you’re supposed to read it?
Tom: It’s … uh….
Student (4): Patent leather shoes.
AG: That was her true beauty, I see. No, you need the word “true” then… Go on ( ..and Allen is still laughing)
Student (Tom): The.. um … there’s a certain … I wanted it to be a certain ambiguity that I’m trying to get at or….
AG: You mean from the line to line, “noticed from below”?
Student (Tom): Uh … below …
AG: “From below the glimmer.”
Student (Tom): … the glimmer.
AG: Well, that’s there. That’s obvious. That’s obvious and that’s there. Nothing wrong with that.
Student (Tom): One reason why … uh … I like “went” sort of … the whole thing is a sentence, if you take it as one sentence, but even though the “went” is a verb … which, without it there’s no verb … but, that’s not to say that it needs to be a sentence.
AG: Um-hmm.
Student (Tom): Um. But I also liked “on noticed” … even though…
AG: Yeah.
Student (Tom): … (because) it could be … it could be taken either way. Unnoticed from the city below.
AG: Um-hmm.
Student (Tom): … which is at dusk when the lights starts to glimmer, you know. no one knows what’s going on on the ground, noticing anything … you know. But also, “on noticed”, it is being noticed. Something is being noticed.
AG: So are you saying the ambiguity is “went unnoticed” and “on noticed” simultaneously? Unnoticed from below but went on noticed from where you were. Yeah. Except it’s such a minor piece of logopoeia here (logopoeia, we can call it), it’s such a minor piece of logopoeia that it could only be useful if it were added on to something that was already completely solid and connected anyway, I would say.
Student (5); It’s a little distracting.
Student (6): Yeah, I saw it and I knew what you were doing, but still….
Student (Tom): Yeah.
Student (5): A little distracting.
Student (Tom): When … just taking out “when” making it “on noticed,” uh, makes it whole … makes it more … and take the “true” out and make it all three-syllable lines and it does make it more clean.
AG: How would you say it? “Your beauty unnoticed” or “went noticed”?
Student (Tom): Hmmm.
AG: I would have said, “Your beauty went noticed from below.” I like that “went noticed” — that’s that awkwardness that I was talking about. “Your beauty went noticed.” Actually, it’s very archaic-sounding. “Your beauty goeth before….” You know, “Thy beauty goeth before me” or something like that.
Student: Maybe you could also keep “true” and take out “your.”?
AG: Yes. Except but then you’d think you were talking about the mountaintop.
Student: Yeah.
AG: Well, I ain’t got no objection to having four syllables. It’s alright. You can have four syllables.
Student: Yeah.
AG: I wasn’t trying to cut it. I was just saying if you cut it you could cut it and it would look like a piece of bone that way.
However, however, I still don’t get what it’s all about. You were climbing to the top with this girlfriend and you noticed her beauty. Then also you then “from below the glimmer” – you’ve got a totally separate little image poem.
Student (Tom): Right.
AG: “From below the glimmer ring of lights.” Now, what’s the “ear to chin”?
Student (Tom): That’s the line of the jawbone.
AG: Of what?
Student (Tom): The jawbone.
AG: Of the Devil’s Head.
Student (Tom): No, actually, but the girl.
AG: Okay, now. So you’re just getting a glimpse of the city then you’re going back to “true beauty, ear to chin”?
Student (Tom): Yeah.
AG: And this “focus”?
Student (Tom): It is two separate incidents.
AG: Okay.
Student (Tom): So….
AG: Then the focus is what? What does that refer to?
Student (Tom): Well, it’s getting back to depth perception.
AG: Now, wait a minute. We’re talking about climbing the mountain, we’re talking about her beauty, we’re talking about the ring of lights down below, then you’re looking back at her, and now what do you mean by depth perception? Is there something…?
Student (Tom): That’s the title, but….
AG: Yeah, I know. But….
Student (Tom): The … the … okay, it’s the line … there’s a line there from … from the earlobe, say, to the chin …
AG: Right.
Student (Tom): … which is made by the jawbone. The… the focusing of lines is what the eye is doing to … in order to perceive that beauty. That curve.
AG: You mean the eyeball has to focus there on her jaw?
Student: So the focusing has nothing to do with the lights or the mountain? It’s just on the chin?
Student (Tom): That was the intent. Actually it was, you know, I was kind of vague and in my own mind writing it, but….
AG: But then you’ve got to….
Student (Tom): So it can go both ways.
AG: Okay, but then, so then….
class ends here
Audio forth above can be heard here, beginning at approximately eighty-one-and-three-quarter minutes in and concluding at the end of the tape