Sauna Poetry, or Gertrude Stein Creates Everything

As I like to say, I’ll go a long way for poetry, so after work yesterday I drove a little more than an hour to Bard College, in Annandale-on-Hudson to hear Rachel Blau DuPlessis give a reading. I don’t normally pay attention to the readings taking place at Bard, but our friend Anne Gorrick had given Nancy and me a few days’ forewarning, so I was able to make it—not Nancy, however. She had a bit of training after work. At the moment her training ended, an hour away in Albany, DuPlessis was preparing to read in the Weis Cinema in the Bertelsman Campus Center at Bard College.

Arriving at the campus center, I asked a young woman for directions to the reading. As expected, she’d no idea that a poetry reading would be going on nearby, but she discovered where it was and gave me bad directions to where it would take place: down a hallway, and I’d see it on my right. Unfortunately, I saw no theater on my right and returned down the hallway to ask for clarification. On the way, I ran into my friends Anne Gorrick and Lynn Behrendt, and I immediately told them they were in charge of finding our way to the theater. They did this by looking on the left hand side of the hallway. And, once again, I learned that I can focus so much that I miss everything.

Once upon the sloping floor of the theater, we noticed we were the only people there even though the event was set to start in twelve minutes. A man in charge of the theater was working on the microphone at the time, and he explained that people would begin to arrive a little after six. We did not explain to him that we had attended poetry readings before in our lives. Then the four of us discussed the distinct but subtle scent of burning wood in the theater, noting that the building was probably not burning down and that the smell was quite pleasant.

Soon Joan Retallack arrived with Rachel Blau DuPlessis in tow, and almost immediately Retallack discovered that she’d left her introduction to Rachel at home and that an introduction for someone else was resting on the podium. Even though Retallack doesn’t know me (we’d spoken only once and briefly), I suggested she simply use the found introduction and substitute Rachel’s name for whatever name was on the document. Rachel said she liked that idea, but Retallack did not, so she left to fetch the real introduction.

Left alone with the three of us, Rachel sat down next to us and asked us who we were, and we began talking. She asked me if I taught, and I explained that I could never teach (though I didn’t explain this was because I’d taught freshman English for a year and I couldn’t stand the thought of grading papers ever again). She asked me what I did, and I explained that I was an archivist at the New York State Archives. She then showed some knowledge of archives, essentially asking if I worked for a collecting or an institutional archives. I wondered how she even knew to ask such a question, and she explained that her husband was an historian. She next asked me how I came to be an archivist, and I explained that I was a poet but (as Anne explained) poetry is not a lucrative field, so I decided to go into either archivy or lexicography—and, as Rachel added, there are even fewer jobs in lexicography than the field of archives. I congratulated her on her unusual insight.

I introduced Lynn to Rachel as one of her biggest fans, and Lynn and Anne began to compliment Rachel, who seemed honestly amazed that there were people who were fans of hers, that someone might drive to Bard from distant Schenectady to hear her read. It seemed impossible to me that Rachel wouldn’t know she had such fans, but I came to believe that her modesty simply forbade her to believe it.

Before it was too late, I asked Rachel to sign my copy of Drafts 39 – 57, Pledge, with Draft, Unnumbered: Précis. She inscribed it “to Geoff / a for / from the poet / Rachel Blau DuPlessis / @ Bard / Nov 2009,” giving my name an extra f.

Rachel Blau DuPlessis’ Jacket Waiting for her Reading to Begin, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson (12 Nov 2009)
Soon enough, Joan Retallack had returned and the cinema had filled with an audience, one consisting primarily of students, but the stately Robert Kelly came and sat next to me. He said hi to Lynn and Anne, and I reintroduced myself. Just before the reading started, I noted that the rooms smelled like a sauna, and it was not merely the slight scent of smoke that made me think that. That sudden return to Finland, one of my favorite countries, might have helped make the evening as enjoyable as it was—though I think it had more to do with Rachel Blau DuPlessis herself.

Joan gave a detailed introduction of Rachel, focusing on her importance—as a female known for writing a “long poem incorporating history,” a form usually associated with men. She also explained that the event we were experiencing would combine the reading of poetry with the reading of essays, along with questions from us. Then we began.

Rachel put her poem in context, explaining that it is “very strange to write extreme poetry,” “a long poem taking twenty-five years.” She discussed the publication of the poem, putting it in context for us. Then she began reading “Draft 93,” which she explained was “one of the short ones,” along with Drafts 31 and 62, and she asked us to wonder if that was an accident. Afterwards, she read “Draft 95: Erg.” At one point in the reading of this poem, Rachel misread one of her lines, and she interrupted the poem to say, “I should know my poems.” She did something similar the other time or two she made a mistake, and there was something ingratiating about this. Rachel presented herself to us as Rachel (hence my use of her given name), unpretentious, authentic, even unconcerned about how people viewed her, and totally comfortable with her own place in the world. Her manner made for a good read because she was completely accessible—even as she read for 20 to 25 minutes at a stretch.

At one point, she talked about how that during the writing of a poem “decisions are made in a second,” something I experience in my own life. But she almost took that back when she noted later that each of the poems in Drafts takes her at least a couple of weeks and sometimes several weeks, which is something I cannot imagine. I must flush the poem from my system or remained haunted by its possibility forever. But Rachel claimed to be able to create poetry in a flow yet still take a long time to complete the poem. I don’t doubt her, but I find that state of affairs to be an interesting conflict.

As she continued with # 95, she let one line lodge itself firmly in my mind:

the Pentecost of every now
As she continued reading # 95, and making references to pens directly and as parts of words (cf “Pentecost” above), he would hold the pen up straight and vertical, so that the physical pen could serve as a reference to the physical pen referenced in the Drafts. At one point, she used the phrase “dream of a pen,” and she held the pen horizontal, as if it were sleeping in bed.

Geof Huth, “fidgetglyph for rachel blau duplessis” (12 Nov 2009)
During her reading, I did something I hadn’t done before. I created a fidgetglyph in response to her reading. Some of the shapes I drew were letters or words based on what she was saying and others were glyphlike shapes made to represent parts of her poem. This is a messy and centerless little fidgetglyph, structurally unlike my usual pieces, and that is what I like about it. This piece isn’t good enough to stand as is, but it’ll serve as a draft for a piece that may someday be good. My thanks to Rachel for the inspiration.

One of the most interesting of Rachel’s discussions of her poetry preceded her reading of “Draft 88: X-Posting,” which she calls “a free variation” on Ingeborg Bachmann’s poem “Keine Delikatessen.” She translated the poem, extended it, and then rewrote it, leaving in very few of the original words of the poem. And Rachels’ own reactions to this act of hers were interesting: “But this was a very shocking act to me,” but it “seemed a very necessary act.” She talked about seeing “appropriation as a necessary cultural act.”

She followed up the reading of “Draft 88” with one of “Draft 89: Interrogation,” which is an examination, in the form of a dialog, of what she had done in # 88. As she read this playlet, written in couplets (one voice per line), she alternated her voice. The voice of the question was quick and loud, but that of the response was slow, measured, and quiet.

Rachel continued with a discussion of feminism, one I found interesting, open, and inviting. One that accepted the need for women to receive the respect of equality in this world, but also accepted that that equality was merely good for the world.

She ended with “Draft 75: Doggerel,” a funny poem in rhyming couplets—which she explained was “a form difficult to write well.” She encouraged the audience to laugh ahead of time by noting, “If you think it’s funny, you’re probably right—it’s funny.” This poem makes many references to pet-peeve grammar rules in English, and it is chockfull of puns, many based on the word “dog.”

Rachel read for over an hour, probably for 90 minutes, but I lost track of time. I recorded the audio of at least half of the reading, and the files I created were huge, but while listening to her read everything seemed to go by quickly. I didn’t notice the time. Part of the reason for this was Rachel’s reading style, which was very colloquial, completely natural, and lively. She gave life to her words, and she gave them clarity. I could see her poems better than ever by hearing her read them, which was a pleasure.

The evening’s festivities came to an end with a too-brief question and answer period. I wanted to ask Rachel what she saw as the purpose of her punning, which is sometimes quite goofy (intentionally so—and I see no problem with that, but I wanted to understand her purpose). Also, I wanted to know more about how she used appropriation in her work, so that I could compare it to what I do. I noted to her that I had appropriated a little bit of Drafts in one of the poem I just finished, and I thought that appropriate since she had appropriated others’ work all throughout that long poem. Rachel’s answers to people’s questions were always illuminating, though they didn’t always illuminate the question at hand. My favorite part of the Q&A was the end where she made (and backed up) the claim that women were the progenitors of modernism, one woman creating stream of consciousness, another created the glossed text as poem. Someone asked her “What about Gertrude Stein?” and Rachel stopped, said she was surprised to have forgotten Gertrude Stein, and then she said exactly what I was thinking: “Gertrude Stein creates everything.”

Rachel Blau DuPlessis Speaking to Anne Gorrick and Lynn Behrendt after her Reading, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson (12 Nov 2009)
After the reading, I climbed over the row of seats in front of me to buy a copy of Rachel’s Torques: Drafts 58 – 76, specifically the copy that she had read from that evening. (Lynn was the only other one to buy anything and she bought the other copy of that book and a copy of Drafts 39 – 57, Pledge, with Draft, Unnumbered: Précis.) I had Rachel sign this copy as well, explaining that there was only one f in “Geof.” She offered to cross out the extra f in the other inscription, but I noted it was unnecessary and no problem. She signed this book “to Geof— / with spelling error / corrected! / Rachel Blau DuPlessis,” which I enjoyed quite a bit. I asked Rachel if I could take her photo and she said yes, but she wanted me to take a photo of her with Joan Retallack and Anne Lauterbach, who was in the audience, but the three of them never came together, and Joan was anxious to get to the next part of their evening (dinner, I believe), so I took a shot of Rachel talking to Anne Gorrick and Lynn Behrendt.

As Rachel left, I thought of something she had said earlier (that she was writing a book about “masculinity in literature”), so I told her, “Be sure to include Ron [Silliman] in your book on masculinity in literature.” She replied, “I think Ron has progressed beyond that.” And she was gone.

After the reading, Lynn, Anne, and I were quite excited by our evening of fun. We headed off to nearby Tivoli (yes, the one in New York) for dinner. We spoke about the evening and the reading, debated how well “Draft 75: Doggerel” worked, ate plenty, talked about our recent writing, discussed Anne’s two upcoming books of poetry (a paired set) and Lynn’s first full-length book of poetry, laughed, and had a great time.

Then I drove home in the dark, making it back here before midnight.

Quite a long story, I know. And I left out the part where, on the way to Bard I spilled a huge amount of tea on myself (mostly on my white dress shirt), stopped at a convenience stored and cleaned my shirt with hand soap and water in a sink, walked out of the restroom dripping wet, turned the heater in the car up to high heat and full blast, and somehow dried up completely, looking reasonably presentable at Bard.

Or maybe I didn’t leave out that part.

ecr. l’inf.