reglow interim pellet goring glum

the line is moving toward
reaping the january
the experiment in listening
generously come break press

intuitive engineer oh gloss
camel indifference  intellect
gloss glam  touch  entree gear
samantha  fillip  constancy
reglow  interim  pellet goring glum

move on the up
swing  of
jump for it
and there is the other
other in the hidden
beckoned tie

that binds
boundary or orb joy

damage oh sorry sorry
lines rekindle the splash
in texture view of samantha
blandishments

sport the plaid and go  go
join  mark the
space recipient  notion
undertake take take undertake
tie for joke pull-over
splash into a


- - - - - - -


twe    spa    do    sputt    ga
     stra    ti    ti    cor     cor
          spen

into  the  dust  is  a
           cree         tor

into the dust is a

      lee      go      dow

into    the dust is a

                 spree-ton-gen

      one

into the dust is a

        grem

   into  the  three

        time

      spor        tum       gub

               stick-wind     GEE
                             five  


("Casements",  second and fourth pages)

*

This comes from Gale Nelson's Ceteris Paribus (Burning Deck, 2000).

I spent a lot of yesterday brooding on how I might best represent Ceteris paribus, which I've found to be the most elusive of Gale Nelson's poetry books. In the end I've just picked two of the four pages in the poem that I've spent most time with. (In these poems the main structural unit is the page.)


Reading this poetry is a matter of absorbing and looking over and around the text, of standing back and waiting patiently for things to reveal themselves: particles of sound (g-, gl-,  -or -m) and particles of meaning too. For me the poem concerns the economics of capitalism (for example, in its rapid counting and in its repeated exhortations to "take" and to "go")... but that's only another way of saying it concerns the lives of educated westerners at the turn of the century, which I might say about most other poems of the same vintage. (Or maybe it's just another way of saying that every poem I happen to read seems to shine a light on our present preoccupations and sense of crisis.)


I've since discovered that you can read the whole of "Casements" by clicking Peek Inside on the SPD Ceteris Paribus page:

https://www.spdbooks.org/Products/1886224374/ceteris-paribus.aspx

You can also find "Casements" in Issue One of The Germ, along with lots of other poetry from this USA strand of the experimental world: Barbara Guest, Peter Gizzi, Juliana Spahr, Jackson Mac Low and many others whose work I wish I knew much better than I do.

http://durationpress.com/projects/out-of-print-archive/the-germ/


*

The following note, taken  from the SPD site, is presumably GN's own explanation of his book's title:

"CETERIS PARIBUS is a phrase commonly used by economists and means "assuming all other things are held constant." With this phrase, a host of unintended results can be explained away as having been caused by changes in the real world, and the model itself is sustained. As the economy collapses around their ears, the bewildered theorists of the dismal science may claim that were CETERIS PARIBUS only possible, the predicted outcome would have obediently presented itself. In Gale Nelson's poetry, language misbehaves much like the economy. The multiplicity of factors at play on the page—and among pages—keeps the poem from settling anywhere near constancy. Each time order seems just around the corner, variances begin to seep in—and anything becomes possible."

*

Another of the poems is titled "Originary prudence". Somewhat against expectation, the word "originary" actually appears within the text:



The wounds of our ancestors were originary
in that they could not be predicated.

Alternating between stammering yeasts.

     +

When the two vehicles collide, the weight,
speed and intention of impact remain of import.

Jaundiced goal of fifth position.


("Originary prudence", sixth page)


I suppose that focussed my attention on the word. Next day I noticed it again, this time in Lisa Samuels' Gender City (2011).

In this separation and distance we can hardly be called unknown
with our lock-ons and our travesties
with pink frills all abounding

you having laid the architecture perfectly for such routs
hardly screen the piece
by demolition of originary
struts, whilst our arms entwining
reach the ideology we strive for

(Beginning of "Love song: the city")

A casual search on the internet suggests the word tends to appear in a Heideggerian context (e.g. here). I understand it as "that which originates" or "related to origins", but that's a highly uninformed impression.