Widdershins:

(sometimes withershins, widershins or widderschynnes) means to take a course opposite that of the sun, going counterclock-wise, lefthandwise, or to circle an object, by always keeping it on the left. It also means "in a direction opposite to the usual," which is how I choose to take it in using it as the title of this blog. We're all in the same world finding our own way.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Untitled

This blog post is a poem.

1 comment:

Joe/Jack said...

"This blog post is a poem."

What is interesting here, and it's interesting for several reasons, is your use of 'this'. 'This' points and directs. 'This' narrows and gives brackets to. This -> [poem]. However, a poem is something which extends and, generally, takes off brackets. So this brings us back to the Ethnographer, where he points to a thing "something out there that I can't express." He learned a secret but couldn't express it. Now let's take a later passage "And anyway, the secret is not as important as the paths that led me to it." This, then, begs us to look at how you got to the poem. That is, we must look at "blog post" then at "is".

'This', in fact, does not point toward a poem but actually toward a blog post which you then explain is a poem. So we look at a blog post as a medium. Outwardly, it is a canvas of sorts, though an already slightly tarnished one. Verily, we have preconceptions of what can go on blogger (and in this way, no canvas is ever clean), but I would dare say that blogger has come to invite poetry, or at least thoughts-- which a poem probably is.

So we have 'this blog post' but what does it mean to be something, what does it mean to 'is'? can a blog be anything, or is it made into something? more accurately, this blog post *has been made into* a poem. with this reading, we bring in the author, the creator, or at least recognise that the post on its own is not what has done work. 'this blog post is a poem' is a comment upon what has already been done by you, the author. but what has it done now? what has it done now that I've touched it, worked with it? what have you invited me to do (and this brings us back to that one blog of mine upon authorial intent and giving credit). once again, in ambiguity, you have made the post accessible, useful-- and this is accomplished, i think, through this bracketing that which unbrackets.

perhaps it is the act of attempting to contain that which naturally breaks free from containment, opens a sort of void-- as if you divided by zero. this move toward making a thing impossible, the act of applying a 'to be' verb is what frees the piece and provides a link to the uncanny or unbound.

this then begs us to ask, what does the word 'poem' do on its own, is it repeating this proccess of attempting to bracket the unbracketable? and if it is, then how far does this attempting the impossible stretch? does this proccess, this 'to be'ing create something infinite-- a book of sand?

anyway...