CāEST OULIPIENNE?
Notes on ruined prosody, do I have ADHD?, book review ideas and other things I want to write if I survive
CāEST OULIPIENNE?
E - F - G - H - I - J
FREEDOMS E through J /
This is the rhyme scheme of the ozymandia āruinedā sextets: first the octet is struck off the Petrarchan sonnet like all non-autumnal portions of the rainbow, then the remaining sextet is freed from all rhyme schemesāa ruined sextet like an orgasm in the hands of the dominatrix who brings you off but interferes with the pleasure-trajectory by giving you no sensation at the end, a 3D Discomfort Disappointment Diagram instead of a full sonnet of pleasure (rhyme being like the nerve endings caressed and given something). But first it must be rhymed, and then be ruined. You canāt go straight to a ruin just as a building canāt instantly qualify as a ruin, it must be taken there by weather and history. Itās a process thing. The ultimate would be if you could unrhyme a sextet but still leave some shadow in the readerās mind of the ārhyme that was.ā I canāt provide examples. But the ruin is a freedom. Cāest oulipienne?
Or, actually, hereās an example: the final sonnet of my sequence called āRaspberry Done Risperidone,ā sonnet 20. The rhyme scheme is ABAB CDCD EFGEFG:
I think it's possible I could go on
If only I could tap back into that
Fount of necromantic inspiration
That had me scribbling every fleeing thought.
I think the key is to be agitated
And contemplate how chilling is the voice,
That all you annotate is fated
And how in every way you had no choice.
Knowing what this poem might do from here
Provides a sense of scale that frightens me.
So many diamonds could slip through this sieve.
It will test my powers as a seer.
"Seer." This elevated boasting heightens me,
Above a healthy orbit, I believe.
Now, ruined, EFGHIJ:
Knowing what this poem might do from here
Provides a sense of scale that frightens one.
So many diamonds could slip through this sieve.
It will test my powers as an augur.
"Augur.ā This elevated boasting elevates me,
Above a healthy orbit, I suspect.
Mais cāest oulipienne? Seer ruined to augur. This triggers a set of associations. āWe defy augury,ā Hamlet said. āThere is special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will comeāthe readiness is all. Since no man, of aught he leaves, knows what is't to leave betimes, let be.ā
Yesterday I reached one of the lowest points of my life when I burst into tears several times in front of my father as I told him this pursuit of a writing career was pointlessāmy heartās desire, all I wanted to do, was meaningless. My published books are dead in the water and I have scads of unfinished novels and stories. I was essentially begging to be taken to a psych hospital. I was fearing for my life. I ended up not going. I think Iām ok. It was a crest of a wave that has hopefully passed.
My daughter thinks I have ADHD in addition to bipolar disorder. I canāt finish tasks or even start them in some cases, to my own organizational destruction. If you were to watch a TV show about the procrastination and terrified paralysis I have of starting writing a newspaper article, and the jet-black emotional places it takes me, you would be up out of your chair and pacing and biting a napkin in total agitation as you watched me on TV doing nothing. Altogether it brings me to places of untold despair and desolation. I have a lot of creative energy but it is rarely focused enough to complete something. I have literally stacks of folders with ideas and half-begun manuscripts, drawings, sketches. I have lost track of how many novels Iāve started. There is so much wreckage around me. It doesnāt fill me with happiness to look at all the failed projects which will never see completion. Iām surprised I was able to finish and publish a novel and a collection of poetry.
Substack for me is good because it is āthe right size.ā Itās not submitting writing to a venue to be accepted or submitted on their glacial timeline. Itās not book length projects that can crash and burn. Iāve looked at some of my numbers since I started this substack approx a year ago, and on average I posted something like eleven newsletters a month. Thatās on average. The ever-obsessed-over āopen rateā (what percentage of subscribers open your substack newsletters) hovers around 52% or 53%. Maybe I shouldnāt be telling you this. The goose that laid the golden egg. Anyway, as a receptacle for my own personal creative energy, with all its pools and eddies and cycles and blobs of plastic garbage, substack is good. I just appreciate that you keep reading even though the output is manic or non-homogenized or attention-deficited. Iām trying to achieve a holistic gestalt for you but it keeps coming out fractured and spastic asterisks. The thing about the ruined sextets above came to me in a flash of flammable inspiration-paper as I thought about a manuscript of poetry I had just sent off to be evaluated for publication by a place called _____ which I hope accepts it or at least finds something promising in it. The book is called MALEBRANCHEāS BUSY EDITORS / FREEDOMS E through J and itās a weird manuscript and I feel like this book represents a progression for me in my writing that may be real, or may be just me giving into some hyperactive substack self-indulgence, I donāt know. Fingers crossed.
āāā-
Hereās a list of books that I have gotten that I feel either obligated to do book reviews of (since the author or publisher is sending/has sent a free copy) or that I want to do a review of for my own solely motivated reasons:
Jesi Bender - The Book of the Last Word
Ansgar Allen - Plague Theatre
Steve Gergley - Skyscraper
Evan Isoline - Deadmath
Ian Townsend - Purgatory
The NDA autofiction anthology
David Kuhnlein - Decay Came Late (I think thatās the title, itās coming out next year)
Teddy Burnette - Heartfelt Anything (Derek Maine asked if he and I could read this in tandem and do a joint piece for the Last Estate about it so I think weāre going to do that in 2023)
Other book review/essays Iād like to write:
some triple book review about Graham Irvinās Liver Mush/GG Rolandās Hehehe/Bram Riddlebargerās book I canāt remember the name of about the American garbage can
Some large sweeping essay about a few books from Schism [2]/ Schism Neuronics which is a kind of āclusterā of associated presses that fascinated me for a while, still does to a degree
Relatedly, and this is an ambition with coastal rocks Iām bound to destroy my craft against, I wanted to write an essay or something about what Iāve christened the āmaison maudit,ā or the ācursed houseā trend I am seeing among some literary productions latelyāexperimental horror, literary horror, obscurity in horror. Possible touchstones for this come from my listenings to podcasts like Writing the Rapids which covers some of the writers and publishers who get involved in this. Thereās genre horror and then thereās this cerebral literary experimental horror that exists which is hard to put your finger on but is interesting as a critical subject. Iām somewhat repelled by it but fascinated too.
Now I know why you're writing so many posts on substack... (not complaining!). Some of your posts throw me for a spin but I don't mind, and I'm glas you're finding space to expand on this platform.
I was wondering what "maison maudit" meant! Sounds interesting.