I Was Asked to Pass This Along

Poetry's using language
in unofficial ways, including
re-purposing official language.

Sometimes poetry bosses
and poetics conglomerates
make their poetry way official.

They try, anyway. When this
happens, it should signal to poets
to write otherwise. Poetry

is otherwise. It's an attitude
toward language and authority
as much as anything else.

Anyway, someone asked me
to pass these notes along. To
whom? Not sure. Goodbye.



hans ostrom 2016

Our Verbal Progress

I overheard a conversation between two students today. One was talking about how her cat was misbehaving, and the other was complaining about how much her dog licked her. The cat-person said, "I don't like dog-tongues. In fact, I find all tongues disgusting." I thought this was a remarkable statement, bold and fascinating.

I'm still pondering what to do with the statement, poetically or otherwise.

In the meantime, I've been thinking of "tongue" in the sense of language ("she speaks several tongues"), and that isn't a bad if old-fashioned synecdoche (if that's what it is; I often conflate metonymy and synecdoche), for although much more than the tongue is involved in speaking, the tongue is pretty crucial.


Our Verbal Progress

Before we were born,
we lived theoretically in the infinitive,
to live. Once incarnated,
we were conjugated, about
nine months after a conjugal
interaction. Conjugated:
I live, you live, he, she, it lives.

After we lived for a while,
we "used to go," "were thinking
of falling in love," "had been planning
to travel to Athens," "had once been
a highly regarded cello player,"
and so on.

Too soon we shall have used up
all occasions for needing the future
tense and shall rely on the past
tenses almost exclusively. Soon
thereafter, we will, being dead,
not require verbs, nor even pre-
positions. The infinitive to die
will house us foreover in our
re-unconjugated state, where
words spoken by tongues
shall not reach us, where we shall
exist in a state of supreme listening.


Hans Ostrom Copyright 2008

Official Language in Poetry

W.H. Auden was one of the best, in my opinion, at using official language in poetry, partly as a way to mock official language but also as a way to absorb it into poetry and thereby detoxify it, removing the numbing poison that Orwell told us, in the essay, "Politics and the English Language," was there. By "official language," I mean the language of news, politics, advertising, business, and/or bureaucracies--the language forming the nest we lie in, sedated, all day, every day. Even in his grand homage to Yeats, "In Memory of W.B. Yeats," Auden includes official language:

What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.


One implicit irony here is that if you want to assess the impact of a great poet's death, don't turn to the news or to your "instruments."

Auden's "The Unknown Citizen" fully mocks official language. It begins . . .


He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he
was a saint.


The satire of the state and the parody of the state's language work superbly here, even in just these four lines from the longer poem.


cummings' "next to of course god america" is a wonderful parody of the politician's empty stump-speech, concluding with the politician's gulping water, as if to wash out the nasty taste, or as if to indicate, "Well, that propagandistic chore is done."


I think I may have been going after an Audenesque or cummingsesque (Orwell probably wouldn't approve of the "-esquing" here) blend of satire and parody in the following poem, which may have sprung from my feeling annoyed at being surrounded by nothing but official language:



Official Correspondence



According to our records, three
moons orbit the planet of consciousness
inside your brain.

Also, we do not regret to inform you
that, by privilege of eminent domain,
the City intends to build a boulevard

through an area zoned formerly
for your long-term memory.
You have the right to remain silent.

If you have reason to believe
our records are in error, you shall suffer
the added pain of knowing you are correct.

Copyright 2007