Rosmarie Waldrop (half-written)
Caitlin Lilly Wicks
October 19, 2006
Rosmarie Waldrop
“And yet we stay on the surface and do not measure the real diameter through the inner parts.” Blindsight (pg. 101)
Rosmarie Waldrop’s writing, seems to be especially concerned with the spaces in between spaces. That is, what exists in the middle of things. What is the nature of the matter between the matter that amasses objects. Is it even matter that exists in such cavities? What are these undefined spaces made out of? What exists in the spaces in between places? What are these places that are un-named? Can un-named places exist?
This trend in thinking causes me to consider the philosophy of Nominalism - that universals exist only as names. Oh but to name what exists where there are no fractures of light. We like to see illuminated particles, and know them as atoms. The crevices between word and breath. Word as physical objects in the form of not only sound-waves but also physical ideas that spark electric departing from the mouth. Fracture.
Something spatial, perhaps, more than temporal
In Rosmarie Waldrop’s text Blindsight, she looks sideways, to the peripheral, instead of deeper. Transcending time to examine form. Waldrop has written many lines discussing a certain “curvature of a surface”(Blindisight, p. 100).
If you think of form in one of its aspects as a framework defining boundaries, like any frame its presence draws attention, helps you focus on what is within the boundaries it delineates. The lines of Blindsight are very long and the sentences are even longer. They fill the page in rectangular chunks. I like the lines length, it is comforting to absorb myself in the denseness. There is a lot of continuity throughout the lines and the rectangular paragraphs that form them lend themselves to be called prose poems.
Another instance in which Rosmarie Waldrop uses form repeatedly
The rhythm Waldrop creates with the continuous form of the paragraphs keeps in motion the play between different levels of disjunction and continuity.
A dissociation between unconscious and conscious processing
She really seems to get a momentum going that propels the texts forwards. She does this by using repetitions in form. For example, on page 51 of Blindsight, Waldrop begins a poem entitled, “Leonardo as Anatomist, Repeatedly”. (Note that Waldrop even uses the word repeatedly in the title, because repeat is what she is about to do.)
To raise the ribs to dilate the chest to expand the lung to indraw the air to enter the mouth to enter the lung.
(Blindisight, 51.)
The repeated use of “to” between every few words, which depict very precise anatomical description of gestures makes them both very specific and entirely generalizable, simultaneously meaningful and oddly empty. The prose uses repetition like this to build a sort of tension into itself. Like a snowball-effect, it envelops the reader, urging them deeper into the text.
“But if I repeat without knowing I repeat?
Am I in my own body?” p. 34
October 19, 2006
Rosmarie Waldrop
“And yet we stay on the surface and do not measure the real diameter through the inner parts.” Blindsight (pg. 101)
Rosmarie Waldrop’s writing, seems to be especially concerned with the spaces in between spaces. That is, what exists in the middle of things. What is the nature of the matter between the matter that amasses objects. Is it even matter that exists in such cavities? What are these undefined spaces made out of? What exists in the spaces in between places? What are these places that are un-named? Can un-named places exist?
This trend in thinking causes me to consider the philosophy of Nominalism - that universals exist only as names. Oh but to name what exists where there are no fractures of light. We like to see illuminated particles, and know them as atoms. The crevices between word and breath. Word as physical objects in the form of not only sound-waves but also physical ideas that spark electric departing from the mouth. Fracture.
Something spatial, perhaps, more than temporal
In Rosmarie Waldrop’s text Blindsight, she looks sideways, to the peripheral, instead of deeper. Transcending time to examine form. Waldrop has written many lines discussing a certain “curvature of a surface”(Blindisight, p. 100).
If you think of form in one of its aspects as a framework defining boundaries, like any frame its presence draws attention, helps you focus on what is within the boundaries it delineates. The lines of Blindsight are very long and the sentences are even longer. They fill the page in rectangular chunks. I like the lines length, it is comforting to absorb myself in the denseness. There is a lot of continuity throughout the lines and the rectangular paragraphs that form them lend themselves to be called prose poems.
Another instance in which Rosmarie Waldrop uses form repeatedly
The rhythm Waldrop creates with the continuous form of the paragraphs keeps in motion the play between different levels of disjunction and continuity.
A dissociation between unconscious and conscious processing
She really seems to get a momentum going that propels the texts forwards. She does this by using repetitions in form. For example, on page 51 of Blindsight, Waldrop begins a poem entitled, “Leonardo as Anatomist, Repeatedly”. (Note that Waldrop even uses the word repeatedly in the title, because repeat is what she is about to do.)
To raise the ribs to dilate the chest to expand the lung to indraw the air to enter the mouth to enter the lung.
(Blindisight, 51.)
The repeated use of “to” between every few words, which depict very precise anatomical description of gestures makes them both very specific and entirely generalizable, simultaneously meaningful and oddly empty. The prose uses repetition like this to build a sort of tension into itself. Like a snowball-effect, it envelops the reader, urging them deeper into the text.
“But if I repeat without knowing I repeat?
Am I in my own body?” p. 34