Dictee/Collage/Body
Hi Everyone,
After doing our in-class collage exercise and reading the discussion of collage poetry in Susan’s review, it seems apparent to me that Dictee could easily be considered one giant collage poem containing multiple languages, cultures, lists, public and private letters, historical/political and family figures, myths, religions, photographs and diagrams. It strikes me that the repeated phrase “Tenth, a circle within a circle, a series of concentric circles” could be applied to collage poems in general in referring to the way the layers of all of these multiplicities of form overlap and create meanings within meanings. Yet, this image of circles within circles implies increasing degrees of internality, and I am more astounded by the expansiveness of the collage poem in its ability to hold so many layers of meaning (from the personal to the historical/political) within its multi-generic format.
One theme that weaves its way through the collage is that of the human body, beginning right from the first few pages with a quotation from Sappho: “May I write words more naked that flesh, stronger than bone, more resilient than sinew, sensitive than nerve.” The connection between the body and the act of speech is apparent, as several have already mentioned in their blogs, in the section entitled “Diseuse.” Cha again picks up this thread of concentration upon the mouth and organs of speech in the “Urania: Astronomy” section. For example, she includes an actual diagram of the anatomy involved in speech (74) and includes a speaker who says, “Bite the tongue. Between the teeth. Swallow / deep. Deeper. Swallow. Again, even more. / Until there would be no more organ” (71). This seems to be tied to a few lines on pg. 118: “In the whiteness no distinction her body invariable no dissonance synonymous her body all the time de composes eclipses to be come yours.” Relatedly, “dismemberment” is mentioned on pg. 155. Perhaps a “brokenness” of the body is tied to the “brokenness” or unheardness of speech (or at least a perception of these qualities by society)? Did this remind anyone else of Lisa Kanae’s book Sistah Tongue?
Thanks,
Eve
After doing our in-class collage exercise and reading the discussion of collage poetry in Susan’s review, it seems apparent to me that Dictee could easily be considered one giant collage poem containing multiple languages, cultures, lists, public and private letters, historical/political and family figures, myths, religions, photographs and diagrams. It strikes me that the repeated phrase “Tenth, a circle within a circle, a series of concentric circles” could be applied to collage poems in general in referring to the way the layers of all of these multiplicities of form overlap and create meanings within meanings. Yet, this image of circles within circles implies increasing degrees of internality, and I am more astounded by the expansiveness of the collage poem in its ability to hold so many layers of meaning (from the personal to the historical/political) within its multi-generic format.
One theme that weaves its way through the collage is that of the human body, beginning right from the first few pages with a quotation from Sappho: “May I write words more naked that flesh, stronger than bone, more resilient than sinew, sensitive than nerve.” The connection between the body and the act of speech is apparent, as several have already mentioned in their blogs, in the section entitled “Diseuse.” Cha again picks up this thread of concentration upon the mouth and organs of speech in the “Urania: Astronomy” section. For example, she includes an actual diagram of the anatomy involved in speech (74) and includes a speaker who says, “Bite the tongue. Between the teeth. Swallow / deep. Deeper. Swallow. Again, even more. / Until there would be no more organ” (71). This seems to be tied to a few lines on pg. 118: “In the whiteness no distinction her body invariable no dissonance synonymous her body all the time de composes eclipses to be come yours.” Relatedly, “dismemberment” is mentioned on pg. 155. Perhaps a “brokenness” of the body is tied to the “brokenness” or unheardness of speech (or at least a perception of these qualities by society)? Did this remind anyone else of Lisa Kanae’s book Sistah Tongue?
Thanks,
Eve
posted by Eve at 7:18 PM
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