Hank Lazer’s Thinking in Jewish (N20) is the twentieth notebook in his shape-writing series, drawing on Jewish traditions of text-and-commentary in conversation on the same page, this one in dialogue with the writings of Emmanuel Levinas. These handwritten poems rather problematize the notion of “line” and are visually as well as audibly and conceptually striking, as you can see from these thumbnails of pages 11, 12 and 13:
Click on any of these to load a high resolution version. I like to load them on my phone, lock the screen, then zoom in and rotate the phone as the poems shift direction.
We are launching Thinking in Jewish this Wednesday in New Orleans with a special event at the Bloodjet Poetry Series, hosted by Trembling Pillow Press director Megan Burns. If you’re in town, please stop by and enjoy. If you’re not in town and want to come, let us know and we’ll skype you in, or something… And if you just want to get a copy of the book, you can pick one up from the website for half price, today only.
Reading with Hank will be a “local poet” named Lavender. He has a bad foot (I mean the physical kind) and doesn’t get out much, preferring to sit at his computer and write things like this. So come see this rare in-the-flesh appearance. He’ll be reading some from Surrealism, his book on our site, including a few in Spanish, translated by Argentine poet Enrique Solinas, and also from one of his (many) grossly underappreciated volumes from Trembling Pillow, Transfixion. Here’s one from that book:
me
come taste this
fruit little gunner
he said
sailing like
a blind fool
his fake neutral air
drowned in a book
a crook in town
to repent but
it was too late
in the cold living room
to take off
his tie
to touch
the strange lumps
beneath the pine
blackbirds boozy
the emperor’s drunken
soldiery abed
seen over &
over same old
sea same old
sound
shrill & summery
that even in
slumber caused
his cheek to
glow every man every
woman carries
this filament
life predestined
surly & interested like
the coming on of rain
I infect with
meaning something exact
as reality’s dark
dream when the
lanterns go out
the matching skullcap
& map of brain
his peatbrown head
music from a far off room
like these
mountains this
infinite movement
mingling with all
sound all
thought the dull
sobbing draft
that moans the
image of your public self
hoarse from
days drinking
anticipating a message
to the armies of
those engulfed
in black water
why does his mind
envy reed & hawthorne
is it to have
a point again
arranging & changing
& placing the eye
again dehumanized
he has a dozen hands
& pollackesque friends
to make germinate
language as
a choir of worms
saying names
like money spent
on misconceptions
whose silver cargo
vision banished
when they pulled me
from the sack
I reeked of you
I defiled you
the ways you live
your secrets of life
joined in spite
in the attics of
old houses
proud full of verse
what little town
by river or sea
gates the flaming
word that is yourself
what pursuit what
struggle to escape
cuffed & clawed
but not crying
what wilderness future
light of our knowledge
yields this penelope
who would reduce
our banter to
rules of probability
planted on a starlit
golden bough
the necessary
the tap
the tap that
nothing satisfies
but self remembering
self its former height
its discordant strains
its brain that ink
may mark with vineboughs
he lay
back eyes closed
the eyes of
youth to roll
it is a journey he said
of the curious
not to be wed forever
but like one who watches
down the row of
statues to see
the divine nimbus
a music
a rose colored
dress
we took our seats
& ghosts & armies
came down
green butterflies
from the age of love
shadows of
earthly vehicles
the sea of air
the perfumed
agony of a trance
you who gave me
my first you
you where I
is a roomful of clothes
flame that no
fuel feeds nor
steel has lit
flame from
before the surprise
before affection &
shame
your body
your loves
your farewell