Ancient Graffiti

Initially, when encountering this weeks text I found myself questioning what images carved into stones have to do with poetry. Having focused on oral performance and translation over the past few weeks I nearly forgot the multiplicity of mediums for engaging in ethnopoetics. I nearly forgot the five senses one can appeal to in a poetic interpretation.

Toward the beginning of the semester I jokingly suggested the translation of the graffiti on the desks in our class room. While the limited access to the primary source (the wood desks) and the vast array of possible interpretations/re-presentations kept me intimidated enough to restrain from the removal of IUP property (which in its being used for academia makes the indiscretion completely justifiable if not commendable) and an attempt at interpretation it is still an idea which I revisit week after week as I'm sitting with you all on the second floor of Leonard Hall. After reviewing Juniper Fuse I've come to the conclusion that a translation or interpretation of the graffiti carved into a desk is not much different from the images carved into rock walls of caves thousands of years ago.

In the introduction to Juniper Fuse Eshleman writes, "cave imagery is an inseparable mix of psychic constructs and perceptive observations. That is, there are 'fantastic' animals as well as realistic ones." This statement is also accurate when considering the desks of Leonard Hall. While the flowers and marijuana leaves are quite realistic and known to exist, the cartoon characters and whimsical designs are nothing but psychic constructs--psychic constructs which have been produced semester after semester as a direct appeal to boredom. This graffiti is produced not as a historical record of the actual beings who've inhabited the desk over the years but as a record of human weakness and attention span. Is it not possible that the earliest cave imagery is also the direct result of boredom? Perhaps the cave dwellers felt just as claustrophobic, stuck, and anxious to pass time as today's young undergrads struggling to stay awake in a core class.

Desk graffiti also allows for the layering of images or the transformations of form that occur over time. Eshleman explains, "Animals and animal parts are often superimposed as if passing behind, through, and before each other with no sense of contradiction or subordination. There is no background, no frame." In other words, it may be impossible to know what came first. So, here we are again, questioning the integrity in translation and perhaps getting at the root of my intimidation as far as the translation of desk graffiti is concerned--"there is no background, no frame." How is it even remotely possible to interpret/translate/re-present something without any impression or idea of the environment which produced the text/image? Or a better question, how can we do this while maintaining the desk's integrity?

I don't have an answer. But if forced to attempt the translation of desk graffiti I suppose you would go about it in a similar manner of all poetic interpretation and attempt to get a sense of where it came from--to pin-point its existence and narrow the scope of interpretation. In other words defining the poetry as desk graffiti, the primary example taken from a wooden desk, in a class room at Indiana University of Pennsylvania in Indiana, Pennsylvania. We are starting to have limits as to the "history" of our graffiti.

It can be taken even further. Some basic research in to IUP's approximate purchase date of this particular desk style, the desks geographical history in terms of random building location or staying stationary in the same hall since said purchase date. Research into the classes taught in the room the desk graffiti was created and the demographics of the students taking those classes provide us with a good start in shaping the environmental history of the graffiti, therefore maintaining a level of integrity/education in the interpretation.

While there are unquestionably huge gaps in the accuracy and detail of the environmental history shaped, I believe Eshleman accounts for these holes and justifies the integrity of my imagined desk graffiti interpretation/re-presentation saying, "I served the cave images as observer, to ask them to serve my imagination, so as to translate them not back into their own original unknown-to-us context, but forward to my own idiom....to created my own truth as to what they mean, respecting imagination as one of a plurality of conflicting powers." In the translation of desk graffiti it is impossible for me to know what shape or image came first...it is impossible to know whose imagination first exerted the power. It is however possible to realize the beauty of this visual poetry...to see generations linked, to appreciate the plurality of carved images in time. And as an imagined translator of this desk graffiti (I have yet to do this) I find comfort in the knowledge that my translated graffiti will become a base for future generations to layer interpretation upon therefore adding to graffiti's plurality yet maintaining a unity in a common origin...the first exertion of the power of imagination onto that particular wooden desk forty some years ago at IUP in Leonard Hall....

Antin's Stream of Consciousness

I am really intrigued by David Antin's oral performances after reading "What am I doing here." It reminds me so much of conversations my best friend and I used to have over a couple of beers as undergrads back in Wisconsin. We would start talking about what ever was on our minds and by the end of the night we would have our minds wrapped around the actual meaning behind our "being here" as far as life was concerned, as well as exactly what everyone else's problems seem to be. While I'll be the first to admit the beer probably had a lot to do with the seeming clarity of our thoughts, I must also admit there is something to be said for stream of conscienceness whether it be oral or written.

In this piece Antin discusses his art saying, "i kept looking around for a place into which i could put what i do and i asked myself why do i do it in such a place anyway why do i persist in doing it in a place next to old friends" Antin acknowledges the roots of his artistic discourse as having emerged from conversation in a comfortable atmosphere with people who are open to his ideas and suggestions--friends. When Antin performs he is basically just having a conversation with friends. What Antin is actually doing in this conversation is defining his "self". He states, "the only way that i can conceive of myself as a personality is by an act of memory by an act of interrogation of my memory which is also talking the self itself is emergent in discourse in some kind of discourse it is probably available but it comes up under dialogue and the dialogue is conducted with it and then the self emerges even though the self may not have been there until you called upon it you were always under something...." Wow, the ideas this stirs! He is alluding to a sort of dialogue with self, yet we know that a dialogue implies a conversation between two parties. He says in his search to classify his art he realized it wasn't literature, essays, but simply "talking". And here we are reading his "talking" off of the page.

It occurs to me that we read a character's talking in fiction and non-fiction all the time, but this is a more fluid, emotional talking--not a conversation but a reflection. As Antin says it is talking that reveals self. Journal or diary entries seem to fit in to this sort of dialogue with self. Often the writing in a journal is introspective and informal in structure; however, a journal lacks the second party with which the alluded dialogue needs to interact. Letters, on the other hand, provide the audience needed for a dialogue. The words we write in a letter, just as the words Antin speaks when "talking" are all produced with the audience in mind, therefore creating a dialogue between our self and another party.

The transcription of Antin's "What am I doing Here?" could easily be edited into a letter format. With the correct spacing I believe a letter can be transformed into the oral dialogue or talking similar to Antin's art. In an attempt to prove this I will "transform" a paragraph of a letter I wrote to a friend earlier today into a transcription of self dialogue or "talking" such as represented in Antin's "What am I doing Here?"

as written in letter
"I'm not trying to sugar coat it. Life isn't easy-you obviously know that, but it can and is better than what you are doing now. So just do something please before it's too late. And don't forget that a few months ago it came really damn close to being too late--for your own sake make damn sure it doesn't happen again."

transcribed talking
i'm not trying to sugar coat it life isn't easy you obviously know that but it can be and is better than what you're doing now so do something please before it's too late don't forget a fews months ago it came damn close to being too late for your own sake make damn sure it doesn't happen again

I'm not sure if this proves my point, but I do find it interesting to think of a letter of an essay or dialogue with the self. After all what is a letters purpose but to describe the self to another--be it the self's location, feelings, opinions, or experiences in general. A letter is an attempt to make the self transmittable and accessible to another over a span of time and/or distance. A letter is a stream of consciousness defining the self of one person to another. A letter literally answers the question "what am I doing here" on numerous levels. So is it just me or is there a connection between Antin's "talking" and letters?

My V-Day Performance

The Vagina Monologues, by Eve Ensler is a celebration of female sexuality in all its complexity and mystery. What, you may be wondering, does this have to do with ethnopoetics or oral poetry? Actually, quite a bit.

For those who are not familiar with Ensler's "monologues" I offer Gloria Steinem's short but accurate description: "intimate narratives...gathered from more than two hundred interviews and then turned into poetry for the theater....Women have entrusted her [Ensler] with their most intimate experiences, from sex to birthing, from the undeclared war against women to the new freedom of love between women...every [story] is the power of saying the unsayable."

"The power of saying the unsayable" is exactly what oral poetry is about. It is about uniting people (in this case women) through an oral tradition, a common empowerment, a timely advance. Ensler describes her relationship with these stories writing, "I was never a performer. It did not occur to me that I was actually performing The Vaginia Monologues until I had been doing it for about three years. Before this point, I felt merely as if I were telling very personal stories that had been generously told to me. I felt strangely, and at times fiercely, protective of these women and their stories. I could not move when I was telling the stories."

Ensler was empowered by the orality of these women's stories just as the hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, who like myself have heard/experienced The Vaginia Monologues gain a sense of a gender's struggle and an appreciation of women's strength.

V-day was formed as a direct result of Ensler's "mononlogues". V-day was first celebrated on February 14, 1998 as a movement to stop violence against women. Ensler writes, "When you rape, beat, maim, mutilate, burn, bury, and terrorize women, you destroy the essential life energy on the planet. You force what is meant to be open, trusting, nurturing, creative, and alive to be bent, infertile, and broken."

The Vaginia Monologues has been performed all over the world, including V-day performances put on by Colleges and Universities to raise money and consciousness for their local groups supporting the end of violence against women. The "monologues" are not new to this University. In fact, I encourage you to check out IUP's own participation in V-day as well as further information regarding The Vaginia Monologues right here on campus. The address is http://www.iup.edu/womens/vday_iup.htm.

I'm also not a performer, but while this isn't exactly a subject I am completely comfortable with and which will greatly aid in my fear and embarrassment of public performance/speaking, the empowerment and equality of women is obviously a personal cause. Please do not take any offence toward "Reclaiming Cunt" which is the short piece I have selected to perform/read for you on Wednesday. Cunt is an Indo-European word derived from the goddess Kali's title of Kunda or Cunti, and shares the same root as kin and country. I ask that you view cunt as a non-derogative term from this day forward and hope my performance helps you see not only the power of words, but the power over words as well. I couldn't do this if it wasn't for the women who came before me...and I wouldn't be doing if it wasn't for the women who will come after me. As Ensler wisely states, "In order for the human race to continue, women must be safe and empowered. It's an obvious idea, but like a vaginia, it needs great attention and love in order to be revealed."

So I'll see you Wednesday night to reclaim the cunt!!!!!!!

Textural Poetry

Dr. Sherwood invites us to explore the positive nature of "being able to look at an oral performance represented on the page. And while it is interesting to delve into the reasons our contemporary audience yearns for the visual aesthetic comfort of the written word, I would rather address here how people like M. Jane Young, who analyze the oral tradition as having a poetic structure, may in fact read in to certain elements too far or manipulate the translation to serve a purpose other than maintaining and preserving an ancient language and oral performance tradition. In doing so, aspects which to me are more intriguing and perhaps revealing go ignored. And while I must admit that Young's work in mapping the structural parallelism is very worthy and valuable in allowing the oral tradition to be studied under the "heading" of poetry, I do not personally find it satisfying or even acceptable to simply study oral tradition as poetry in noting structural form and formula. I would even go so far as to suggest that Young may manipulate the translated structure of these oral traditions to suit her unconscious desire to classify and "pin-down" this art form. She writes, "I have tried to make this resonate poetic structure apparent both in the line indentations and spacing of my English translation." I argue that an oral tradition is simply too fluid to pin down and too complicated to keep structured within the bounds of indentation and spacing.

I found the intro "Because He made marks on Paper, the Soldiers Came," by Tedlock much more appealing in its approach to translation and study. Tedlock writes, "Of all the features of oral storytelling, the suspenseful pauses, and sudden shouts or prolonged whispers, and harsh or gentle tones are the easiest to translate from one language to another. Yet these are precisely the features most translators have left out." So, if this is the easiest stuff to translate, why isn't it being done? A suspenseful pause or sudden shout cannot be indicated on a page where each stanza follows a predictable structure and shape on that page. I personally read all of M. Jane Young's translations in a monotone voice forgetting that these words originated and connected orally, not visibly. Even if I am no longer able to orally hear that long pause or the voice inflection, the least a transcriber can do is allow me to see the once visible and oral aspects of the story.

The most a transcriber could do obviously has yet to been done. Ideally, the page would resemble the experience of the oral, the visual, and the physical. Whether it is possible for this to be achieved, I have no idea. Yet, I do feel that Tedlock tries to give this feeling of atmosphere, as well as oral intonation with his included "guide to reading aloud." The fact that he encourages it to be read aloud seems to me not only unique but ironic that an audience would question the experience of an oral tradition--to read to oneself, or out loud shouldn't even be a question. Unfortunately, it is. We are so programmed to respond to a written text in a particular way that most general audiences would not encounter Young's transcriptions any differently than they would a random posting on poetry.com. I think the visual/textural experience of an oral tradition should be just as intricate and unique as the physical experience of the story. Let's forget about trying to define and in turn confine this art and appreciate it for the dizzying colorful array and appeal to senses whit which it was created in order to evoke and unite.

Tasting the Words

I really enjoyed Leslie Marmon Silko's Storyteller. In fact, it has been my favorite text of this course. For some reason she grabbed my attention with the dedication, "...dedicated to the storytellers...and to the telling which continues and through which they all live and we with them" and kept me captivated through the final photograph. It was the visual representation of her memories (memories which include stories) through the photographs that drew me in. After all, what is a photograph album other than a pictorial history or story of life. A history that Silko so skillfully and gracefully captured and shaped into a narrative of her people. She writes, "...the photographs in the Hopi basket have a special relationship to the stories as I remember them."

I've contemplated at great length the degree to which I remember my childhood (as I remember it) and it troubles or perhaps comforts me that the only definite stories/images/experiences I recall stem directly from a picture in my parent's photo album. For example, the clothes I remember vividly, the fish in a bucket, or the specific examples of popular culture are all images which have been trapped photographically--a neon pink tank top, a catfish in a shallow tin tub, or Mt. Dew's original aluminum can design--and with these images come further, deeper memories, emotions, and stories--the reason we took the picture in the first place. This troubles me in a sense that I have become (and perhaps modern society has as well) too dependent on visual stimulation and rely solely on visual evidence as "truth". While I acknowledge the fact of the images in the photographs I must also acknowledge the fish that didn't get their pictures taken and the fluidity of a wardrobe as articles flow in as often as they drift out. What I'm saying is, there are some things I simply do not remember, and others that are etched into my memory forever. It troubles me to know that certain times, ideas, and feelings I've experienced in life have gone forgotten--and the things I do remember and can still "picture in my head" are those which still exist today, trapped forever, in a picture. Here is where I panic and become grateful for the photographic images and comforted by the visual fact of memory, history, and story. Now I feel comforted by these few images I do have and grateful for the sense of rootedness (not sure if it's a word) and beginning received by them.

I begin to wonder if I would remember any of these specifics without my parent's photo album. Common sense tells me I would--after all, a blind man does have memory and recollection. Yet, I'm starting to toy with the idea that I really wouldn't remember the specifics without pictures-at least not in the same way or even the same specifics. What I'm saying is that memories, stories, emotions, ect. are experienced, absorbed, lived through all of our senses. When pictures weren't available, stories were told. Before language was achieved, physical contact showed the way. What ever the medium, what ever the message or story, communication is impossible without an appeal to one of our five senses. For example, if I didn't have the visual story of a catfish in a shallow tin tub, I would still have the essential story or memory through a different sense. Instead of the picture of a fish it may be the swampy smell of Wisconsin in spring or the sensation of mud oozing over my shoes that recalls that essential story--that feeling or emotion that tells the history, cues the story. This particular cue being a picture of a catfish and this particular story being the relationship between a father and a daughter. This particular story being an actual emotion, bond, experience that is rather indescribable and untranslatable--the very thing literature and poetry is about.

So, many different mediums appealing to the array of our human senses provide us with limitless opportunities to express, convey, and tell the exact same story or experience. In other words, while it is a picture of a catfish that makes me feel a part of my dad it could be the smell of old spice that does it for my sister. Completely different mediums, different senses, yet the exact same indescribable, untranslatable story.

To get right down to it, it is possible to have a interpretation/ re-presentation / translation of a once oral story, idea, emotion through a medium which appeals to taste or touch. I'm thinking poprocks as vocabals--anyone up to the challenge?

The Ethnopoetics of Potheads

This week I was struck by Foley and his explanation of Bauman’s “keys to performance.” He writes, “By invoking these signals the performer communicates via a recognizable shorthand, alerting the audience to the kind of experience in which they will be collectively engaged. Bauman enumerates the following as examples of such keys: (1) special codes, (2) figurative language, (3) parallelism, (4) special formulas, (5) appeals to tradition, and (6) disclaimers of performance.” This definition of sorts opened my imagination to what may be included in the oral poetic tradition. While Foley gives the disclaimer that, “we can find some version of every one of Bauman’s keys in text-based literature and in every-day speech” I have to question to what extent the spoken language can include a signal, a telltale detail, or an encoded message meant for hearers or readers before it becomes oral poetry.

I find myself thinking of the communication between people within small groups or cultures such as the calls the quarterback makes in the huddle, or the signs a catcher in baseball executes before each pitch. Are these not special codes and formulas meant to evoke a specific reaction and performance from the audience? Is this not a visual and oral performance by these athletes?

I have another, much more culturally specific example. Keeping in mind that the definition of culture includes “the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group,” I will now focus on a distinct social group I will identify as “potheads.” While this example may be applicable to all groups of drugs and drug users (do to the illegal quality of their actions, conversations about and around drugs tend to be in code), I will only focus on marijuana and my own personal experiences within the social culture and interaction with encoded messages and performance responses.

But, before I go in to detail, I would like to explain why I have decided to be forthcoming with my previous association with the social group I have identified as potheads. I debated whether or not to reveal this particular piece of my history due to the fear of criticism or complete disregard of my examples and opinions as unscholarly or perhaps inappropriate. Coming from Madison, WI, I’ve experienced a huge culture shock in which I’ve been forced to recognize my liberal open-mindedness in the face of Indiana, PA’s overwhelming conservative nature. While this would be an open subject where I received my undergrad degree, I’m not as sure how it will be received in this much more conservative setting. In the end I decided to share these ideas with you in the hopes of opening your minds and exposing you to different ideas and perhaps ideals in association with oral performance and poetry. This is after all the point of a higher education—sharing ideas and having the strength to persevere in the clutches of diversity. Note, you may think what you wish about my personal character and value system—but please respect my experiences and opinions as valuable. If you choose to view my opinions on this page as un-intellectual please note that I in turn choose to view you to be just as ignorant and self-righteous as those who saw Maria Sabina’s oral poetry (which involves tripping on mushrooms) as unworthy and of heathen sources. That said, here you go…

As an undergraduate my social group of potheads had a form of communication which includes all six of Bauman’s keys to performance. Here is the scene:

The social group of potheads engaged in various conversations throughout a local bar is brought together with one question—“Who has a dustpan?”
Direct attention is brought to the speaker and a specific reaction and performance begins within this social group.
“I have a dustpan, but no broom. Who brought a broom along?”
With the acquisition of a figurative broom, an appeal to tradition has begun. The person with the broom becomes the leader of this social occasion and takes the time to notify the bartender of the group’s intention to clean the beer garden. Here we see a parallelism between cleaning the beer garden and getting high. Everyone within this social group knows the true intentions of the potheads and participates in the performance at hand. Within this social group I know that a dustpan is actually a code for a bowl or a device with which one would smoke marijuana, and that the broom is code for the actual substance being used. I also know that we will not literally be cleaning the beer garden, a fact the bartenders at this particular establishment are aware of as honorary, non-active members of the pothead society. The declaration of the group’s intentions to clean simply serves to protect the privacy of the group’s intentions and actions. In other words, “We’re going to clean the beer garden” means “We are going out back to get high, so if the owner or a cop comes in it would be in all of our best interests if you let us know ASAP so we can postpone the completion of our illegal activities until a more appropriate time.” This resembles what Bauman refers to as a disclaimer of performance in alerting all active members of the society of their expected roles and actions. Upon completion of the cleaning, members of the society return to the front bar and are greeted by the bartender with the question, “Did you get everything cleaned up?”
Here differing answers illustrate the experience of the act of cleaning or getting high. Any member of the society, or even several members, can respond at this point.
“All clean” = we completed our smoking without any danger of trouble
“Too dusty” = we smoked a little but their was some danger of trouble so we put the project on hold
“It was pretty dirty but we took care of it” = we were in direct danger of trouble but smoothed things over with the outsider (usually this involves allowing the outsider to smoke within our society)
“Second shift is on it” = I’m done smoking but there are still members of the society engaging in action
“Most of it, we’ll go back out in a little bit” = we are done for now, and we will let you know before we go out for another round.

This is an oral tradition or performance which I took part in for the better part of four years. While some performers left and graduated and new performers were recruited and became members of the society, the actual performance varied very little. So I ask you, is this not oral poetry? Don’t these words evoke a tradition and specific response by the active audience? Is it possible that these potheads are actually experimenting with and engaging in ethnopoetics and oral performance? I think the appeals to tradition, the coded words, and the specific responses of the society give us our answer.

Rothenberg and Nelson: "In-present factors"

Rothenberg hit on the very point I've unknowingly been trying to articulate and wrap my head around since the first meeting of our class. He acknowledges the cultural stigma native oral traditions have over non-native poetry and gives us the term "in-context factors." Rothenberg describes these in-context factors saying, "until our poetry becomes an integral part of the socio-spiritual fabric of our community, it will only pale as a unifying cultural force when compared to the work of the most primitive tribal shaman." In other words, the "poetry" (for acknowledged lack of a better term) of a tribal shaman is designed and executed around and for the unification of a culture. So then, what is the non-native oral tradition if not "an integral part of the socio-spiritual fabric of our community"? What then, is the potential value of our modern poetry or the translations of native poetry if it is not a unifying cultural force?

First of all, what is the value of such pieces of translated indigenous poetry such as those in Technicians of the Sacred? On the surface it doesn't appear to be a communication/art form designed for the unity of a culture or society. But, I'd like to argue that translated indigenous poetry is the direct result of uniting cultures. While this oral poetry is no longer being practiced solely for the religious and social traditions of a single culture, it is now being examined and interpreted and in turn units two separate cultures. The unification of these two separate cultures results in texts such as Technicians of the Sacred. So maybe we need to stop searching for the "in-context factors" which I believe to be so engrained into the native oral tradition, and so removed from present day society that it is virtually impossible for us, as modern beings, to fully understand and appreciate that oral tradition of and in itself--and start appreciating the translated text with its "in-present factors" as an avenue for unifying the oral history of two cultures. The "in-present factors" can serve as an integral part of the socio-spiritual relations between an ancient and present culture.

So instead of looking at books such as Rothenberg's Technicians of the Sacred and trying to pin point what these words meant to a culture of the past and trying to see what we can "figure out" about who they were as people, we need to look at the culture which is translating these poems and analyze why they were choose to interprete and the way in which they were interpreted has to say about today's culture and its relations to past and present. Maybe I'm suggesting an entirely new field--the study of ethnopoets as opposed to the study of ethnopoetics...what I'm saying is, we learn about our selves as we are today in the translation and appreciation of ethnopoetics and oral tradition. By interpreting these translations through "in-present factors" instead of only "in-context factors" this new poetry becomes an integral part of the socio-spiritual history of our country and in turn a unifying cultural force.