Dime-Store Alchemy: The Art of Joseph Cornell

Charles Simic. The Echo Press, New Jersey. 1993.


I have long been under the impression that a poet's best writing is always their PROSE writing. Poets should be forced to write prose and nothing else, simply because it's always uniquely brilliant, with such relaxed understatement, and some fragile wisp of a meaning lurking playfully behind every turn of phrase.

In this instance, the poet is writing half-page prose-poems in honour or Joseph Cornell, and in that context, this is probably the most entertaining biography I've read - and I think more biographies should be done in this context. I think perhaps that Simic was actually using Cornell more of a literary inspiration for the text rather than simply writing a report of his life.

But the style employed also serves to augment the subject, not just entertain the reader. This little book can also serve as an homage to the city in which Cornell lived (New York) and it's most effective in illustrating how Cornell was inspired by the city and everything in it. It also shows how he created his art, and his unique interpretation of life.

This is a book made of mostly of scattered images, odd reflections, a few snippits of biographical detail. Somewhat like Cornell's boxes.

Definitely one for the collection.

I shall now slide this tome back onto my shelf and return to my scribbled rantings . . . or would that be "rantling scribbles" ?



VG

Free City

Eric Darton. WW Norton and Co, New York. 1996.

Interesting little novel that reads somewhat like a dream and reminds me in tone of another book I'd read some years back, I believe called simply Faust, which was the standard Faustian tale set in the 17th Century, building upon the discoveries of Newton, Copernicus, Galileo and the like - basically this Faust makes a deal with the devil who helps him to transport this little German village into the atomic age . . .

but I'm not talking about this book, I'm talking about Free City; however, the tone is similar - this one reads almost like a folktale, even though through the first person narrative journal of a somewhat reserved scientist about his town and his friend, who is set up against him as somewhat of an opposition - I can't find the words for it right now, but essentially the narrator symbolises thought and caution and his friend symbolizes action and forward movement - basically the scientist makes the inventions and his friend uses them as capital to further advance the city's economic development. While we never see any other cities, they are alluded to as being somewhat under the auspices of different styles of authoritarian governments, whether by kingships or dicators, it's hard to tell what - but in this tale the danger is that the economic advancements can propel the most adventurous of people into making a play toward controlling the entire city, thus ensuring its downfall,

which is played out in the end, with the ultimate mechanical creation suffering a fatal collapse and physically as well as metaphorically destroying the city. The technique used is intentionally transparent and I didn't sense that it was meant to be subtle - but the linguistic style was very entertaining - both with the language and with the use of metaphor.

The duck, however, was the most likable character. And I have no idea what symbolism is meant by teaching the duck how to speak and thus influence parliament. Maybe it's not supposed to mean anything - maybe it was just thrown in there so that the reader can say,

"Whoa. A talking duck. Cool."




VG

Secrets from the Center of the World

Joy Harjo and Stephen Strom. The University of Arizona Press, 1989.

Harjo writes one-paragraph prose poems to accomodate Strom's photographs of Arizona lands in Navajo territory. The intriguing aspect is that Strom is also an astronomer - that's notable in the fact that his photographs, taken from great distances, that show broad sweeps in the landscape with stippled bushes dotting the hard earth, like stars against the backdrop sky - it almost seems as though he is recreating constellations in landscape photography.

Or you could see them as those pictures that were popular a few years ago - the ones that looked like nothing but waves of coloured dots and you had to squint at them for two hours and then finally - POW! Dolphins!!

As far as the text, I dunno. Usually I love prose-poems, but these seemed a little stilted, a little stiff. As though she were trying to force the imagery - as though she was intentionally trying to channel the iconography of the Native American mythology instead of simply being inspired by the land and the photography that, essentially, her words were meant to illuminate.

VG