AVANT-GARDE LONDON

My computer has officially died, so I apologize for the 13 minute lateness!

 

The works of the International Necronautical Society are among the most annoying and contradictory that I have ever read.  I would go as far as to say they are more pretentious and contradictory than those who wrote the DADA manifesto.  While DADA makes somewhat whimsical claims about accordions, spirits, and Italy, the International Necronautical Society takes itself way too seriously in its death proclamations while simultaneously publishing contradictory records of things such as membership.  In fact, about half of our assigned class readings on the INS are on the subject of current and former members (and their employment statuses).  How can this organization expect to have its core claims taken seriously, when they openly publish their ridiculous contradictory membership roster?

In the INS Official Document ‘INS at 10,’ the organization lists several alterations to their membership roster.  “1. To reinstate Matt Parker to the post of INS Experimental Volunteer. Expelled in the 2003 Purges for the crime of ‘not being dead’, he replied, with impeccable integrity, by contracting cancer.”  They deem this man’s terminal cancer as a valid enough reason for him to return to his post. This odd membership requirement is nowhere to be found in the document released by the INS detailing INS positions and application instructions (Course Pack 206).  These detailed descriptions only ask that an applicant has knowledge of the organization’s work, and they be good at what they do.  It says nothing about them needing to be dead, or anything near it.  The only other reference to this can be found in the INS report of the purge of its First Committee.  Under an additional comments bullet, it is declared that one member was hired as an Experimental Volunteer, but was terminated as he had not ‘deliberately placed his life in danger, nor has he been involved in a serious accident, outbreak of disease, or natural disaster. —— is therefore expelled from the INS for not being dead.’  Aside from the obvious paradox of having an employee that is dead, they add an odd requirement that a member must deliberately place their lives in danger or be involved in an accident of some type.  In the same declaration, Laura Hopkins is hired as the Environmental of the INS.  Laura Hopkins is a Theatre designer working with many west end and touring theatre companies throughout the UK, and is both not dead, and seemingly not dying.  I did some research into her and it seems that she has never been in a life threatening accident, or had a life changing disease, so why is she allowed membership in the INS?

The INS’ unclear membership policy above only gets worse.  In the bulletin titled INS at 10, Stewart Home declared that he is the inventor of plagiarism.  In INS fashion, they loved this declaration as it in itself is a paradox.  But do they accept him as a member?  No.  They decided to grant him an honorary expulsion.  Honorary expulsion? They’re definitely making it up at this point.

The DADA manifesto contradicts itself in a way that is humorous unto itself.  It is meant to be ridiculous and read in a humor.  The INS published their serious declarations in a way that a DADAist never would.  The question that arises for me is this:  Knowing all that we do about the INS through their membership records, can/should this organization’s claims be legitimized and taken seriously in public thought?  Personally, I think not.

Sydney Stone

Blog Post #2

Narrative within Imagist Poetry through Inference and the Use of Immediacy

Imagism differs from Impressionism in that it is not the artist’s impression of how something is moving, or the emotion, or the specific lighting a certain thing conveys or experiences, but the reader’s interpretation. The purpose of imagism is to transcend the need for the artist’s or creator’s opinion (as is the point of the INS: “Good art despises democracy the same way bad democracy covets art”). Imagist poetry allows for the narrative to be  completely unto the reader.

When we discussed the poem “FAN-PIECE FOR HER IMPERIAL LORD”  in class, several readings and meanings were elicited from the group; everything from a a woman being put aside to only that woman’s false flirtation. Within the poem, as with Ezra Pound’s Metro, it uses seemingly recklessly strung together sentences of varying relevance to ‘paint’ a picture, or ‘write’ a complete story with a few lines. Dual use words like apparition, or ‘laid aside’ (is something disregarded or literally set aside?) make the immediacy of the poetry more exact; saving space and time and really providing a true mimicry of human thought– disconjointed thoughts that engulf entire experiences into second-long strands. Imagist poetry simply reverses the process; Imagism is to poetry as the FOIL method is to algebra. You are supposed to create entire tableau based on these words. It only makes sense to assume that with more words, an imagist could create an even more elaborate pageant.

“Childhood” is a poem that has a far more traditional ‘narrative’ feel to it; we have an angry man describing an allegedly depressing childhood with a shimmer of hope and freedom in the colorful blips of stamps and revolutionary documents. Nothing actually happens though; nothing traumatizing enough to make this man want to ‘never have a child’– as if there were no other way or no other place to raise a child. Thus the reliance of inference by the author; we fill in the blanks for him, because we assume that plain childhood boredom can’t be the only reason for someone to refuse to reproduce. We take what we are given an run with it; we create our own stories about this suffocated little boy. This snuffed candle.  Whether or not there is a more valid reason than “the closing of a moth in a matchbox” (which, honestly, translates to ‘they never saw my potential’), is irrelevant at this point; the only point is what point we see.

Going even further is the Ernest Hemingway vignettes. The author, that in response to a slight by Faulkner, who said something to the effect that one would never need a dictionary to read a Hemingway novel responded with, ” Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?” That attitude itself is sheer imagism. The exactness of Hemingway’s language is precisely what makes imagism a style, a movement, and a performance piece.

“Hermes of the Ways” is a rich imagist poem that meditates on the inhospitable nature of borders and their crossings. Much of the language used suggests a precipice, a speaker hovering in the moment before an action that is never performed, suggesting that no one can be carried across a border or through a transition; they must be actively and consciously crossed.

The first stanza is comprised of a dense metaphor, which is chosen with economy and exactness, signaling the poem as imagist; “The hard sand breaks,/And the grains of it/Are clear as wine.” The first half of the metaphor is uncomplicated, a block of compressed sand breaking, likely beneath the pressure of the waves. The second half, “grains of it/Are clear as wine,” is more difficult. Neither grains of sand nor wine are traditionally envisioned as clear, suggesting that the grains are in fact quite opaque or encouraging the reader to challenge their immediate image of wine. As the poem is a meditation on borders, this could be read as a reflection of the surreal, stunted environment created through the mixing of two worlds, an area that defies clarity. This image of the mixing of earth and sea as hostile and otherworldly is furthered in the second half of the poem. The speaker describes, “Apples…/are hard,/Too small,/Too late ripened/By a desperate sun/That struggles through sea mist.” The transitional space resists the sun, which cannot cross the border, thus stunting the growth of the plant life. This image is immediately followed by “The boughs of the trees/Are twisted/By many bafflings” again demonstrating the destructive force of the transitional environment on living things. The speaker further remarks “the shadow of them/Is not the shadow of the mast head/Nor of the torn sails,” emphasizing the immobility of the things within the border, unlike masts and sails which can travel across boundaries.

The third stanza introduces Hermes, the messenger of the gods and the god of trade, transition and border crossings, who the speaker “knows,” and who “awaiteths” her. The language used to describe the speaker also reflects an immobility, a stagnation similar to that experienced by the apples and trees, as she stands in the border space. The wind “whips round [her] ankles” as “the great sea foamed,/Gnashed its teeth about [her.]” She is tenuously positioned, close enough to shore to feel the wind whip against her ankles but far enough into the water for the waves to froth around her in an angry flush. Despite Hermes “hav[ing] waited,/Where sea grass tangles with/Shore grass,” she remains stunted and subject to the harshness of the transition. Hermes hovers in waiting to aid her transition, but only if she breaks her stagnation herself.

The poem still leaves many questions to uncover. One reading I did not explore was the significance of the climactic, violent, almost sexual nature of the stanza’s progression. Towards the start of the poem, the interplay between the sea and shore is playful and teasing, “The wind/Playing on the wide shore/Piles little ridges/And the great waves/break over it.” There is little aggression or intensity in this depiction. Three stanzas later the relationship is depicted as more intense, “Wind rushes/Over the dunes/And the course, salt-crusted grass/Answers…It whips round my ankles.” The verbs, “rushes” and “whips” are rougher than the playful “piling” of the wind in the earlier stanza and the depiction of the grass as “coarse” and “salt crusted,” suggests an altering, hostile relationship between the wind and the shore. The movement depicted is also significantly larger and more intimidating that the first; this stanza envisions a massive, sweeping wind that covers several dunes, rather than the gentle wind pushing “little ridges” of sand. Finally, the poem concludes with an overtly hostile image, “The great sea foamed,/Gnashed its teeth about me/But you have waited,/Where sea-grass tangles with/Shore-grass” creating the image of a violent sea forming a foaming, biting mass around the speaker, the locus of which is the tangle between shore and sea. What does this progression, with its implicit sexuality and violence, suggest? What is the impetus for the increasing intensity at the border? Is this related to the division of the poem into two parts, and, if not, what function do the clearly divided halves of the poem serve?

Richard Aldington’s poem “Childhood:”

             Richard Aldington is regularly associated with the imagist world and was featured in Des Imagists in 1914.   Except for the poem he wrote called “Childhood,” we know very little about his upbringing.   We do know that he was born in Portsmouth, England in 1892 and he later married Hilda Doolittle.   Aldington had what we would now call post-traumatic stress disorder and is well known for his post World War I poetry.

The most insight we get into Aldington’s childhood is, in his poem called “Childhood” where he tells us, “The bitterness, the misery, the wretchedness of childhood put me out of love with God” (stanza I, lines 1-2).   We instantly know that something happened when he was younger, that he just cannot seem to move past or forget.   He asks how God could be so cruel to a child who is so innocent. And how could he? He evens states that “[he] believe[s] in gods of bitter dullness” (stanza I, line 7).   There is almost no hope in that statement, which is full of pain and suffering. Aldington also compares his childhood to that of a chrysalis being put into a matchbox.   He was stuck in this world of hate and suffering leaving a very broken child behind. And to be honest, why shouldn’t he be broken? He was trapped in a world where he was beaten and damaged before he could even learn how to fly.   Aldington tells us that his innocence has been taken from him by saying, “Because the beauty a child has, and the beautiful things it learns before its birth, were shed, like moth-scales, from me.” He will never be able to get back what he lost. That “beauty” is gone and can never be replaced. There is no metaphor anymore; he is clearly referring to himself.

We can say that this poem is imagist because of the immediacy of Aldington’s words. He uses a lot of repetition, which tells the reader that what he is saying is very important to the message of the poem. Aldington is very direct with the reader, and tells us why he dislikes his childhood without telling us the details. The poet also uses free verse, which gives him a certain freedom in the poem.   It also makes the poem feel more like a musical phrase instead of like a metronome.

The repetition begins in the third stanza where he says, “I hate that town; I hate the town I lived in when I was little; I hate to think of it” (lines 1-3).   He is very direct with us; we know he hates his hometown and that he really hates to think about what went on in that town. It is also probably safe to assume that he would never return to that town. He also repeats that it is too late for him now. He is ruined by what happened all those years ago. The experience molded him into the person he is today, whether it’s for the better or worse.   Later in the poem we learn about the things that gave him some freedom from the things that were going on. Aldington says, “There was a large tin box containing reproductions of the Magna Charta, of the Declaration of Independence and a letter from Raleigh after the Armada” (stanza IV, lines 5-7). All of these documents have something to do with the idea of freedom from another country or people.   He is telling us that although he has little hope now, he always dreamed about the days that he would have some kind of freedom from his life. That idea is what kept him going.

We know for sure that that Aldington’s hope has be crushed because he tells us “that’s why I’ll never have a child, never shut up a chrysalis in a match-box for the moth to spoil and crush its bright colours, beating its wings against the dingy prison-wall” (stanza V, lines 5-8).   He never wants to be responsible for ruining another child’s life; he won’t even take the chance.   Whatever happened to him was bad enough that he will not risk having a child and becoming anything like his parents.

Just wrote 1200 words and it disappeared, so this might not be great. I fucking hate wordpress. Or maybe wordpress hates me… Or both. Either way, don’t hate my blog post.

Olivia Burgess

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The Saatchi Gallery Exhibit against the INS Manifesto.

I hope to show their harmony, but also a few of their clashing notes.

So in the INS Manifesto, there are a few pieces that I would like to connect to the exhibit on death.

Mortality is the state of being mortal, or susceptible to death.

So- here is what I think is important to think about as you compare the exhibit to the INS Manifesto:

From the Manifesto: (205)

• That death is a type of space, which we intend to map, enter, colonise and, eventually, inhabit. (1)
• That there is no beauty without death, its immanence. We shall sing death’s beauty – that is, beauty. (2)
• That we shall take it upon us, as our task, to bring death out into the world. We will chart all its forms and media: in literature and art, where it is most apparent; also in science and culture, where it lurks submerged but no less potent for the obfuscation. (3)

Obfuscation is the obscuring of intended meaning in communication, making the message confusing, willfully ambiguous, or harder to understand.

(3 cont) We shall attempt to tap into its frequencies by radio, the internet and all sites where its processes and avatars are active… Death moves in our appartments, through our television screens, the wires and plumbing in our walls, our dreams. Our bodies are no more than vehicles carrying us ineluctably towards death. We all are necrunauts, always, already.

• Let us deliver ourselves over utterly to death. Not in desperation but rigorously, creatively, eyes and mouths wise open so that they may be filled from the deep wells of the Unknown. (4)

Here’s what I take from the INS Manifesto:

I think that they want us to accept death. They want to make people less uncomfortable with death, and embrace it in a truer sense. There’s so much “Unknown” in the world, and we usually take unknown as an opportunity for growing and progression. When it comes to death, we take the opposite approach, we try to stay away from risky things that might result in death and try to deny the existence of death at all costs. Death is just a thing that we try to hide from, for as long as possible.

When we thought that world was flat instead of round, we went out with ships, sailing into the great unknown, in search of the understanding. With death, we should do the same thing.

In our acceptance of death, we will understand that world doesn’t end with us. Our world ends, but THE world doesn’t. Life goes on, the cycle goes on, and as we accept that with many other species, we need to accept that for our own. I think that the exhibit does a decent job of executing these principals.

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When looking at the Saatchi Gallery, I really do think that it’s important to think about the difference between biographical and biological when it comes to death.

The exhibit, “A Celebration of Mortality”, seems quite bizarre and disturbing to many of us, but when you examine it more closely, with these things in mind, you can really dissect the meaning.

I think the entire exhibit shows a progression from biographical meaning to biological meaning. In my mind, the exhibit helps a person understand the message that “people are organic matter and they dissolve into the earth. They may contribute and they may be missed, but no matter the biographical significance of the individual, they cannot escape their biological demise.”

Thinking back to the museum, you should come up the steps to the top floor, turn right into the first room and continue counter clockwise for the progression that I will be describing.

In the first room, we see things that are very biographical. We see the headstones of deceased people. Men stand in front of their luxury cars, and drinking champagne with several women.

It makes us think “Oh wow, this person passed away. They had a real life, and people that loved them. Their lives are over”

The other piece that stuck out to me is the bomb in the suitcase. I think that this holds significance because our generation has experienced a lot of bombings. The decisions of one person, can end the lives of others. It holds a lot of emotional pull for viewers and it makes us immediately think of the terroristic actions that we have been aware of since our childhood.

The next room moves to domestic animals. We see cats, dogs and rats. All of these are triggers to the viewers, because most of us have had pets similar to these. We feel bad for the skinned and molded animals because we have an attachment to them. We compare the cat to ours, and give it biographical meaning. It had an owner, and someone that loved it, but that is now over. It is less meaningful than the people, but it still impacts people strongly.

We also see a bird that has died on the side of a mountain. Nature is continuing on without it. We don’t really feel sorrow for the bird, because that’s the circle of life. One bird dies, and another is born. Things move on without it, and we can’t emotionally connect to it.

In the 3^rd room, we see ants. It’s easy to dismiss ants. How many have you killed in your life? Hundreds? Thousands? In one second, we can end their lives. If we don’t, someone else will. Eventually (probably sooner rather than later), their demise will come. We don’t feel nearly as bad for the ants, as we do for the humans and for the dogs.

In the very last room, the art is the most disturbing. Things that resemble people are thrown in a trash pile. We are organic matter and we decay, just like the wasted food that we throw in black bags and set on the sidewalk. It’s so much harder to accept that people may have biographical meaning, but they don’t escape their biological demise.

I think that the other piece with books above it, shows that although our bodies decompose, our thoughts will not. The things that we learn, teach to others, and pass on, are the only things that will escape ultimate destruction.

(and that’s even a stretch, because the thoughts of people are often forgotten about or ignored or lost.)

We can’t be linked to our biographical meaning, because we die. We die like every other being in the world and there’s no escape from that. We don’t have to numb to the meaning of the death, but we must be aware of its presence. We should appreciate life while it is happening and be ecstatic that there is an expiration date. If we didn’t have one, would the goods ever be satisfiable?

All in all- as humans, we want to think that our presence has more meaning than it does; that our absence will cause great grief. It might and it might not. We won’t be here to see our paintings on the walls. If you’re lucky enough to get a spot on the wall, people might look at you and contemplate the meaning of death and life. They might worry about where the lines lays, or they might simply walk by and think of the pubs that they’re going to after.

Thinking of death going forward:

It’s something that we should embrace and face with bravery and excitement.

Use the ending, as a thing to work towards instead of something to run away from. Use it as motivation to fill in the middle and make it memorable. Explore that ways that we can find death, and dance along the line. The line is there anyway, and you can’t run away from it forever, so you might as well have some fun on the line, before it comes for you.

All in all- as humans, we want to think that our presence has more meaning than it does; that our absence will cause great grief. It might and it might not. Either way, “humans are read-facing repetition-engines, borne back ceaselessly (as Fitzgerald more lyrically puts it) into the past.”

Matter: what everything is made of. To be important or significant.

The International Necronautical Society is focused on death in relation to the human and life. We are all made up of matter and I could also (maybe sarcastically) add that we all matter to society as well. In the “Joint Statement on Inauthenticity,” the INS says; “All art and literature is divided between these two temptations: either to extinguish matter and elevate it into form or to let matter matter by making form as formless as possible.” To extinguish matter, or destroy it, in order for it to be created into something else is one way to look at death. When we die, we are extinguished physically but there is potential for another form. Remainder is more concerned with loops and patterns. When one thing is extinguished, or changed, it throws off the comforting loops that we grow accustomed to. This is mentioned when the narrator describes the escalator and meal-time at the hospital. The narrator in Remainder is caught up with the physical things, where the INS describes a less concrete experience surrounding death.

Authenticity is also a subject that frequents the first three chapters of Remainder and is also discussed in the “Joint Statement on Inauthenticity.” The narrator in Remainder is constantly questioning his authenticity and feels as though he is mechanical compared to the masses. The INS believes authenticity “should be abandoned.” Both of these positions poses questions for me because who really decides what it means to live an authentic life? Is an authentic life one that society has established as a way to measure who has a fulfilling life and who doesn’t?

Remainder also talks a lot about small parts that make up the whole. This is what matter is and the narrator is fixated on pieces of a whole. This is evident in his descriptions of the things he experiences. One example that really struck me was his interest in the Robert De Niro film he saw with a friend. This is also relevant for the suggestion of authenticity but the narrator is so focused on the small movements De Niro makes when smoking a cigarette or opening the refrigerator. He comments on very specific instances in the movie rather than it as a whole. This can also be seen in the ideals of the INS if we think of death as a small piece of our earthly existence.

“They begin with the failure of transcendence and the copies of this failure which are recorded in the history of art, philosophy and literature.” This is one of the quotes from the INS document that I have the least amount of insight on but I was intrigued by the idea that transcendence just fails in the art, philosophy, and literature mentioned. It seems too simplistic and I might be taking it out of context but that was one part that I don’t have a very strong understanding of.

Lastly, I made a note in Remainder when the narrator described a landscape he was studying as dead. This stuck out to me because what I had read thus far was more neutral, and natural. The descriptions weren’t lavish or exciting but death evokes a stronger sense of emotion than things being described as neutral. It also happened in the context of the narrator thinking about all of the things he could now afford to buy. He is not restricted by a lack of money but now has unending options and what he sees is a dead landscape.

(upon reading the INS manifesto)

Complete nonsense. A disturbing concept, relishing in the themes surrounding death; treating it as a football game of some sorts. Replaying the tape over and over to see where the play went wrong; breaking down the logistics of every pass and fumble. Studying death should be left to the cast of CSI, the coroners — professionals, not a clan of morbid individuals making it their goal to “sing death’s beauty.” Treating death with the same delicacy as a child does while prodding at the plastic pieces of a helpless Cavity Sam.

But the thing is, they have a point.

Crammed onto the pages of self-empowerment books, revealed with a snap of a fortune cookie, are bright words of optimism that tell us more or less to experience life to the fullest: “live every second as if it was the last.” By celebrating life in this way, we are preparing ourselves for the day death comes. But do we look at this fateful end as the unfortunate demise of our adventures, or the continuation of our souls journeying on to a more exiting place? The INS would agree with something of the latter. Death is the exciting part; life was the pre-party.

But claiming our bodies to be “no more than vehicles carrying us ineluctably towards death” makes life seem like the time of dreadful anticipation — the same kind of anxious feeling that comes with awaiting a test score. Asking that we be more “imaginative” in regards to our death, because dying of disease just won’t do. A “new” way of dying, they claim, is the only chance of survival. Are we supposed to spend our lives completely consumed with our death? Don’t get me wrong, accepting death, even glorifying it, is an idea shared by many (even myself). It makes us feel better, knowing that our loved ones have moved on to a happier place with rolling hills and an endless supply of ice cream. But if we were to wrap ourselves completely in the notion of dying and entering death “creatively,” does the time we spend living become less important? If “we are all necronauts already,” at what point are we ever alive? Or is this getting much too philosophical, when really the main idea is simple: death should not be treated as a negative thing, but rather as an opportunity to dig deeper into the human journey?

Do I find the ideals of the INS a bit disturbing because rather than a hippie-dippie yoga teacher — barefooted and with dreadlocked hair — comparing death to a lotus flower, a ban of death-loving individuals are preaching their beliefs in a such a methodical manner that makes my skin crawl? A bit, yes. It is the brashness that comes with declaring a manifesto, speaking matter-of-factly with no air of whimsy or gentleness, that makes the INS mission seem very FBI-esque. They claim death equal to beauty, yet their tone is utterly unconvincing. If you look past the grave tone (maybe enough so to chuckle at the all the ridiculousness), there is a great connection between this society of mortality junkies and the rest of us, who want to be okay with the idea of dying in the hopes that life will be a little easier.

The International Necronautical Society distinctly defines and bluntly states what/who they stand for or against throughout the majority of the INS readings in the course pack. The one exception that I found particularly interesting and puzzling was statement seven on page 208 that reads, “Do we contradict ourselves? Well then we contradict ourselves. We are large. We contain multitudes.” As mentioned in class, this is nearly an exact quote from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, but there are many possible reasons and purposes for the INS to use this quote like whether they are using it primarily to mock Whitman or are aligning themselves with him.

When I first recognized this excerpt as a Whitman quote spin off, I believed the INS was contrasting their themes presented in their declaration document on page 207 to Whitman’s major motifs in Leaves of Grass, thus showing how the INS disagrees with Whitman. Belief in democracy, for example, sets the INS and Whitman on completely opposite ends of a spectrum. In Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman continually stresses equality of all people and the importance of democracy because it focuses more on the individual, and includes common people. The INS, on the other hand, is clearly composed of self-proclaimed fascists.

Also, as I mentioned in class, Whitman’s version of this quote uses the pronoun “I,” which also refers to “you” or “everyone.” In his first stanza of Leaves of Grass, Whitman makes this evident when he states that, “ . . . for every atom belonging to me, as good belongs to you,” therefore he could be speaking in the first person from his own viewpoint and as a representation of everyone/thing. I feel this is especially the case when he says, “(I am large – I contain multitudes)” here is obviously transcending beyond his physical self and reflecting on the Soul and multifaceted parts of the universe/beings. I feel that the INS could have technically used the pronoun “I” because their documents are written as one definite, single-minded society. However, in choosing “we” they seem to purposefully separate themselves from Whitman in their intentions of using this slightly different quote. When changing the all-inclusive Whitman “I” to the INS “we” I felt like I was reading a BLAST manifesto again. The “we” makes the INS feel like a super exclusive society that only the elite and privileged are allowed to join or understand their contradictions. The “we” alienates those not part of the INS, as I initially saw it as off-putting. Yet, from another viewpoint I could also believe that the INS include this altered quote as a way to be purposefully provocative to cleverly end their declaration.

Then, while further reflecting on some of Whitman’s other themes in Leaves of Grass, I started to feel that the INS may be aligning themselves with Whitman’s other concepts while addressing their disagreements about democracy by changing the “I” to “we.” One of the most obvious ways that the INS and Whitman would align would be in their love/use of repetition. Whitman uses a lot of word, subject, and form repetition, specifically in his use of anaphora and lists. For instance, in section two he starts various phrases “you shall . . .” and does similar phrase repetitions throughout. The INS also repeats subjects, like art and death, while also repeating phrases like in points 2.2-5 where most of the statements start with “it is.” Whitman also deeply believes in cycles and the interconnectedness of all beings – once more another form of repetition. I believe that the INS demonstrates their own belief in interconnectivity, particularly in their seventh point on page 208, albeit without the same spirituality/democracy beliefs that Whitman implies when he talks about interconnectivity.

Death was also a major theme discussed in both the INS documents and Whitman’s poetry, and I feel that for the most part they had similar views on the matter. The INS, as mentioned in class, want to make death more “positive” by taking the negativity out of the idea of it, and almost celebrating it. As they write on page 205, “ . . . there is no beauty without death . . . we shall sing death’s beauty . . ..” Whitman also demonstrates a sense of fascination, comfortableness, and beauty in death. In section 52 of Leaves of Grass, he writes, “I bequeathe myself to the dirt, to grow from the grass I love; / If you want me again, look for me under your boot-soles . . . / Missing me one place, search another; / I stop somewhere, waiting for you.” Here, Whitman accepts death and sees it as almost beautiful, not as something to fear because of his views on interconnectivity. Again, Whitman and the INS seem primarily aligned, allowing the contradiction quote to work well, however their differences in spirituality and politics seem too contrasting/contradictory for Whitman and the INS to truly support each other (I also do not believe Whitman would EVER join the INS). After thinking about how the INS and Whitman are similar and dissimilar, I still have remaining questions on the two. How would Whitman feel on the INS’s opinions on art and mimesis? How would Whitman react to the INS’s 6.2 point that discusses censorship as inspiration? Did the INS even intend to compare themselves to Whitman by including this quote? How do Whitman and the INS compare in terms of focus on/belief in the past/present/future?

During the Dead Exhibition at Saatchi Gallery that we visited last week, I kept thinking about how the exhibit was going to connect with the INS readings that we did for this week. At first the connection was obvious: the INS at the artists from the dead exhibit both have a fascination with the inevitability of death and how it impacts our lives. I saw this in the ruined city sculptures at the exhibit; showing what an abandoned city would look like long after we were gone. The sculpture was a haunting 3D image; the city was still beautiful, but in a haunted, desolate way, much like the ruins at Glastonbury Abbey. The INS is also shows their interest in this idea as well- a beauty in death and ruin- in point two of their manifesto where they say “there is no beauty without death”. I can get on board with that idea for the most part. I can see how life wouldn’t be nearly as beautiful and we wouldn’t have as much of a cause to make the most of it if it wasn’t finite. I think a lot of the exhibit dealt with that as well – the portraits of dead Russian mafia men, for example. Except for a couple pieces that caught me more off guard, ones that toed the line between respecting death as a natural process and looking more into the causing of death as a process that we don’t respect enough. The one that did this the most for me was the bomb suitcase in the first room.

At first I wasn’t really sure what it was, but as soon as I got up close to it I knew that it was a bomb. Now, in this day and age, some could call that artwork almost insensitive, and I wouldn’t necessarily disagree. Most of the other artworks in the exhibit seemed that they were trying to make the most out of a bad situation- something or someone had already died, and that was a natural process, one that should be expected, and they were trying to make something beautiful out of it- or at the very least make a statement about it. But I felt like the suitcase was making a different kind of statement. Bombs aren’t a natural process. And generally speaking, they’re not used for good purposes. People who die in bombings or shootings aren’t people who died naturally (at least in my humble opinion) and that kind of death should not be celebrated, and that kind of behavior should certainly not be revered or encouraged. When I read the INS readings for today, I didn’t really think that the INS would be on board with the inclusion of the suitcase bomb in the exhibition. While I definitely think that the INS celebrates death, they definitely celebrate the natural process. If you’re dying, you should make the most of it, realize that you’ve lived your life and that dying is a natural progression. I don’t think that the INS would be totally on board with forcing other people into that “space”, or death. I may be way off base, but something about that suitcase just stuck with me and it really stuck out to me when I saw it; I didn’t really think that it fit in right with the rest of the exhibit and I think that this might be why. I’m all for respecting death as a natural process and not being afraid to die- or at the very least having a healthy fear- and I do think that there is a certain beauty that comes from the finiteness of life. But there’s no beauty in a bomb suitcase. At least not to me.

Mimesis, or how accurately a work represents or imitates reality, can be embraced or rejected by groups of artists, poets, and authors. Two of the basic tenants of imagism—exactness and immediacy—simultaneously conform and discard the common artistic element. This can be seen notably in Richard Aldington’s poem titled “Childhood.”

In his poem, Aldington goes to great lengths to convey the dreary, sad nature of his upbringing, only to temporarily break structure near the end of the poem with fond memories of imaginative games and toys. At first, it does not appear immediate or exact, causing the reader to question how close to mimesis it truly gets.

A surface reading will suggest that the poem is neither immediate nor exact; it has lengthy five sections, causing the reader to question if it is truly an imagist work. While it is included in the imagist anthology, the work does not seem exact or immediate upon a cursory reading. In using so many words to convey a relatively simple idea, is Aldington using the most exact language possible? Is he telling the tale of his childhood in an immediate manner? For example, in the third section of the poem he writes “I hate that town;/ I hate the town I lived in when I was little;/ I hate to think of it.” Aldington did not use precise language or grammar here. Nevertheless, the tumbling of the narrator’s thoughts does suggest a degree of immediacy. The narrator dislikes thinking about his childhood and must say it quickly, even at the risk of repeating himself and taking even more time to describe that time of his life. Repetition such as this indicates a rushed manner of speaking. The narrator wants to finish his narration quickly, showing his immediacy rooted in dread for his memories.

Furthermore, while Aldington does not use concise language and as few words as possible, he is conveying an exact idea. The narrator compares himself to a moth in a chrysalis, stuck in a matchbox, numerous times throughout the poem; however it conveys his experience as a child. He constantly felt this way and calls the reader to feel the same. Just as he felt trapped in a dreary world, the reader experiences similar metaphors repeatedly. Aldington wants the reader to feel exactly how the narrator did in his childhood.

Just as Aldington breaks the traditional notions of immediacy and exactitude in “Childhood,” he breaks his own tone near the poem’s end. At the very end of the fourth section, he describes an empty room in the church with a box full of toys. Here he fondly begins describing the colors of many objects; it is a place of reprieve for himself and the reader. This list is relatively long, introducing the idea of rushed tumbling; however, this seems to be out of excitement rather than dread. Once more he is conveying a small place and part of his childhood that allowed his to act as a child: appreciating bright colors and playing games. The sense of wonder stands out against the melancholy, gray nature of the rest of the poem. Nevertheless, Aldington brings the reader back to that state for the fifth and final section of the poem. While the colorful, joyous stanza was necessary for the narrator as a child, Aldington reminds the reader that it was not permanent and could not last. He has brought the reader as close to his experience as possible—through the good times and the bad.

Aldington simultaneously breaks the patterns of imagism and holds true to them to act as an imagist poem in its mimesis. While using repetition and a lengthy form, he conveys a tumbling narrative to show how the narrator struggles towards immediacy. Similarly, Aldington makes use of the same metaphor repeatedly to share the exact emotions surrounding his childhood experiences.