Joan Retallack: Pick of the Week [ed. Terence Winch]

 

 

 

 

 

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The Magic Rule of 9

 

Your sonic suit will never be a perfect fit. You’ll learn to

get by. Just don’t assume all art is all about victory over

death all the time. Not to say the meantime isn’t as good

a time as any to enjoy not being dead. In the swell of

many a meantime, many have diverted themselves with

great success. Hence civilizations’ discontents and

greatest hits. Take for instance the magic rule of nine.

That the sums of all numbers within the sums of all

multiplicands of 9, up to and including 9, equal 9:

1x9=9, 9=9; 2x9=18, 1+8=9; 3x9=27, 2+7=9; etc.

This is numerically melodious (bird sings in tree) to the

species that longs for more than a first glance affords.

Someone will say, If you really think this is magic, you

don’t properly understand the decimal system (bird

falls out of tree). Who among us doesn’t long for magic.

Who among us truly understands the decimal system.

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Joan Retallack's BOSCH'D (Fables, Moral Tales & Other Awkward Constructions), in which this poem appears, came out from Litmus Press on April Fools Day, 2020. She feels it's impossible to dispute the aptness of that date given local and global circumstances at the time. Retallack is the author of The Poethical Wager (University of California Press) and Procedural Elegies—Western Civ Cont'd (Roof Books) among many other volumes of poetry and essays. Her Gertrude Stein: Selections (California) and conversations with John Cage (MUSICAGE, Wesleyan) examine the humor and gravitas of idiosyncratic aesthetics that became, respectively, so widely influential. Prior to BOSCH'D, Litmus Press published Retallack’s The Supposium: Thought Experiments & Poethical Play in Difficult Times— 2018 textual/visual continuation of an event she organized at MoMA in collaboration with Adam Pendleton. In all her work, Retallack combines socio-political inquiry with linguistic, visual, performative experiments in what she considers "poethical wagers.” 

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Comments

[Jill Newnham]

The logic is lovely, dark and deep.

[Christopher J Mason]

"numerically melodious (bird sings in tree)": beautiful! Great to read a poem that references the decimal system.

[Terence Winch]

Thanks for your comment, Chris. I agree--
the decimal system has been too much ignored in contemporary poetry.

[Karen Sagstetter]

Great to see math in a poem, and a stirring, lovely poem at that.

[Terence Winch]

Thanks for the comment, Karen. This is definitely the way I prefer to get my math.

[Bernard Welt]

Also a fan of math in poems. I wish more numbers could be like 9.

[Terence Winch]

I agree. The number 9 is very fine.

[Susan Levenstein]

As a one-time math major I'm all for the numerical melodies. But what I really love is the rhythm of the phrases - sonic suit, greatest hits - and the repetitions.

[Terence Winch]

Thanks for your comment, Susan. I agree---it's the language not the math that makes this such a great poem.

[Tony Paris]

The math's the thing
that makes this poem ring.

[Lawrence Welsh]

Numbers flying, like the birds: Yes. I dig this on a lot of levels. It makes me think of SIX in some ways. That's my favorite book by David Meltzer. It came out from Black Sparrow Press a long time ago. About a decade ago (?) I bought a copy of Retallack's SELECTIONS of Gertrude Stein. It remains an extremely important book. I go back to it all of the time. Bravo on all levels. I look forward to reading more of her work. It's sad that the University of California Press has dropped its out there poetry series. It seems that it evaporated after the release of THE COLLECTED POEMS OF PHILIP LAMANTIA. Oh well. One never knows. Thanks, TP, for keeping it fresh.

[Don Berger]

Loved this poem, following its path knowing I hadn't read anything like it, letting its reasoning elude but retain me at the same time, wishing I could and wanting to sit down right away and write something like it, at its heights!

[Terence Winch]

Don---I believe you would love Joan's new book, Bosch'd.

[Terence Winch]

Thanks, Lawrence. I was knocked out by Joan's new book.

[Jiwon Choi]

This poem makes my heart sing!

[Terence Winch]

Thanks, Jiwon---I'm so glad you liked it.

[evelyn reilly]

Wit, beauty and math. A great way to enjoy not being dead.

[Terence Winch]

Yes, that is so true. Thanks for you comment, Evelyn.