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The Reproduction of Profiles
Book by Waldrop, Rosmarie
- GenresPoetryPhilosophy
Hardcover
First published November 1, 1987
2 people are currently reading
88 people want to read
About the author
Rosmarie Waldrop
96 books61 followersRosmarie Waldrop (born August 24, 1935), née Sebald, is a contemporary American poet, translator and publisher. Born in Germany, she has lived in the United States since 1958. She has lived in Providence, Rhode Island since the late 1960s. Waldrop is coeditor and publisher of Burning Deck Press, as well as the author or coauthor (as of 2006) of 17 books of poetry, two novels, and three books of criticism.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 28, 2008
One of my favorite books of poetry of all time! Waldrop has a unique and stunning poetic voice. She'll hit you over the head with a metaphor and you'll probably never recover. But seriously.
January 23, 2022
I had inferred from pictures that the world was real and therefore paused, for who knows what will happen if we talk truth while climbing the stairs. In fact, I was afraid of following the picture to where it reaches right out into reality, laid against it like a ruler. I thought I would die if my name didn't touch me, or only with its very end, leaving the inside open to so many feelers like chance rain pouring down from the clouds. You laughed and told everybody that I had mistaken the Tower of Babel for Noah in his Drunkenness.
* * *
Only in connection with a body does a shadow make sense. I called mine a dog, the way it ran ahead of me in the dust, breathing rapidly and sticking its small head out in front - though there are intervals where the light stands still and the air does not resist. Abandoned in the body, the memory of houses at a certain distance, their roofs, and their chimneys for the dark to flow down in arbitrary conventions. This is why you don't like me to get drunk. I fall asleep in the street, without even a shadow to lie on, and crowds gather, afraid of being disappointed.
* * *
You told me, if something is not used it is meaningless, and took my temperature which I had thought to save for a more difficult day. In the mirror, every night, the same face, a bit more threadbare, a dress worn too long. The moon was out in the cold, along with the restless, dissatisfied wind that seemed to change the location of the sycamores. I expected reproaches because I had mentioned the word love, but you only accused me of stealing your pencil, and sadness disappeared with sense. You made a ceremony out of holding your head in your hands because, you said, it could not be contained in itself.
* * *
In order to understand the nature of language you began to paint, thinking that the logic of reference would become evident once you could settle the quarrels of point, line, and colour. I was distracted from sliding words along the scale of significance by smoke on my margin of breath. I waited for the flame, the passage from eye to world. At dawn, you crawled into bed, exhausted, warning me against drawing inferences across blind canvas. I ventured that a line might represent a tower that would reach the sky, or, on the other hand, rain falling. You replied that the world was already taking up too much space.
* * *
The party began to break up though you were still looking for a point of view by examining thoughts for possible sexual characteristics. People assured one another it had been a nice evasion, when the floor that slanted downward in the mirror was suddenly pulled up to the surface on which you stood, disheveled and exhausted. I understood your desire to communicate, bu stepped over it because I was thirsty. I had meant to tell you that it is improper to speak of sex to a person drinking cognac, but not even sober could I have handed you a sequence of missing links.
* * *
To explore the nature of rain I opened the door because inside the workings of language clear vision is impossible. You think you see, but are only running your finger through pubic hair. The rain was heavy enough to fall into this narrow street and pull shreds of cloud down with it. I expected the drops to strike my skin like a keyboard. But I only get wet. When there is no resonance, are you more likely to catch a cold? Maybe it was the uniform appearance of the drops which made their application to philosophy so difficult even though the street was full of reflection. In the same way, fainting can, as it approaches, slow the Yankee Doodle to a near loss of pitch. I watched the outline of the tower grow dim until it was only a word in my brain. That language can suggest a body where there is none. Or does a body always contain its own absence? The rain, I thought, ought to protect me against such arid speculations.
* * *
I wondered if it was enough to reverse subject and object, or does it matter if the bow moves up or down the string. Blind possibility, say hunger, thickened. How high the sea of language runs. Its white sails, sexual, inviting to apply the picture, or black, mourning decline in navigation. I know, but cannot say, what a violin sounds like. Driftwood migrates toward the margin, the words gather momentum, wash back over their own sheets of insomnia. No harbour. No haul of silence.
* * *
This is where grammatical terror opens a distance between you and yourself in order to insert the mirror. And where you had hoped it would be a serene blue surface reflecting the flight of a bird or fancy, the waves rise up against each other and crash, strangling, screaming. What has become of logic? You know enough to skip explanation and displace your own weight in water. You hope the motion will wear itself out, its speed braked by words. History had taught you that all desires want to do away with themselves.
* * *
If I promise day after day: tomorrow I'll come to see you, am I saying the same thing every day, or does a rainbow grow frenetic in the to and fro between eye and image, bits of light torn from a mirage which doesn't appease desire, bu only fits into its own shape? Incestuous words, reflecting reference as mere decor or possibly a blanket. Orphaned so severely, the eye still trusts that emptiness is ready to receive the rain.
- pg. 5
* * *
Only in connection with a body does a shadow make sense. I called mine a dog, the way it ran ahead of me in the dust, breathing rapidly and sticking its small head out in front - though there are intervals where the light stands still and the air does not resist. Abandoned in the body, the memory of houses at a certain distance, their roofs, and their chimneys for the dark to flow down in arbitrary conventions. This is why you don't like me to get drunk. I fall asleep in the street, without even a shadow to lie on, and crowds gather, afraid of being disappointed.
- pg. 13
* * *
You told me, if something is not used it is meaningless, and took my temperature which I had thought to save for a more difficult day. In the mirror, every night, the same face, a bit more threadbare, a dress worn too long. The moon was out in the cold, along with the restless, dissatisfied wind that seemed to change the location of the sycamores. I expected reproaches because I had mentioned the word love, but you only accused me of stealing your pencil, and sadness disappeared with sense. You made a ceremony out of holding your head in your hands because, you said, it could not be contained in itself.
- pg. 23
* * *
In order to understand the nature of language you began to paint, thinking that the logic of reference would become evident once you could settle the quarrels of point, line, and colour. I was distracted from sliding words along the scale of significance by smoke on my margin of breath. I waited for the flame, the passage from eye to world. At dawn, you crawled into bed, exhausted, warning me against drawing inferences across blind canvas. I ventured that a line might represent a tower that would reach the sky, or, on the other hand, rain falling. You replied that the world was already taking up too much space.
- pg. 33
* * *
The party began to break up though you were still looking for a point of view by examining thoughts for possible sexual characteristics. People assured one another it had been a nice evasion, when the floor that slanted downward in the mirror was suddenly pulled up to the surface on which you stood, disheveled and exhausted. I understood your desire to communicate, bu stepped over it because I was thirsty. I had meant to tell you that it is improper to speak of sex to a person drinking cognac, but not even sober could I have handed you a sequence of missing links.
- pg. 43
* * *
To explore the nature of rain I opened the door because inside the workings of language clear vision is impossible. You think you see, but are only running your finger through pubic hair. The rain was heavy enough to fall into this narrow street and pull shreds of cloud down with it. I expected the drops to strike my skin like a keyboard. But I only get wet. When there is no resonance, are you more likely to catch a cold? Maybe it was the uniform appearance of the drops which made their application to philosophy so difficult even though the street was full of reflection. In the same way, fainting can, as it approaches, slow the Yankee Doodle to a near loss of pitch. I watched the outline of the tower grow dim until it was only a word in my brain. That language can suggest a body where there is none. Or does a body always contain its own absence? The rain, I thought, ought to protect me against such arid speculations.
- pg. 57
* * *
I wondered if it was enough to reverse subject and object, or does it matter if the bow moves up or down the string. Blind possibility, say hunger, thickened. How high the sea of language runs. Its white sails, sexual, inviting to apply the picture, or black, mourning decline in navigation. I know, but cannot say, what a violin sounds like. Driftwood migrates toward the margin, the words gather momentum, wash back over their own sheets of insomnia. No harbour. No haul of silence.
- pg. 64
* * *
This is where grammatical terror opens a distance between you and yourself in order to insert the mirror. And where you had hoped it would be a serene blue surface reflecting the flight of a bird or fancy, the waves rise up against each other and crash, strangling, screaming. What has become of logic? You know enough to skip explanation and displace your own weight in water. You hope the motion will wear itself out, its speed braked by words. History had taught you that all desires want to do away with themselves.
- pg. 73
* * *
If I promise day after day: tomorrow I'll come to see you, am I saying the same thing every day, or does a rainbow grow frenetic in the to and fro between eye and image, bits of light torn from a mirage which doesn't appease desire, bu only fits into its own shape? Incestuous words, reflecting reference as mere decor or possibly a blanket. Orphaned so severely, the eye still trusts that emptiness is ready to receive the rain.
- pg. 84
September 2, 2008
I have such strong feelings toward this book that I can't even express it here but to say OH, YES.
Read
October 12, 2024From the book:
26
It rained so much that I began to confuse puddles with the life of the mind. Perhaps what I had taken for reflection was only soaking up the world, a cross of sponge and good will through the center of the eye. But to describe the inner world, you know, by definition, even the patient definitions of psychology, is impossible. Hard to know if it can be lived. Revoked edge of water and dry land. A falling fear. The sudden color of a word. But it's the sky, pale gray, abundantly thrown back from far enough behind the eye, as you imagine an image, seeing earth in every direction.
8
I wondered if it was enough to reverse subject and object, or does it matter if the bow moves up or down the string. Blind possibility, say hunger, thickened. How high the sea of language runs. Its white sails, sexual, inviting to apply the picture, or black, mourning decline in navigation. I know, but cannot say, what a violin sounds like. Driftwood migrates toward the margin, the words gather momentum, wash back over their own sheets of insomnia. No harbor. No haul of silence.
26
It rained so much that I began to confuse puddles with the life of the mind. Perhaps what I had taken for reflection was only soaking up the world, a cross of sponge and good will through the center of the eye. But to describe the inner world, you know, by definition, even the patient definitions of psychology, is impossible. Hard to know if it can be lived. Revoked edge of water and dry land. A falling fear. The sudden color of a word. But it's the sky, pale gray, abundantly thrown back from far enough behind the eye, as you imagine an image, seeing earth in every direction.
8
I wondered if it was enough to reverse subject and object, or does it matter if the bow moves up or down the string. Blind possibility, say hunger, thickened. How high the sea of language runs. Its white sails, sexual, inviting to apply the picture, or black, mourning decline in navigation. I know, but cannot say, what a violin sounds like. Driftwood migrates toward the margin, the words gather momentum, wash back over their own sheets of insomnia. No harbor. No haul of silence.
July 20, 2024
a little langpo (as a treat) >”there, with dizzy attention, I hold the because, another key to the bewitchment of words”
or: “because we cannot penetrate the soul, at most touch its outer lips with the reflected light of metaphor, the soul cannot know itself”
or: “my hopes crushed by knowledge of anatomy”
or… : “as long as i wanted to be a man I considered thought as a keen blade cutting through the uncertain brambles in my path”
or: “because we cannot penetrate the soul, at most touch its outer lips with the reflected light of metaphor, the soul cannot know itself”
or: “my hopes crushed by knowledge of anatomy”
or… : “as long as i wanted to be a man I considered thought as a keen blade cutting through the uncertain brambles in my path”
September 15, 2025
yes beautiful of course. wonderful play with wittgenstein.
January 3, 2014
The beautiful sentences that fill these prose poems, at times, will overflow like the Seekonk.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews