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Drive On
New poetry from computer scientist Richard P. Gabriel.
48 pages, Paperback
First published August 30, 2005
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November 9, 2008
This is a pensive and genuine book of verse which bears traces of Robert Frost in its concern with physical labor, mortality, and evanescence. Its formulations are not always perfectly focused, but the verse does attempt to make sense while deploying a sound system that is at least a little more engaging than that of ordinary prose. The strongest poem in the book may be “Lament on Work,” which echoes Rilke’s “Washing the Corpse” in its configuration of human society around death:
LAMENT ON WORK
There is working hard in death—
by the one who dies by
labored breathing and heavy movements,
or the beating heart pushing hard;
by the ones who clean up by
brushing hot caustic liquids through carpet plush,
or scraping from linoleum the last of it away;
by the ones who prepare by
digging holes, carving granite, marking unimportantly
on paper; by the ones who live by getting
by, and by doing so, pass close by
places of singularity in a frame unlike
our normal minds, wrapped in rigor;
by doing this we earn our lives; by
doing this…
That final ellipsis is the way the poem ends. Gabriel’s technique here is the conflation of at least two senses of the particle “by”; one, where it indicates the person doing the work, and another, where it says how the work is done: the poem is written by the poet by writing. Just as in Frost, all work, from apple-picking to fence-mending, is a figure for the work of writing poetry: “digging holes, carving granite, marking unimportantly / on paper.” All three are forms of inscription, so the poet has this kinship with the gravedigger, who marks the earth; the mason, who inscribes the headstone; and the bureaucrat in the funeral home, who ticks off a checkmark with a pen. The poem gets strange toward the end, and it’s not clear which way to direct the participial phrase “wrapped in rigor.” It seems to mean: ordinary consciousness has an inherent virtue because of its plain seriousness (think Frost again, and Jeffers), and as one goes about one’s business, this virtue protects a person from the dangers of his proximity to the black hole of mortality: “by the ones who live by getting / by, and by doing so, pass close by / places of singularity in a frame unlike / our normal minds, wrapped in rigor[.]” In other words, while we do our daily jobs we pass close to our predecessor’s graves, which are singularities, places where our notion of existence contracts into an infinitesimal point, “from whose bourn no traveler returns.” In a rather wonderful rotation of moral language toward non-moral issues, Gabriel declares that it’s this willingness to live with our knowledge of inevitable death that “earns” us our lives. Heidegger seems to have been saying the very same thing in his thousand pages of Being and Time, but I prefer this little poem.
LAMENT ON WORK
There is working hard in death—
by the one who dies by
labored breathing and heavy movements,
or the beating heart pushing hard;
by the ones who clean up by
brushing hot caustic liquids through carpet plush,
or scraping from linoleum the last of it away;
by the ones who prepare by
digging holes, carving granite, marking unimportantly
on paper; by the ones who live by getting
by, and by doing so, pass close by
places of singularity in a frame unlike
our normal minds, wrapped in rigor;
by doing this we earn our lives; by
doing this…
That final ellipsis is the way the poem ends. Gabriel’s technique here is the conflation of at least two senses of the particle “by”; one, where it indicates the person doing the work, and another, where it says how the work is done: the poem is written by the poet by writing. Just as in Frost, all work, from apple-picking to fence-mending, is a figure for the work of writing poetry: “digging holes, carving granite, marking unimportantly / on paper.” All three are forms of inscription, so the poet has this kinship with the gravedigger, who marks the earth; the mason, who inscribes the headstone; and the bureaucrat in the funeral home, who ticks off a checkmark with a pen. The poem gets strange toward the end, and it’s not clear which way to direct the participial phrase “wrapped in rigor.” It seems to mean: ordinary consciousness has an inherent virtue because of its plain seriousness (think Frost again, and Jeffers), and as one goes about one’s business, this virtue protects a person from the dangers of his proximity to the black hole of mortality: “by the ones who live by getting / by, and by doing so, pass close by / places of singularity in a frame unlike / our normal minds, wrapped in rigor[.]” In other words, while we do our daily jobs we pass close to our predecessor’s graves, which are singularities, places where our notion of existence contracts into an infinitesimal point, “from whose bourn no traveler returns.” In a rather wonderful rotation of moral language toward non-moral issues, Gabriel declares that it’s this willingness to live with our knowledge of inevitable death that “earns” us our lives. Heidegger seems to have been saying the very same thing in his thousand pages of Being and Time, but I prefer this little poem.
Displaying 1 of 1 review