EXPERIMENTS I SHOULD LIKE TRIED AT MY OWN DEATH

by Caryl Pagel

"Caryl Pagel's EXPERIMENTS I SHOULD LIKE TRIED AT MY OWN DEATH provides a posthumous glimpse into a room where poems are knocking inside the walls and the ascending reader floats out into gaps of particulars, particles, and parts—or 'Names you will not recognize' owing to the relentless intercalation of bodiless bodies. Here is spectral evidence to be used in peeling away the argument that we don't exist. Alternatively, here are 'vestments' to clothe that existence, whose character and purpose are repeatedly reshaped atop a discontinuous ridge of occult figuration. Look out for that."—William Fuller

"In Caryl Pagel's EXPERIMENTS I SHOULD LIKE TRIED AT MY OWN DEATH, the act of naming presses out through the body to the natural world rendering the most poignant questions of the book those that concern agency: what happens to self and substance when the demarcation of names transpires. For example, in 'Spirit Cabinet' Pagel writes: 'What I live with in     this house     is mine     I did not make it What did What is     mine made     me.' Here self is house is language. Such folding and unfolding calls to mind Heidegger's concept of language-as-house-of-being, where 'In its home man dwells. Those who think and those who create with words are the guardians of this home.' Occupying the position of both interior and exterior, architect and structure, these poems perform a threshold demonstrating the necessity of what is made possible and impossible—both—through naming's articulation."—Karla Kelsey

Genres: Poetry

78 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Caryl Pagel is an associate professor at Cleveland State University, where she teaches poetry and nonfiction in the NEOMFA program. She is author of two books of poetry, Twice Told and Experiments I Should Like Tried At My Own Death, and a collection of essays, Out of Nowhere Into Nothing. Pagel is a cofounder and editor at Rescue Press and the director of the Cleveland State University Poetry Center.

Reviews

[Xan · Rating 5 out of 5]

been reading this over the past couple weeks. enjoyed coming to the end and seeing the sources used for certain poems. looking forward to going back and reading some of those sources, then rereading the poems. there are so many different forms in this book! it adds an element of play to a fairly dark subject.

[Sienna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fad Mad, Fairchild, Fearmonger, Flashface.
from "Common Plant & Animal Names (Existing & Not Existing)"

Although every title points to a topic that interests me, although the references to William James and Leonora Carrington provoked mind-grins, although I think "ethereal material" would make a great band name, I am not the right reader for this book. Pagel's disjointed phrasing and fondness for unconventional (for me, uninteresting) spacing and line breaks render the effort required greater than the pay-off. That said, the subject matter is deeply interesting, and occasionally substance transcends style.

Experiments I Should Like Tried At My Own Death is divided into three sections, and each is scattered with excerpts from "The Botched Bestiary," which is concerned more with bodies themselves than specific species: bodies are, after all, common to us all. These were far and away the highlights for me, cobbled together from the words of others ranging from Opal Whiteley (read her diary!) to Henry David Thoreau, from Ray Bradbury to Italo Calvino, from poets to naturalists, if such distinctions make sense. By juxtaposing these disparate texts and tinkering with them slightly, Pagel invites us to look at them askance. She engages my head. But it's harder to feel these poems in my heart. "Storm" struck me, briefly, midway through:

The spoon
is too loud for the teacup    The eye
is too large for the pane    But look — look: the narrowing
effect of panic on rage    A dreadful rumble
replacing the nothing
that you hear    No    You need
to pay greater
attention

Maybe I do. And you may well connect more deeply with these poems than I did.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love what I learn from this book, as in this, from "Table Talking":

"It is the influence of the loss of his father's leg
that biographers credit William James'
early & lasting interest
in finding a form
for spiritual inquisition beyond

religion beyond his field of study -- science -- beyond
psychology"

The intellectual approach to the subject matter, and the research itself which we get little bits of I think, grounds these poems -- Caryl is the collector of this information and the presenter, and then also added to that are these voices -- the voices of people possessed, the voices we hear or imagine we do -- and sometimes it is all truly creepy: success. Favorite poems include "Anchor," "Location of the Soul," and "A Vision" which ends:

"See: there are dark soldiers at my back

They compose an army

This morning I am aware that if I take one step forward they will take one step forward

If I take one step back I will join them"

[Bianca Stone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous!