Knowledge never knew

by Steve McCaffery

Paperback

Published January 1, 1983

About the author

Steve McCaffery is the author of over twenty-five books of poetry and criticism. He has twice been awarded the Gertrude Stein Award for innovative poetry and twice shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award. His poems have been published in more than a dozen countries. A long-time resident of Toronto, he is currently the David Gray Professor of Poetry and Letters, University at Buffalo.

Reviews

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The worst readers of aphorisms are the author's friends."

- Nietzsche

*

january 1 1467

Words which are doors are also moments



to plan ahead is to punish yourself
to not plan ahead is to punish others

*

january 2




you can find many excuses for a poem but only one reason for a word

*

january 3




every verbal process is a form of irritating interference
reading interferes with writing
writing interfered with other writing

we touch therefore we see

*

january 4




to desire is therefore
to define
is therefore

*

january 6 1752 b.c.




because the flexion of language is in the rhythm of the body
memory locates us with a wrist inside the brain

*

january 7 1259

Rev. Thomas Malmbury leaps into a pool of burning gasoline



to write is to reach a surface through the holes named things

*

january 8 1943

Knowledge declared to be a venal sin by the fourteen monks of Wearmouth



a motion?
e motion!

*

january 9




poetry is an open box with four sides around apples
prose is a box bottom with four sides on a table top
to stop apples falling out

*

january 10 1344

Wichlaf, Bishop of Kingston, celebrates Easter at Croyland



the dream of the written is always to be somewhere else

*

11:45 pm

Last Supper in Galilee



what the mind invents the stomach detaches

*

january 15 1679

St. Bridget's tooth deposited in vaults of Vouvray Cathedral



at its most liquid occurrence the sentence is not an ocean
but the movement of a female wave into paternity

*

january 16 984

Herstmonceaux castle destroyed



art should always intend to be wrong

*

Thursday 9 am




art exists because a postman brings it
art stays alive because the dustman takes it away

*

january 18 1392

Hippocentaur found preserved in honey



once upon a time
twice inside a space

*

january 19




what poetry is

inner tension
in attention

what poetry isnt

*

january 20




eden

the tree which isnt me
becomes a mystery i cannot understand and so
i know it

*

january 12 1298

Marcus Herennius struck by lightning



the best way to become yourself is to stop being who you are

*

january 22 1976

Theophrastus invents the sea-pen



consider the page not as a space but as a death occurring in
the gap between
'writing' and 'wanting to say'

*

january 23




writing speaks to itself through those silences and losses writing never is
thereby it both requests and requestions the thing it wants to be

*

january 25




i think the head is the place where i am not destined to place me
and i think the book is where i do not think this disappears

*

january 26



consider each book to be a failed body then read the bible
on the premise that authentic sex is not between a man and a woman
bu between the eyes and the ears

*

january 27 1705

Henry Mill invents the typewriter



the writer writes
the reader writes upon the writers writing
the writer reads

*

january 29




where being kills becoming
what does it mean to be able to breath

*

january 30 1824

Charlie Chaplin born



napoleon is dead
bu a poem is a relationship spelled relationship

*

january 31




grammar is skeletal
words are glandular

*

february 1 211 b.c.




the essence of the sign is to be a margin emerging

*

february 2 1501

First traces of morcrocastebazasasteverestegigeligoscopapondrillation detected in morderegripippiatabirofreluchambureluraquelurintimpaniments



no word is a freeing word

*

february 3 1804

Anselm, Bishop of Lucca, assumes the name of Alexander



one names to attract and one attracts to effect dispersal
dropping a name abandons a way of thinking

*







sound always
listens to the thinkers listening

*

february 5 1809

Milton enters Blake through right foot during visitation at Felpham



ex pression (something set free)
im pression (something free sets in)

*







dont weigh each word
weigh each letter

*

Thursday




nothing clear
everything significant
something equivalent

*

february 8 1936

Dawn Napuamahalaonaaonekawehionakuahiweanawawakehoonkakehoaalekeeaonanainanaike' Hawaiikawao Lee born



instead of letting books represent your life
let your life be a performance of your books

*

8 pm




the slow eye rarely admires

*

february 11 1643 b.c.




beyond reason is dialectic
beyond dialectic is dialect

*

february 12 1598

Francis Bacon writes The Tempest



meanings are what we alter
truth what we displace

*

Friday night

Becketts Godot first performed



the reader is always the one who waits

*

february 14

Price of Good Housekeeping magazine raised to seventy-five cents



if you must praise something praise that with which you disagree

*

february 15




answer a critic this way

it may be bad bu it sure aint beautiful

*

february 16 389 b.c.

Priscian convicted of sodomy



be synecdochically passive and let your part sleep for your whole

*

Wednesday

Mary Davis sets all women non-stop talking record (one hundred and ten hours and thirty-one minutes



speech is always spoken beyond the speaker
the i who is speaking now is the one who is spoken
me too

being the one who is spoken i can speak this
me too

the three of us

*

february 18




because (it) is meaningful
'it' never is

*

5:36 pm




language confesses its own guilt the moment language reveals itself
as a circular parallel
from white of page to white eye

*

february 20 1321




language

the death from and
the death into

*

february 21




are the words you read
the same as the words you see

*

february 22 1508




the mirror 'is' when 'the mirror' disappears

*

february 23 1900




writing is the peril of the present until
a thought into a wrist becomes
a wrist into a loss

*

february 24

The Breville Sandwich Toaster invented




what can't be grasped might be already gripped

*

february 26 1451




why be simple when you must be complicated

*

11 pm (for Rafael)




every book becomes three books

the book of the reader
the book of the writer and

the book of the written

*

february 28 1234




art is ignorance
bu the trajectory of ignorance is extension
so if you dont know something
then you know theres something that you dont know

*

march 1 1897




every something is a somewhere

*

march 2

Samuel Taylor Coleridge dies in Highgate



there are no schools are no movements
simply techniques for living

*

march 3 1767




where:
tiger = liberty
washing = reading
laundry = poetry
woolmongers = biography
personality = disappearance

he who rides a tiger can't dismount
he who can't dismount must keep on washing
he who keeps on washing makes straight for the laundry
he who makes straight for the laundry tires of woolmongers
he who tires of woolmongers completes his personality

*

march 4




language as poetry
poetry as action
action as futility
futility as utility + f
f as freedom

*

march 5 1918




outlive the outline

not listening
not speaking
not closing

not opening
not coming
not going

*

march 6




inspiration leads to bad breath

*

march 7 1934

Kenneth LeBel jumps seventeen consecutive barrels



equivalence:

destiny
destiny

*

8:45 pm




words:
the moment the heart stops the movement the voice begins

*

march 9 1328




the fool in the poet
the key in the door
the lock around the lock

*

march 10 1754




solitude (the one that writing is)
is a dialogue between two mirrors

one mirror in a space
the other on a point

*

march 11 1894

Graf Zeppelin II dismantled



to read the road you must first park the book

*

march 12 1529

Charlie Chaplin dies



performance is merely where the book changes its name

*

Tuesday




define writing as the reinvention of words
define reading as the obsolescence of the reinvention

*







errata:

for 'speech preserves the power of the speaker'

read: 'you made me speak and now the word is in your mouth'

*

march 16 1902

Franco Prussian Alliance formed



do something predictable and respect most the things you no longer believe in

*

march 18 1923

Frank Sinatra baptized



to be rooted in anything
one must be rotated in something

*

march 19




great poems are read from the bottom up

*

march 20




to ground yourself in words always lean against your reading
and balance on the weight of what you dont know

*

Saturday

Thomas Hardy observed on southern edge of Exmoor



the reader is always destined for a writing as part of the cosm(et)ic rule
of illegibility

*

march 23 1877




to write that the cloud is the rains answer to itself
is to read how the rain is the clouds other question

*

march 24




write to neutralize
read to infect

*

march 25

Coleridge found dead again



unthink the thinkable

*

march 26 1731

Agriculture first developed



one writes to forget one shits

*

march 27




syntax sublimates the violence that every single verb might whisper
but that I might noun you

is a frame

*

march 28 1689

South Africa introduces apartheid



provide the context and the concept will always happen

*

march 31 2 pm




there is no voice and yet there is no silence
because writing always hears itself
as the sound of its place
there here of its herd

*

april 1




the first word is always two words

*

april 2 1839

World's first fully steerable radio telescope installed at Dwingello



in actual seeing a thing do you construct a barrier to saying it?

*

april 3 1266




tongues
then words
then abstract ruins
then materials

*

april 4 1578




dont struggle to name the thing but to move all things into naming
then struggle to remove all naming by finding a placement for the eye inside the mouth
remaining nameless

*

april 5




the facets of the eye must engineer all objects into parts
to disconnect them from their loss of fact in class

*







words which follow words leave unnecessary spaces

*







there are four moments to the mouth that speaks:
a theory of saliva
the moment of sound
the praxis of refusal
and a memory of shape

*

april 7 1006




anything this is is this

*

april 9 1760

Beatles first recording



ending a sentence ends an epoch

*

april 9

JF Kennedy assassinated



when the brain tires of image it invents itself

*

april 11

John Cage destroys the concept of silence



saying the word the

hearing the word word

*

april 11 1699

Dryden's MacFlecknoe published



first define good writing as a form of bad reading
then earn the right to write

*

april 12 1815 5:22 pm




the disappearance of the write will be the earth's last geographical event

*

7:46 pm

Adolph Hitler born



the worst has passed and the rest has also been

*

april 14




writing allows us to forget
reading allows us to forget that we've forgot

*

april 15




a dull mind is always preceded by a bright larynx

*

april 16




music should be seen and not heard

*

april 17 1168

Sextus Aelius complete the Tripartita Treatise



with reading you absorb tradition
with writing you destroy it

*







undergo to overcome
bu stand under to understand

*

april 19 1953




to laugh is to reach equivalence

*

6:35 pm




if the face is an energy
then the mirror is a tool

*

5:42 am




never read
never write
always continue to learn