Story

by Bernadette Mayer

Genres: Poetry

37 pages, Mimeo book/side-stapled

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

Bernadette Mayer (born May 12, 1945) is an American poet, writer, and visual artist associated with both the Language poets and the New York School. Mayer's record-keeping and use of stream-of-consciousness narrative are two trademarks of her writing, though she is also known for her work with form and mythology. In addition to the influence of her textual-visual art and journal-keeping, Mayer's poetry is widely acknowledged as some of the first to speak accurately and honestly about the experience of motherhood. Mayer edited the journal 0 TO 9 with Vito Acconci, and, until 1983, United Artists books and magazines with Lewis Warsh. Mayer taught at the New School for Social Research, where she earned her degree in 1967, and, during the 1970s, she led a number of workshops at the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church in New York. From 1980 to 1984, Mayer served as director of the Poetry Project, and her influence in the contemporary avant-garde is felt widely, with writers like Kathy Acker, Charles Bernstein, John Giorno, and Anne Waldman having sat in on her workshops.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[J.I. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like a lot of Language poets, Mayer will confound most readers. She is not easy to read. Yet she is delightful. In Story, there are 14 different stories, which you will begin to pick at as you read. You will read of 2 of 5, who killed their father and cuddles the mother, and you will hear for 14, who has the strength of 14 men, but also the appetite of 14 men. You will get lists (of all the different kinds of stories, of kitchen utensils, of things that fall), and you will get it all in a muddle. You see, these 14 stories are impossible to really know. Each sentence is alone, and the whole mix of sentences is muddled together. Sometimes a story will flow chronologically, sometimes not. And any two sentences can be any two stories, without rhyme or reason.

So why is this good? Because the incongruities and matches feel right. Because as you do the work of constructing meaning, you grow to love the language, to focus on the flow and rhythm of it, even as you find some sort of narrative meaning. It is one of those pieces that somehow manages to elude meaning even while creating it, and the pleasure is the work.

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

 In the slightest degree one of these begins to be oppo-
site the other and every thing does the following: with little
above more below and much still lower it is closer to one of
these than it is to the other and each thing does this: it pre-
sents the other thing.

 Anecdote
 A chance to cut, fold, wrap, and tie.
 One day was the day to start, that day only in the sun,
rain, snow, hail, sleet, or shade.

 Portfolio
 A fall may make ends meet -- the head meets with the foot
or the head with the end of the street, anyway it's a way of
ending up or down.

 Life Story
 To start.
 The formation of these things.
 Since the end is here or makes an appearance, this or
another one will come again later, if it could when once is
enough but since probably it must -- it's end to end.
 After a while a struggle stops.

 ***

night, or, I made a day falling down, or, I fell having fallen
twice before, but not, I fell apart.
 Dancers on the stage don't fall but buildings do.
 This as well as that has its things bound within those.
 I stumbled at times due to things.
 The feminine of this, dresses fall.
 One of those as to the effect of that will explain this.
 On one thing, over one, and then, on account of none but
because of something made up in the mind.
 To be or do in the slightest degree.
 Estates fall.

 Scenario
 We all live under some of this and that.

 Saga
 The first of five makes a waterfall and a trap: it calls
to him when it becomes full.

 Love Story
 Which is an engine and which is a stone?
 One of those (or more than one, of more than one of those
things).
 Eyes fall.
 Now, thirty-two of those under that doubles that thing
since...
 His bales of sliced smoked salmon roll along behind him
(the first of five), knocking him down.

 To cause to start.
 It could only be shown with pictures -- in its original
sense, and not shown in another sense, other than the sense
of the mind's eye -- which is which.
 Not in the original sense, faces fall.
 ...a thing of this, thirty-two of those in that is equal
in that other to the thing of one of these.
 Things fall through a hole in his pack, until he patches
it.

 Fiction
 For three hundred years people may have done this,
Stumbled, perhaps for a longer time.
 In another sense.
 An inside thing, glances fall.
 To commence.
 At this of thirty-two of these, then, anyone is under
that thing of two of those -- that of this, and of one of those
of that thing equal to it.
 He roasts cabbage in hot ashes, and sends them out to
people whose relationships are ended.
 But, that many years ago, a person did fall perhaps more
than once or even three or four times.
 An outline or shape, as of the human body.
 Governments fall.
 At sixty-four of these he is under that thing of three
of course, and so on.
 He models girls from bark.

 On a thing then, over one, or simply because of one,
whether real or imaginary.
 Leaves fall.
 That of one of these is always added for every thirty-two
of those of that other.
 He pretends to die, and is buried with his face exposed.

 Lie
 Orange upholstered pouf chair.
 Some things are still and still they show.
 For example, a tree.
 To cause to come into being.
 Meeting fall.
 There is a great thing in that of those.
 The girls walk over him (he modeled them).
 Enameled metal desk lamp.
 Where is there one?
 To originate.
 News falls.
 Some of these live at a great one of those and find this
and that genial to them.
 He arrives and wants to sleep with them.
 A setting into motion of some action, process, or course:
as, to begin this or that.
 Laminated wood rocker, leather seat.
 A tree lasts for many years.
 On the side, poems fall into two categories: these and
those.

Read the full text here: eclipsearchive.org

[Megan Friedman · Rating 4 out of 5]

“he pretends to die and is buried with his face exposed”