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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 31, 2019
I don’t know what I just read, but what I saw... Night dreamscapes akin to the most rapturous feelings I remember books like Goodnight Moon conjuring when I was a child. Palmer lives between worlds.
October 11, 2007
Michael Palmer's book At Passages explores many of the unspeakable threads tangled across human minds. As I read the book, I was consistently absorbed in the lush sonic landscape and ethereal imagery, but was simultaneously unnerved by the circuitous progression of individual pieces and the unhinged resolution hovering in the atmosphere. Palmer's work possesses an emotional echo that is left to accrue at a point of the reader's determination. "Passages" suggests a liminal boundary between what can be expressed in language, and what is unutterable. The book is merely a textual realization of the relationship between the poet and his reader, a sort of catalog of the ineffable experience of poetry.
Many gestures concerning the nature of meaning are suspended throughout the pages. Palmer's work is vested with an aleatory quality that urges the reader to question the poetic landscape - is it the reader's duty to forge meaning from the lovely assemblage of sound and images, or is the intention of active meaning-making altogether unsuited for a writing style such as Palmer's? For me, the book intends to evoke in the reader a distinct psychological sensation, but the textures of free-association make attributing any specific meaning problematic. Sorry for all the abstractions. I very much enjoyed the book, but find myself rhetorically stumbling in describing Palmer's writing.
Color resonates throughout the pages, particularly a trope of blue. In the poem "Untitled (March '93)," Palmer writes, "the false sky has never been this blue / and by blue I mean a specific blue / made of letters I forget- / call it this or that" (77). I sense the speaker demonstrating a signifier-signified dichotomy (word blue v. color blue), though the gesture is not quite this simplistic. Blue is merely a word symbol given to an infinite number of shades of blue; there are no two blues. But in general, we are able to collectively recognize that an item, such as the sky, is blue, and not another color. A supposedly universal color eventually collides with individual perception: is your blue a different tint, or a different intensity, than mine? I will never experience your blue, and you will never experience mine. The further one explores a given trope in At Passages, the gulf between individual consciousnesses is more fully illustrated.
Palmer's use of language is inventive, but at many points he exposes language's inability to translate across human minds. In the book's opening poem, the speaker admits, "helpless letters- / what else- pouring from that box, / little gaps, rattles and slants" (3). The soft stream of "s" consonance mimics the motion of pouring, and the assonance in "gaps, rattles and slants" suggest words trickling over indescribable debris. Palmer's sound creates for me a musical pleasure that is an end in itself. Leo Spitzer, in his essay "Linguistics and Literary History," writes, "language is only one outward crystallization of the inward form" (18). Spitzer's brief summation implies that language is effectively incapable of describing itself, and one can find fulfillment in the sensory pleasure of words themselves. Though defining meaning is troublesome, and oftentimes futile, the actuality of linguistic beauty is manifested throughout Palmer's elegant verse.
Many gestures concerning the nature of meaning are suspended throughout the pages. Palmer's work is vested with an aleatory quality that urges the reader to question the poetic landscape - is it the reader's duty to forge meaning from the lovely assemblage of sound and images, or is the intention of active meaning-making altogether unsuited for a writing style such as Palmer's? For me, the book intends to evoke in the reader a distinct psychological sensation, but the textures of free-association make attributing any specific meaning problematic. Sorry for all the abstractions. I very much enjoyed the book, but find myself rhetorically stumbling in describing Palmer's writing.
Color resonates throughout the pages, particularly a trope of blue. In the poem "Untitled (March '93)," Palmer writes, "the false sky has never been this blue / and by blue I mean a specific blue / made of letters I forget- / call it this or that" (77). I sense the speaker demonstrating a signifier-signified dichotomy (word blue v. color blue), though the gesture is not quite this simplistic. Blue is merely a word symbol given to an infinite number of shades of blue; there are no two blues. But in general, we are able to collectively recognize that an item, such as the sky, is blue, and not another color. A supposedly universal color eventually collides with individual perception: is your blue a different tint, or a different intensity, than mine? I will never experience your blue, and you will never experience mine. The further one explores a given trope in At Passages, the gulf between individual consciousnesses is more fully illustrated.
Palmer's use of language is inventive, but at many points he exposes language's inability to translate across human minds. In the book's opening poem, the speaker admits, "helpless letters- / what else- pouring from that box, / little gaps, rattles and slants" (3). The soft stream of "s" consonance mimics the motion of pouring, and the assonance in "gaps, rattles and slants" suggest words trickling over indescribable debris. Palmer's sound creates for me a musical pleasure that is an end in itself. Leo Spitzer, in his essay "Linguistics and Literary History," writes, "language is only one outward crystallization of the inward form" (18). Spitzer's brief summation implies that language is effectively incapable of describing itself, and one can find fulfillment in the sensory pleasure of words themselves. Though defining meaning is troublesome, and oftentimes futile, the actuality of linguistic beauty is manifested throughout Palmer's elegant verse.
February 9, 2018
პალმერის პოეზიას მიზანი არ გააჩნია - ლექსი ისეთი კოდებით არის აგებული, რომ ტექსტი არსად მიემართება, მიზნის ნიშანი არ აქვს, არადა პოეტი მოგზაურობს, თან ყველაზე რთულ წერტილში - ენაში. ხაოებითა და გლუვი სითხით სავსე წერტილში, სადაც რასაკვრიველია კომპასის გარეშე სიარული სახიფათოა, თუმცა ყველაფერი რიგზეა, პალმერი ენაში დაფარფატებს, როგორც პეპელა.
ვიტგენშტაინი ამბობდა, ჩემი ფილსოფია დამარცხებული პოეზიაო, პალმერის პოეზია კი დამარცხებული ფილოსოფიაა.
ვიტგენშტაინი ამბობდა, ჩემი ფილსოფია დამარცხებული პოეზიაო, პალმერის პოეზია კი დამარცხებული ფილოსოფიაა.
December 7, 2010
To me, this book is an attempt to show the futility in description. No matter what is written, there are other perspectives, other narratives, other ideas that can either agree, enhance, or refute the original words. Throughout many of the poems, the speaker is simply describing myriad events, dreams, stories, often sharing similar elements: a word, a phrase, an allusion, a tone. Palmer is very interested in lists and numbers, and in that sense, the book feels like a catalogue of descriptions. This feeling is enhanced for example by the section titles: "Seven Poems Within a Matrix for War" and "Three Russian Songs."
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January 7, 2013811.54 P1752a 1995
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews