Texture Notes

by Sawako Nakayasu

Poetry. Asian American Studies. Is there a relationship between the population density of Tokyo and the pinkest part of a hamburger? Can one touch the inside of a noun to learn the difference between one bicycle and a field of bicycles? How close is yellow to need? How far are human fears from the fears of insects? Through a sequence of prose investigations, directions, theoretical performances, and character sketches, Sawako Nakayasu's TEXTURE NOTES presses itself against everything. Here is a book of liminal cartography, where textures are percolated by thought and propelled by feeling, where intellectual frottage meets sunlight, moonlight, the pain of seeing something beautiful and an entire town enamored by a simple rock. Once again, Nakayasu's writing explodes with genre-bending fury and fine-tuned improvisation, leaving in its wake a largess of feeling for the things of the world.

Genres: Poetry, Fiction

109 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2010

About the author

SAWAKO NAKAYASU's books include So we have been given time Or, (Verse, 2004) Nothing fictional but the accuracy or arrangement (she, (forthcoming from Quale Press, 2005) and Clutch (Tinfish chapbook, 2002). Find more info here: http://www.factorial.org/sn/sn_home.html

Reviews

[S P · Rating 5 out of 5]

'The weak texture of the air changing as a train pulls away from its station and a hollow develops, a delayed breeze takes hold, and the uneven bonds of the neighborhood shimmy into place.

A stronger texture of reason, or texture of the reason why I didn't get on that train, or texture of a frame-by-frame rendering of the thought process leading to the decision to not get on the train, coupled with a late, too late, arrival, large bags in tow or some such excuse. What heaps up against both sides of the closing train doors.'

('9.17.2003', p55)

[Brian]

5.28.2003

True and false.

A young girl takes a running start, dives headfirst into a pile of bright orange flowers. Regardless of whether she is witnessed, documented, or none of the above, the fact remains:

Her profile, laughing like champagne, on a street corner gas station in the heart of suburbia, at the corner of a Class 1 Arterial (Stevens Creek Blvd.) and Class 2 Arterial (Bubb Rd.), 1LT, 2TH, 1RT, the fumes are nasty, the flowers are hasty in the corner, her hair flung back and we all know it as an urban miracle, camera and its frame, flowers and their limits, head first or no. [97]

🔈His Name Is Alive Mouth By Mouth

[Jared Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

I gather, and gather, and gather, but once the spilling sets in again I fold into the nearest ocean - in order to let the spilling be even, in order to be fair, to be fast, to be true - hence the need to live near oceans.

[juch · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I said in status update (great!) but the preoccupation w fatness kinda weird
Lots of slicing too which was cool
Liked when trains came up too. Public transit is very textured exp

[Kent · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are so many ways to acknowledge texture, or to mark something then call it texture, which is what I would say Nakayasu does exceptionally well. She exceeds the individuality of individual moments. and pursues the viability of interconnecting them, their relation to some other part of the world and/or each other. And it’s her enterprise to shape whatever the texture necessary to hold seemingly arbitrary or naturally related elements. “All together,” I might say, but in a tone of voice that feels like Ferdinand de Saussure’s arbitrariness connecting word and thing the word signifies. Why? Or, as Nakayasu might rephrase it, “Why not?” Because all the items in the world, considered with enough imaginative breadth, have the capacity to be of and with and “all together” with one another. And her proclivity to combine feels like a virtuosic performance. She understands. She will make understanding into a branching operation that draws all that needs to be in the web into the web.

Think of the word “consistency,” and its relation to “all together.” And I mean “consistency” both in the sense of someone arguing with you, who you hope will show “consistency,” because then you can have a reasonable conversation. And I’m thinking of “consistency,” as the milk that, gratefully, showed a favorable “consistency” this morning.

If it’s not clear at this point, my impulse in writing about Nakayasu’s book is to show how her poems expand the terms of the conversation while also keeping the terms tethered to a central point. And, reading Nakayasu, that feels like a very exciting impulse. Because she can make a “consistency,” or texture of what feels like any number of intervals that currently exist among worldly objects. Hold the gag reflex, but a couple poems address the consistency of vomit, and the texture it presses onto the moment. And then another poem addresses the two very different experiences of someone who’s a “conductor,” whether of musical ensemble or train. One of my favorites though is the texture of a man eating a sliced out portion of the photograph of a hand cutting a bite of strawberry shortcake, where the sliced out portion is an actual human hand, and the man registers how disgusting it is to eat another human.

I say “ABSOLUTELY YES” to the wildly disassociated objects tied together by virtue of the poem. But I also vote yes for the poems that think through radically objective description, the tenor of that voice, what it means to have only the mildest personal interaction with the dissociations. And I vote yes for the poems that carry the intimately subjective account of a day or night’s events. It’s the nature of “all together,” “consistency,” and “texture” together because they were experienced by the poet. And they relish the many combinations a poem can accomplish as they relate the feel and sensibility of the individual moments.

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The prose poems of Texture Notes read like journal entries. In fact, rather than titled they are dated. The order is curious... Rather than order them chronologically, Nakayasu has ordered the prose poems by day (disregarding month and year altogether)...

Texture of a field of fried umbrellas.

They are arranged so neatly that one wonders if there are small children beneath them, holding hands so as to keep the rows intact and the columns true, in spite of whatever kind of weather may come. Enough fresh oil was used in the frying of these umbrellas that theoretically they should repel any sort of fluid which takes a shot at the field, and in fact this is true, but the unfortunate inherent shape of umbrellas encourages the rain to slip inside the crevices between one umbrella and another, getting the toes of the children wet, whether they are there or not.

- 4.6.2004, pg. 9

*

Ice Cubes fighting to stay in the game.

Thrown into a glass of tap water with no get-out-of-jail pass. Too buoyant to lay low, in the cooler bottom region where the end might come more slowly. They stare blankly upon the condensation on the other side. Afloat, helpless, at the top, in the heat, no chance of getting over the lip.

Watching everyone else let go.

- 9.12.2003, pg. 31

*

A trail of anything - insects, hamburgers, bicycles, popsicles, miniature lightning bolts, road maps - anything, all of it, all lines up insidiously, all imagining the small of my back, envisioning it, bare, exposed to the light, sunlight, moonlight, halogen, fluorescent, all of it - seeing it, wanting it, nearing, fighting for, quietly, no - silently, crowding, my small, and -

- 9.19.2003, pg. 61

*

On any given day there will be any number of people who will have been standing in the train in a stance of upstanding embrace. With or without their knowledge or consent, these people become the epicenter of the forthcoming compression. If there are no such pairs of people, the forthcoming compression shall be uniform.

When the compression finally comes forth, allow for the bodies to settle, before measuring the resulting thickness. Measure the authenticity. Measure the artifice. Remove the artifice.

The giant shall not be held responsible for the removal of the artifice.

- 5.28.2003, pg. 95

[Renee Morales · Rating 5 out of 5]

if lyn hejinian (who is already great) were even better.

"The pain of seeing something beautiful."

nakayasu is nothing short of brilliant and bodily and surprising

[Cynthia Arrieu-King · Rating 4 out of 5]

Each small prose text/prose poem/assessment of a texture in this book is headed with a date, ostensibly the day it was written. The pieces are not arranged chronologically, which brings out the actual shape, emphasis, fantasy, conceptualism of each object poem. The object seems to telegraph some attitude about consuming, eating, size, containment, and people being lost against the texture of other people. Requires and rewards an alert reading. Feels very much in the world, more dedicated to metaphor than to an agenda or a narrative. Fine stuff.

[Virginia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Prose poems, about texture of all kinds: physical, emotional. This book challenged me. The poetry is far outside what I would ever write, outside what I usually read. I made sure to read only one at a time, to carry them with me and think about them - even(especially) the ones I didn't like. It was good to learn from them. Recommended for small nibbles, for bite-sized adventures.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love this chick. Spry little volume peering out at unexpected angles of language: "Texture of a field of fried umbrellas." I remember reading this book alone at lunch on work days at a little sit-down sushi restaurant on the corner of 17th and Telegraph in Oakland.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

9.13.2004
9.15.2003
11.15.2003
6.18.2003

[Paco · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good, fresh, contemporary poetry that is fun and different.

[Leia Penina · Rating 5 out of 5]

LOVE.