Upon reviewing the expanse of work that our class has covered in the last seven weeks for the midterm, I decided to give Gertrude Stein another chance. This time I kept in mind what one classmate mentioned about reading her aloud and did so. I found myself closing my eyes and paying close attention to the movements of my teeth and tongue and lips, as if my eyes had sunk down into my uvula and I were watching a very surreal movie. After studying Hindi for a few months abroad, I have a new found awareness for the capacities of my mouth with language and I have to thank Gertrude Stein for giving me back the feeling that language is a beautiful thing and not something ever to be taken for granted. The movements of your mouth during her poems seem far more important than the subject. During my reading I often found that sometimes she cares so much about repeating a oral movement that she scrambles the meaning of a sentence to do so:
"Bidding a wedding, widening received treading, little leading mention nothing."
"Cough out cough out in the leather and really feather it is not for."
So, thanks Ms. Stein, for your seemingly nonsensical poetry!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment