The Knossian Oracles – Yours Truly

If I may take a moment to talk about something I made.

Let me introduce The Knossian Oracles. It is a verse book, one written over a number of years, that I have now brought out for the world to see. I tried for a couple of years to get it published the normal way, but to no luck. (Something not unexpected: for example, its size eliminates most presses right off the bat.) So I self-published through CreateSpace, and put the whole of it online for anyone to read. And that is the point, no? Readers?

What is The Knossian Oracles? Here is the description I am using on the Amazon page:

 

The Knossian Oracles is a journey in the traditions of myth and magic; in the erotic; in literary fantasy; and in poetic invention. Its themes rest heavily in the esoteric: from alchemy to mysticism, to traditions of witchcraft and the occult, and to myth, tapping many sources, but especially the tales of Daedalus and Pasiphäe, Theseus and Ariadne. However, while the book is woven from literary fantasy, the thread that unifies it is the characters of a contemporary man and woman. Through those characters and their many incarnations, The Knossian Oracles explores (what may be) its central theme: the hieros gamos, the union of the eternal masculine and eternal feminine. As an erotic work it takes up in words what is an important theme in the plastic arts: the female form. And it is not false to call The Knossian Oracles a meditation on beauty. Some may even say it is best described as a love poem in long form, though that may be putting to the fore what is an inevitable current within all the previous. Though, with The Knossian Oracles, how can you begin to distinguish what in the above is current and what is river?

While The Knossian Oracles is constituted of eighty-three “fragments” plus the seven part poem that brings the work to a close, it has development and progression, scenes and characters. It is not, however, a novel-in-verse: it does not have a plot as found in a novel, nor is it uniform in style. The fragments vary greatly, from the formal to the experimental, from the lyrical to the narrative, from the very brief to the somewhat long. Creating a unity of these stylistically disparate and thematically ranging parts is one of the endeavors of the work. This is not a collection of verse. It is a book. And a book like none other.

 

It's a good description. I think it serves its purpose well. If you would like more information on the book, including something of an artist's statement, you can find it on the "About The Knossian Oracles" page [link] on my website. If you would like to go directly to the text and see what it is for yourself, then here is the first page [link].

It's a large book, as I said. There's much to peruse and explore. Fragment 29 is a gathering of witches in a wood. Fragment 64 gives us Pasiphäe after her meeting with the bull. Fragment 79 is a creation story of one type; fragment 15 is one of another. Fragment 43 brings the Song of Inanna to a living room couch. Fragment 35 brings William S. Burroughs to the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Fragment 27 is a meeting with the Sphinx. Fragment 55 with a spirit cat. If you read anything of it, read the closing section, And the Light Falls, Remir. It is the climax and perhaps the high point of the book. Though, keep in the mind the Oracles is, as said in the description, a book and not a collection, so not every fragment works on its own; and the greatest value is found when it is read as a whole. Nonetheless, I hope you enjoy it however you venture into it. Feel free to drop a line if you do.

 

Those links again:
     To: the "About" page
     To: the Title page

Update

It's been five months about since my last post. I've been very preoccupied by a large project that not only takes up all my time but also keeps my attentions and thought elsewhere. In truth, I've hardly been reading outside the project so there hasn't been much prompting toward new posts. So, for the time being, we'll consider the blog here on hiatus. I'll post if I happen upon something interesting to post; but I won't be actively searching for subject matter.

"A Bushel and a Peck"

Music and lyrics by Frank Loesser

 

two somethings worth two moments' thought

 

Something short; well, two somethings short, that have caught my mind recently, both about the lyrics to "A Bushel and a Peck."

The song is originally from the Broadway show Guys and Dolls. It is also a single by Doris Day, which is the version you presently here on television in a State Farm commercial. (Here's a Youtube of the song [link].)

 

My first thing:

The song plays with repeating phrases, with the repeated phrases opening up a new line. The commercial uses the second verse so I will too.

I love you a bushel and a peck A bushel and a peck though you make my heart a wreck Make my heart a wreck and you make my life a mess Make my life a mess, yes a mess of happiness

The question that always popped into my mind: what would happen, if anything, if I broke the lines up?

I love you A bushel and a peck A bushel and a peck Though you make my heart a wreck Make my heart a wreck And you make my life a mess Make my life a mess, Yes a mess of happiness

It might take some reading aloud to be able to read it without the music. For me there is a shift: the repeated lines now connect backwards instead of forwards. That is, where in the long lines the second "A bushel and a peck" is connected to "though you make my heart a wreck" (and it works whether its with the music or not), with the lines broken the second "A bushel and a peck" connects backwards, to the first use of the phrase. The second instance becomes an echo where before it was a leading in.

It's a little thing, but I find it interesting.

 

Second thing:

A bushel is only eight dry gallons, and a peck but two. So the song is saying the speaker loves the target of the song only as much as ten dry gallons. (Wikipedia tells me that a dry measure is about sixteen percent larger than its wet equivalent.)

That's not all that large an amount, really. Not when one might say "I love you tons." Yet the song works. Why? (Or maybe it no longer works for you now that you know just how big the measure is?) I believe the song works because it is not dependent on just how much the actual measure of a bushel and a peck is. Rather, the phrase "a bushel and a peck" is used merely as a lead in to other, greater things, like a life being a mess. A bushel and a peck must be representative of a lot if it is measured against a wrecked heart and a messed up life.

I find that interesting. The verse did not need to commit to large amounts to speak large amounts. It could use something relatively small, but a something that connects – through the aural play – to larger things.

"Orgy" by Muriel Rukeyser

From The Speed of Darkness (1968) as found in Collected Poems (2005)

"Orgy" is found on PoemHunter.com [link], but there is an error in the text there (see below)
 

First lines:
There were three of them that night.
They wanted it to happen in the first woman's room.

 

a reading of poetic eroticism

 

Taking a look this time at Muriel Rukeyser's "Orgy," presenting a reading of the verse.

But first a word first about Rukeyser's work in general. I purchased her Collected Poems two years ago, not because of any previous familiarity with Rukeyser but almost entirely on repeatedly coming across "you should know this person's work" mentions, and seeing a verse of hers (which I always enjoyed) here and there. Before purchasing the book I had read far more about her than by her. I'm not going to say I read through the whole of it one sitting. (It's a big book.) I still haven't read through it all, even after many sittings. But then it is normal for me with new collecteds to read at best half at first purchase (that half not necessarily being the first half) and saving the rest for future visits. I actually think it's a poor habit – at least for me – to read a large collected straight through. A collected is (usually) a gathering of multiple volumes, and when I read it through the latter parts of the book begin to loose the freshness of the first sections: that certain 'freshness' that can exist even at the tenth time of re-reading a book, if you but come to it clear of mind.

I am going to say, however, that you should know Rukeyser's work. It did not take much reading for me to be convinced of her talent, her skill, and her sophistication. After reading a decent chunk of the book – and I did a lot of hopping around, looking up texts I found mentioned online – I was ready to set Rukeyser on my very short list of major U.S., twentieth-century poets. Nothing I have read since has given me reason to bump her from that spot, and my confidence in keeping her there has only grown.

So I will pass it on to you: if you are serious about verse (about the best of U.S. poetry) you should know Muriel Rukeyser. Odds on, you will do far better spending money on her collected than you will on three or five or fifteen contemporary books.