With so much of my knowledge of literature I was taught by my brother, Tom. In an April 26, 2003 note from him, he wrote:
“Hey . . . you Metaphysical degenerates . . . Bantered alone by impulse . . . Here I am attempting to essay a few coherent thoughts . . . God it’s risky! ‘God and the imagination are one.’
I am in the midst of trying to memorize a poem . . . ‘Final Soliloquy of The Interior Paramour’ by Wallace Stevens . . . never mind why.”
Tom goes on to write about a piece by George Steiner on memorization amid the technological revolution where media is ubiquitous:
“The danger is that the text or music will lose what physics calls its ‘critical mass,’ its implosive powers within the echo chambers of the self.”
He continued — “I can really be in awe of Shakespearean stage people in recitation of exact lines!! Read closely . . .”
Our wills and fates do so contrary run that our devices still are overthrown: our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own. (The Player King’s Crucial Speech in the Play Within the Play — Act 3, Scene 2, 183-209-Hamlet)
I probably don’t need to tell you that Tom never memorized the Wallace poem.
Final Soliloquy Of The Interior Paramour
Light the first light of evening, as in a room In which we rest and, for small reason, think The world imagined is the ultimate good.
This is, therefore, the intensest rendezvous. It is in that thought that we collect ourselves, Out of all the indifferences, into one thing:
Within a single thing, a single shawl Wrapped tightly round us, since we are poor, a warmth, A light, a power, the miraculous influence.
Here, now, we forget each other and ourselves. We feel the obscurity of an order, a whole, A knowledge, that which arranged the rendezvous.
Within its vital boundary, in the mind. We say God and the imagination are one… How high that highest candle lights the dark.
Out of this same light, out of the central mind, We make a dwelling in the evening air, In which being there together is enough.
She sang beyond the genius of the sea.
The water never formed to mind or voice,
Like a body wholly body, fluttering
Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion
Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry,
That was not ours although we understood,
Inhuman, of the veritable ocean.
The sea was not a mask. No more was she.
The song and water were not medleyed sound
Even if what she sang was what she heard,
Since what she sang was uttered word by word.
It may be that in all her phrases stirred
The grinding water and the gasping wind;
But it was she and not the sea we heard.
— from The Idea of Order at Key West by Wallace Stevens (Click Here To Read The Complete Poem)
“I am in the midst of ‘trying’ to memorize a poem . . .
‘Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour’ by Wallace Stevens . . .
never mind why . . .
although the exercise was triggered by a piece by
George Steiner in which he wrote:
‘The danger is that the text or music will lose what physics
calls its ‘critical mass,’ its implosive powers within
the echo chambers of the self.'”
Tom was aware that what is committed to memory
and susceptible to recall constitutes “The Blast of The Self,”
an intensity of outward attention — interest, curiosity,
a healthy obsession was a motivation stronger
even than love or hatred or fear.
— kenne
Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour
Light the first light of evening, as in a room
In which we rest and, for small reason, think The world imagined is the ultimate good.
This is, therefore, the intensest rendezvous. It is in that thought that we collect ourselves, Out of all the indifferences, into one thing:
Within a single thing, a single shawl Wrapped tightly round us, since we are poor, a warmth, A light, a power, the miraculous influence.
Here, now, we forget each other and ourselves. We feel the obscurity of an order, a whole, A knowledge, that which arranged the rendezvous.
Within its vital boundary, in the mind. We say God and the imagination are one… How high that highest candle lights the dark.
Out of this same light, out of the central mind, We make a dwelling in the evening air, In which being there together is enough.
“The final belief is to believe in a fiction,
which you know to be a fiction, there being nothing else.
The exquisite truth is to know that it is a fiction
and that you believe in it willingly.”
”The genuine artist is never “true to life.”
He sees what is real,
but not as we are normally aware of it.
We do not go storming through life
like actors in a play. Art is never real life.”
Butterfly on Rainbow Flowers — Computer Art by kenne
”The genuine artist is never
‘true to life.’
He sees what is real,
but not as we are normally aware of it.
We do not go storming through life like
actors in a play.
Art is never real life.”
The Sea of Cortas — Image by kenne
Fenceline: “The Look of Things, Left What We Felt” — Image by kenne
Male Eastern Bluebird in Sabino Canyon — Image by kenne
An Aspen Fall — Photo-Artistry by kenne
Bird On A Stick — Photo-Artistry by kenne
Grasshopper Bouquet — Photo-Artistry be kenne
Rose Lake, Santa Catalina Mountains — Digital Art by kenne
Desert Hibiscus — Image by kenne
Fall Colors II — Computer Art by kenne
A trail near Rose Canyon Lake in the Santa Catalina Mountains — Computer Painting by kenne
“Moccasin” — Beetle Paths Art by kenne
Butterfly on Rainbow Flowers — Computer Art by kenne
Becoming is Superior to Being 