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    The Best Word For The Job of Mourning by Jessica Baron Book Preview

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    Jessica Baron The Best Word for the Job of Mourning 9781935402442 " I’m always amazed at writing, and poetry in particular, that strives to speak directly the unsayable—madness or dream, call me a sucker. Perhaps, though I do not know, the things we know are the things that we don’t, that we keep learning, until we see what’s important slipping further away—what we knew all along we’d been taking for granted. The inevitable appears and, facing this, we apologize, and know it is nothing. Weeks arrive in that space, not knowing where they end, routine turns the measurement, and what you can do, despite all you do, is but watch: “To break down the body’s organs / one by one / as such attacks go / death toll was minor.” The excruciating slowness of this disappearing is not sublime. We’ll attend the other’s journey. Abject smallness, Jessica Baron’s The Best Word for the Job of Mourning and yet, obligation, responsibility, greater focus, this can open (it doesn’t always) like nothing else the possibility of settling ones debt—the whole impossibility of it—of comforting what did comfort—impossible, we do the work, all in spite of oneself. Not triumph, but something like it, and incoherent, we grope for our best way to fail: “pink new and sealed by imperfection.” In short, I guess, books are common. Many of them are smart. Books are gifts. But a book that is the giving of the gift; these are rare. Jessica Baron gives us one such book. —Jared Schickling, Author of Aurora (BlazeVOX, 2007) and Submissions (BlazeVOX, 2008) Jessica Baron realizes mourning’s best words refuse their own elegiac nature. In her long sequence death is present not as a shadowy realm from which the loved one will be recalled by the poet’s words; in this poetry death is a place of honest witness. That honesty, that death-bed honesty, is an inclusive one. Mourning here is no excuse to enter into the private self that sorrows, but more astonishingly, and more accurately, opens us to the world, removes boundaries that keep separate different aspects of life. Here death knocks down doors. There are the chores, there is the news, and death is what reminds us that we pay attention even when that capacity feels impossible. It is a way to honor the one dying—to note the world keeps interrupting death with its own impossible fact: here it is, here we are, that (as Jessica Baron says) “here I am. Taste.” —Dan Beachy-Quick, Author of A Whaler’s Dictionary (Milkweed Editions, 2008) and This Nest, Swift Passerine (Tupelo Press, 2009) Words, says Beckett, are underlined with silence. Baron urgently impels us to perform an archeology of ""mourning,"" and in so doing, to mourn with, for, and against the word, to rehearse the absence of any singular vocabulary that will do the work needed. To mourn is to act, and with Mallarmean strophic bursts, subtle clefts of negative space followed by litanies and lists and dissolving gestures and anxious searchings, the act is the appearance of its opposite, stillness. And here, in Baron's work, we sense that no matter the gesture, all is potentially excess, or inertness, in the job of addressing the terrible-ineffable. Via such careful maneuvers, Baron's The Best Word for the Job of Mourning turns reader into worker. We are both witness to and actors in the rehearsal of mourning, wherein page by page, each itself a day or an hour or a lifetime, words, or, for Beckett, memories, ""are killing."" Baron's The Best Word for the Job of Mourning complicates any understanding the reader may have of new lyricism: ""Hold on to...small seemingly...lines I cultivate disappearing"" follows “There’s something I’m supposed to be saying,” calling into question the distinction between the said and the written, the tonality of the upper register and the drumbeat of the colloquial, within the context of eulogy. The Best Word is falling houses and waterlogged instruments, submerged sound and wet score, air filling lungs for a last time in a struggle

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    The Best Word For The Job of Mourning by Jessica Baron Book Preview

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    Jessica Baron The Best Word for the Job of Mourning 9781935402442 " I’m always amazed at writing, and poetry in particular, that strives to speak directly the unsayable—madness or dream, call me a sucker. Perhaps, though I do not know, the things we know are the things that we don’t, that we keep learning, until we see what’s important slipping further away—what we knew all along we’d been taking for granted. The inevitable appears and, facing this, we apologize, and know it is nothing. Weeks arrive in that space, not knowing where they end, routine turns the measurement, and what you can do, despite all you do, is but watch: “To break down the body’s organs / one by one / as such attacks go / death toll was minor.” The excruciating slowness of this disappearing is not sublime. We’ll attend the other’s journey. Abject smallness, Jessica Baron’s The Best Word for the Job of Mourning and yet, obligation, responsibility, greater focus, this can open (it doesn’t always) like nothing else the possibility of settling ones debt—the whole impossibility of it—of comforting what did comfort—impossible, we do the work, all in spite of oneself. Not triumph, but something like it, and incoherent, we grope for our best way to fail: “pink new and sealed by imperfection.” In short, I guess, books are common. Many of them are smart. Books are gifts. But a book that is the giving of the gift; these are rare. Jessica Baron gives us one such book. —Jared Schickling, Author of Aurora (BlazeVOX, 2007) and Submissions (BlazeVOX, 2008) Jessica Baron realizes mourning’s best words refuse their own elegiac nature. In her long sequence death is present not as a shadowy realm from which the loved one will be recalled by the poet’s words; in this poetry death is a place of honest witness. That honesty, that death-bed honesty, is an inclusive one. Mourning here is no excuse to enter into the private self that sorrows, but more astonishingly, and more accurately, opens us to the world, removes boundaries that keep separate different aspects of life. Here death knocks down doors. There are the chores, there is the news, and death is what reminds us that we pay attention even when that capacity feels impossible. It is a way to honor the one dying—to note the world keeps interrupting death with its own impossible fact: here it is, here we are, that (as Jessica Baron says) “here I am. Taste.” —Dan Beachy-Quick, Author of A Whaler’s Dictionary (Milkweed Editions, 2008) and This Nest, Swift Passerine (Tupelo Press, 2009) Words, says Beckett, are underlined with silence. Baron urgently impels us to perform an archeology of ""mourning,"" and in so doing, to mourn with, for, and against the word, to rehearse the absence of any singular vocabulary that will do the work needed. To mourn is to act, and with Mallarmean strophic bursts, subtle clefts of negative space followed by litanies and lists and dissolving gestures and anxious searchings, the act is the appearance of its opposite, stillness. And here, in Baron's work, we sense that no matter the gesture, all is potentially excess, or inertness, in the job of addressing the terrible-ineffable. Via such careful maneuvers, Baron's The Best Word for the Job of Mourning turns reader into worker. We are both witness to and actors in the rehearsal of mourning, wherein page by page, each itself a day or an hour or a lifetime, words, or, for Beckett, memories, ""are killing."" Baron's The Best Word for the Job of Mourning complicates any understanding the reader may have of new lyricism: ""Hold on to...small seemingly...lines I cultivate disappearing"" follows “There’s something I’m supposed to be saying,” calling into question the distinction between the said and the written, the tonality of the upper register and the drumbeat of the colloquial, within the context of eulogy. The Best Word is falling houses and waterlogged instruments, submerged sound and wet score, air filling lungs for a last time in a struggle

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    Jessica Baron The Best Word for the Job of Mourning 9781935402442 " I’m always amazed at writing, and poetry in particular, that strives to speak directly the unsayable—madness or dream, call me a sucker. Perhaps, though I do not know, the things we know are the things that we don’t, that we keep learning, until we see what’s important slipping further away—what we knew all along we’d been taking for granted. The inevitable appears and, facing this, we apologize, and know it is nothing. Weeks arrive in that space, not knowing where they end, routine turns the measurement, and what you can do, despite all you do, is but watch: “To break down the body’s organs / one by one / as such attacks go / death toll was minor.” The excruciating slowness of this disappearing is not sublime. We’ll attend the other’s journey. Abject smallness, Jessica Baron’s The Best Word for the Job of Mourning and yet, obligation, responsibility, greater focus, this can open (it doesn’t always) like nothing else the possibility of settling ones debt—the whole impossibility of it—of comforting what did comfort—impossible, we do the work, all in spite of oneself. Not triumph, but something like it, and incoherent, we grope for our best way to fail: “pink new and sealed by imperfection.” In short, I guess, books are common. Many of them are smart. Books are gifts. But a book that is the giving of the gift; these are rare. Jessica Baron gives us one such book. —Jared Schickling, Author of Aurora (BlazeVOX, 2007) and Submissions (BlazeVOX, 2008) Jessica Baron realizes mourning’s best words refuse their own elegiac nature. In her long sequence death is present not as a shadowy realm from which the loved one will be recalled by the poet’s words; in this poetry death is a place of honest witness. That honesty, that death-bed honesty, is an inclusive one. Mourning here is no excuse to enter into the private self that sorrows, but more astonishingly, and more accurately, opens us to the world, removes boundaries that keep separate different aspects of life. Here death knocks down doors. There are the chores, there is the news, and death is what reminds us that we pay attention even when that capacity feels impossible. It is a way to honor the one dying—to note the world keeps interrupting death with its own impossible fact: here it is, here we are, that (as Jessica Baron says) “here I am. Taste.” —Dan Beachy-Quick, Author of A Whaler’s Dictionary (Milkweed Editions, 2008) and This Nest, Swift Passerine (Tupelo Press, 2009) Words, says Beckett, are underlined with silence. Baron urgently impels us to perform an archeology of ""mourning,"" and in so doing, to mourn with, for, and against the word, to rehearse the absence of any singular vocabulary that will do the work needed. To mourn is to act, and with Mallarmean strophic bursts, subtle clefts of negative space followed by litanies and lists and dissolving gestures and anxious searchings, the act is the appearance of its opposite, stillness. And here, in Baron's work, we sense that no matter the gesture, all is potentially excess, or inertness, in the job of addressing the terrible-ineffable. Via such careful maneuvers, Baron's The Best Word for the Job of Mourning turns reader into worker. We are both witness to and actors in the rehearsal of mourning, wherein page by page, each itself a day or an hour or a lifetime, words, or, for Beckett, memories, ""are killing."" Baron's The Best Word for the Job of Mourning complicates any understanding the reader may have of new lyricism: ""Hold on to...small seemingly...lines I cultivate disappearing"" follows “There’s something I’m supposed to be saying,” calling into question the distinction between the said and the written, the tonality of the upper register and the drumbeat of the colloquial, within the context of eulogy. The Best Word is falling houses and waterlogged instruments, submerged sound and wet score, air filling lungs for a last time in a struggle

    Copyright:

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    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    74 views9 pages

    The Best Word For The Job of Mourning by Jessica Baron Book Preview

    Uploaded by

    BlazeVOX [books]
    Jessica Baron The Best Word for the Job of Mourning 9781935402442 " I’m always amazed at writing, and poetry in particular, that strives to speak directly the unsayable—madness or dream, call me a sucker. Perhaps, though I do not know, the things we know are the things that we don’t, that we keep learning, until we see what’s important slipping further away—what we knew all along we’d been taking for granted. The inevitable appears and, facing this, we apologize, and know it is nothing. Weeks arrive in that space, not knowing where they end, routine turns the measurement, and what you can do, despite all you do, is but watch: “To break down the body’s organs / one by one / as such attacks go / death toll was minor.” The excruciating slowness of this disappearing is not sublime. We’ll attend the other’s journey. Abject smallness, Jessica Baron’s The Best Word for the Job of Mourning and yet, obligation, responsibility, greater focus, this can open (it doesn’t always) like nothing else the possibility of settling ones debt—the whole impossibility of it—of comforting what did comfort—impossible, we do the work, all in spite of oneself. Not triumph, but something like it, and incoherent, we grope for our best way to fail: “pink new and sealed by imperfection.” In short, I guess, books are common. Many of them are smart. Books are gifts. But a book that is the giving of the gift; these are rare. Jessica Baron gives us one such book. —Jared Schickling, Author of Aurora (BlazeVOX, 2007) and Submissions (BlazeVOX, 2008) Jessica Baron realizes mourning’s best words refuse their own elegiac nature. In her long sequence death is present not as a shadowy realm from which the loved one will be recalled by the poet’s words; in this poetry death is a place of honest witness. That honesty, that death-bed honesty, is an inclusive one. Mourning here is no excuse to enter into the private self that sorrows, but more astonishingly, and more accurately, opens us to the world, removes boundaries that keep separate different aspects of life. Here death knocks down doors. There are the chores, there is the news, and death is what reminds us that we pay attention even when that capacity feels impossible. It is a way to honor the one dying—to note the world keeps interrupting death with its own impossible fact: here it is, here we are, that (as Jessica Baron says) “here I am. Taste.” —Dan Beachy-Quick, Author of A Whaler’s Dictionary (Milkweed Editions, 2008) and This Nest, Swift Passerine (Tupelo Press, 2009) Words, says Beckett, are underlined with silence. Baron urgently impels us to perform an archeology of ""mourning,"" and in so doing, to mourn with, for, and against the word, to rehearse the absence of any singular vocabulary that will do the work needed. To mourn is to act, and with Mallarmean strophic bursts, subtle clefts of negative space followed by litanies and lists and dissolving gestures and anxious searchings, the act is the appearance of its opposite, stillness. And here, in Baron's work, we sense that no matter the gesture, all is potentially excess, or inertness, in the job of addressing the terrible-ineffable. Via such careful maneuvers, Baron's The Best Word for the Job of Mourning turns reader into worker. We are both witness to and actors in the rehearsal of mourning, wherein page by page, each itself a day or an hour or a lifetime, words, or, for Beckett, memories, ""are killing."" Baron's The Best Word for the Job of Mourning complicates any understanding the reader may have of new lyricism: ""Hold on to...small seemingly...lines I cultivate disappearing"" follows “There’s something I’m supposed to be saying,” calling into question the distinction between the said and the written, the tonality of the upper register and the drumbeat of the colloquial, within the context of eulogy. The Best Word is falling houses and waterlogged instruments, submerged sound and wet score, air filling lungs for a last time in a struggle

    Copyright:

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    of 9

    The Best Word

    for the Job of Mourning


    Jessica Baron

    BlazeVOX [books]
    Buffalo, New York

    The Best Word for the Job of Mourning by Jessica Baron Copyright 2009 Published by BlazeVOX [books] All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without the publishers written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews. Printed in the United States of America Book design by Geoffrey Gatza First Edition ISBN: 9781935402442 Library of Congress Control Number 2009925620

    BlazeVOX [books] 14 Tremaine Ave Kenmore, NY 14217 Editor@blazevox.org

    p ublisher

    o f weir d litt le boo ks

    BlazeVOX [ books ]
    blazevox.org
    2 4 6 8 0 9 7 5 3 1

    How the swallow song does not disrupt silence creates more.

    Father putters from room to room no voices.

    Thats a clue. Information has become too scarce.

    11

    Tuesdays: I will turn in pain. Allow myself to sit mindless. Watch the colored lights of the television.

    Why dont you go home and get some sleep? On this mountain for some time now Im not sure what the sundial reads complete in breath. Riddled with it.

    12

    To break down the bodys organs one by one as such attacks go death toll was minor. Theres something Im supposed to be saying. The fear in the passing storm. Converse calming patchwork of smaller bases. I didnt throw away the just.

    13

    Wednesdays: I will shower. Change out of my pajamas sutured to my hip while I slept the brain taxed with dying. Anticipate the afternoon lightning standing at attention. She can hear you if you want to talk to her.

    You crossed back and forth and forth in sable breath. To ache for return.

    14

    Failing. Fading. Let once go mother: but quick. This is not for me a roadside bomb this second tour. Dark silence moves in under window sills. How cold above zero let it be the absence.

    15

    Thursdays: I will go to dinner. Have a glass of wine. Five. Laugh at the bad joke Ive made of myself. To be sacred a liar in camouflage providing material support.

    She said I have to go now as if late for a meeting.

    16

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