{"id":45492,"date":"2021-04-02T12:38:13","date_gmt":"2021-04-02T16:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/?p=45492"},"modified":"2021-04-10T13:45:23","modified_gmt":"2021-04-10T17:45:23","slug":"day-and-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2021\/04\/day-and-night.html","title":{"rendered":"Day and Night<\/font>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There are day poets and night poets. Here is one of each. <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>
Suspicious Circumstances<\/em> by A. Robert Lee<\/a> <\/em>   \/\/   Rimbaud under the Steel Helmet <\/em>by Helmut Maria Soik<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I should perhaps mention, in case anyone gets the wrong idea, that I make no value judgment as to the greater or lesser worth of “day” vs. “night.” I had so much fun reading Suspicious Circumstances<\/em> that it felt as good as getting high, no drugs needed. The wit and wisdom of its vignettes\u2014really prose poems laced with laughter\u2014dissect the customs and dispel the dreariness of ordinary life. They are a much-needed provocation, like Baudelaire’s Paris Spleen<\/em> turned inside out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

from SUSPICIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES: An Album of Events and Oddities with Thoughts on the Word What<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

LEND ME YOUR EARS<\/u>\n \nYou're on the phone.\n\nThe mobile. The landline.\n\nAnd suddenly there's one of those buzzes. Kind of\ncable phlegm. Rust sound. Maybe the like of a flailing\nbluebottle or gnat.\n\nYou try to muster every listening fibre you can to make\nout the plaintive question Can you hear me?<\/em>\n\nThere is an almost laughable fatuity with which you\nreply Barely<\/em>, or Just about. <\/em>Or even just No. <\/em>How to say\nyou can't hear to someone you have just heard? It's like\nsaying you don't speak Bulgarian in Bulgarian.\n\nThe voice at the other end, moreover, seems to be\nwhispering yet further things for you not to hear.\nMiniscule verbs. Nouns at long distance. Whole phrases\nreduced to snippets. Words resemble pinpricks. It's an\nacoustic smog.\n\nYou begin to long for one of those film battleships in\nwhich the John Wayne caption says Now Hear This.\n<\/em>\nAs if you could. \n\nWhat, too, at a theatre, or during a recital, when your\ncompanion leans and says something in your ear? Except\nyour ear, well, doesn't hear. You can hardly start a whole\nconversation during the play's vital moment or a\nviolin vibrato.\n\nThere are also all those times that glass gets in the way. I\nmean a train or bus window. Even a house or office pane.\nYou can see lips moving, an arm gesturing, maybe a\nfinger pointing. You hear a half-shout, a half-name. But\nfor the life of you can't quite make out what's being said.\n\nA shared frustration can be yours when a friend, or\nsomeone in the family, starts telling you about what\nhappened last Thursday down the road. An argument\namong neighbors perhaps. A loudspeaker braying\npolitics or a new supermarket. But, according to what\nyou're being told, the detail had collapsed into a blur. I\ncould hardly hear it<\/em>, you in turn hear.\n\nSo it does not come as untoward that the yearly medical\nincludes an ear test.\n\nYou have all the other good things to go through of \ncourse. The barium meal, and if you're really lucky, the\nendoscopy. The drawn blood with a needle that goes\nslightly askew. The ultrasound during which the gel\nslithers off your abdomen and causes a mess on your\nclothing. Not a few examinees get a case of dizziness\nwhen being tested for lung capacity and have to blow\ninto a small tube wedged between the teeth. The tube\ngets embroiled in saliva, causes half-choking, and\nwhoever is being tested finds they've lost breath even\nbefore the procedure gets underway. Doctor or nurse\npatience doesn't take away the feeling of something close\nto foolishness.\n\nBut then come eyes and ears.\n\nThe former you are all know-how because you've been\ngoing to eye people since you were three. And the next \nline?<\/em> You read away with those monstrous meta-specs\nperched on the nose. A new lens is slipped in. Is that \nbetter?<\/em>\n\nAfter which the ears.\n\nThe last time I was at a clinic where the full medical\ncard was being gone through the ear-testing had its own\ncubicle. Not a little like a small-scale broadcasting studio.\n\nStep inside and it feels almost physical silence. A local\nversion of what you think the CERN accelerator must\nbe. Or an anechoic chamber. Certainly it's whatever, and\nwherever, is meant by sound extraction.\n\nHanging before you are earphones and a small button\nready to be pressed. You get seated. You get the lids\nnestled around your head. You even see your face\nreflected in the glass. Costmonaut X. Chief astronaut Y.\n\nThe beginning nod is given to you by the white-coated\nperson in charge.\n\nYou have of course been briefed. Press the button when\nyou hear one of the pitches. Each a species of short\nwhine or single bell ring.\n\nOff you go. Concentration. You press at intervals for\nthe length of the pitch. Each of these continues until the\nsounds get fainter, weaker.\n\nIt is here that you can go deeply off-key.\n\nDid you hear a sound or did you not? Are you more\nand more becoming twitchy, pressing as though so\ncommanded by some inner-ear geist?<\/em> Are you now so\near-scrambled that you can't tell sound from silence?\nMaybe there's an equivalent of d\u00e9ja vu?<\/em> Perhaps d\u00e9ja<\/em>\n\u00e9cout\u00e9?<\/em> Either way there's sweat to the brow, a sinking\nsensation.\n\nWith which out from the booth you come.\n\nStar-navigator. Yuri Gagarin. Captain Kirk.\n\nOnly to hear in quite the loudest of words\n\nI'm afraid you'll have to do that again.<\/em><\/p><\/font>\n\n------------------------------------------\n<\/strong><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
from RIMBAUD UNDER THE STEEL HELMET (translated from the Germany by Georg M. Gugelberger and Lydia Perera).<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Remarks of Tu Fu concerning\nsome of his contemporaries:<\/u><\/strong>\n\nIt could be argued that\nten thousand verses by celebrated poets\nwere written in this century\nto no purpose.\n\nEndless were discussions\nin articles and dissertations.\nEmperors and princes\nwrote their commentaries.\nMissing are the answers\nto these questions:\n\nDid they change the world?\nDid the murderers waste away of hunger and wretchedness?\nDid the madness of love forsaken\never leave the lover?\n\nFor the emperor's seal affixed to the north\nhis soldiers' bellies rotted\nin the yellow grass of September.\nWho did not hear from the refugees, how\nhuman flesh was boiled in the provinces?\n\nFrom a padded sedan chair it is easy\nto see children freezing in the snowstorm.\nFor ten of your orchids nurtured in the hothouse\none could build \na lovely fire under the pot.\n\nI've already told too much\nof the truth. The uncomfortable is soon forgotten\nin exile.\nIn the evening my hut on the northwall lies\nburied by snow. Despair overwhelms me when\nthe cold screams out of the ashes.\nI wish to die, yet\nam forced to live.\nPrime Minister Li Sa\nmade it a point to spread the word that\nmy verses had gained in depth\never since hunger was my guest.\n\nI looked so pale\nmy friends felt. I wore\nthe actor's mask of death.\n\nI would have to fatten \nmyself. \nThe host at the tea-house cannot understand\nwhere Tu Fu has kept himself so long.\nMister Wang, the barber thinks:\n\"I'll invite Tu Fu to supper\nlet the poor soul eat his fill.\nA glass of sake buys\na cheap lesson.\nTu Fu's monologues are books\nfor which I have scant time.\"\nLife is hard. Under my shirt\nthe triple chain of coins\nweighs my neck down.\n\nI, Tu Fu, stand hungry by the window and\nbeg the sun\nto provide a little bit of help with my verses.<\/strong><\/font>\n\n\n<\/strong>\n<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There are day poets and night poets. Here is one of each: A. Robert Lee (whose SUSPICIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES was recently  published) and Helmut Maria Soik (whose RIMBAUD UNDER THE STEEL HELMET has been translated from the German by Georg M. Gugelberger and Lydia Perera).  I should perhaps mention, in case anyone gets the wrong idea, that I make no value judgment as to the greater or lesser worth of “day” vs. “night.”  I had so much fun reading “Suspicious Circumstances” that it felt as good as getting high, no drugs needed. The wit and wisdom of its vignettes\u2014really prose poems laced with laughter\u2014dissect the customs and dispel the dreariness of ordinary life. They are a much-needed provocation, like Baudelaire’s “Paris Spleen” turned inside out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":45504,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26,18,4,23,17],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-45492","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"category-literature","9":"category-main","10":"category-news","11":"category-political-culture","12":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/lee-soik-combo-750-w-line.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-bPK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45492"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45492\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58461,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45492\/revisions\/58461"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}