A Bernadette Mayer Reader Read online

  Other Books by Bernadette Mayer

  Story

  Moving

  Memory

  Ceremony Latin (1964)

  Studying Hunger

  Poetry

  Eruditio Ex Memoria

  The Golden Book of Words

  Midwinter Day

  Utopia

  Incidents Report Sonnets

  Mutual Aid

  The Art of Science Writing

  (with Dale Worsley)

  Sonnets

  The Formal Field of Kissing

  Proper Name & Other Stories

  Contents

  from Ceremony Latin (1964)

  from Story

  Story is a novella-length work in which stories interweave in a diamond-shaped structure so that at its center fourteen stories are going on simultaneously. Each section is given a title that is a form of story-telling.

  from Poetry and early poems

  Corn

  Pope John

  Index

  Yellow-Orange

  Laura Cashdollars

  François Villon Follows the Thin Lion

  Tapestry

  Thick

  Poem

  An Ancient Degree

  Swan Silvertones

  America

  The Port

  Dante

  Counterhatch

  It Moves Across

  Sonnet: “name address date”

  X ON PAGE 50 at half-inch intervals

  The Red Rose Doesn’t, The Rose Is Red Does

  Gay Full Story

  The Way to Keep Going in Antarctica

  from Moving

  Moving is a prose book written while living for three seasons in the woods of the Northeast, its intention being to write only when it seemed absolutely necessary. Moving includes contributions from Ed, Rosemary, Grace, Paul, Mr. Murphy, Tom, Larry, Lewis, Hannah, Neil, two Annes, two Kathleens, Jonathan, Milt and others.

  from Memory

  Memory is a journal of the month of July 1971 based on notes and writings, and a series of 1,116 slides (36 pictures shot every day). Memory was commissioned by Holly Solomon and exhibited in 1972 in her 98 Greene Street gallery in the form of a 4’ x 48’ chronological display of snapshots made from the slides, accompanied by an eight-hour tape of the text.

  from Studying Hunger

  Studying Hunger consists of two lectures culled from the 400-page Studying Hunger Journals, an experiment in recording states of consciousness.

  from The Golden Book of Words

  Eve of Easter

  Lookin Like Areas of Kansas

  Essay

  Carlton Fisk Is My Ideal

  The End of the Human Reign on Bashan Hill

  What Babies Really Do

  Instability (Weather)

  Very Strong February

  from Midwinter Day

  Midwinter Day is a 120-page work in prose and poetry written on December 22, 1978, from notes, tapes, photographs, and memory. It divides the day into six parts: dreams, morning, noontime, afternoon, evening, and night.

  from The Desires of Mothers to

  Please Others in Letters

  The Desires of Mothers to Please Others in Letters is a series of letters never sent, written to unidentified friends, acquaintances, political figures, and poets over a nine-month period and ending with the birth of a baby. It is dedicated to Margaret DeCoursey.

  from Utopia

  Utopia is a traditional utopia dedicated to Grace Murphy and written with the help of Bob Holman, Bill Berkson, Huang O, Rosemary Mayer, Anne Waldman, Rochelle Kraut, Hannah Weiner, Joe Brainard, Charles Bernstein, John Fisk, Lorna Smedman, Lewis Warsh, Anne Rower, Greg Masters, Peggy DeCoursey, and others. It contains a utopian copyright, an Imprimatur from the Archbishop of Nowhere, and an index.

  from Mutual Aid

  Concluding Unscientific Postscript

  Watching the Complex Train-Track Changes

  A Woman I Mix Men Up . . .

  Eight Blocks

  The Garden

  from Sonnets

  Sonnets is a series of seventy-two poems based on that form and dedicated to Rosemary Mayer.

  Sonnet: “Love is a babe . . .”

  Sonnet: “It would be nice . . .”

  Warren Phinney

  Holding the Thought of Love

  Sonnet: “I am supposed to think . . .”

  A Chinese Breakfast

  Sonnet: “You jerk you didn’t call me . . .”

  Sonnet: “Other than what’s gone on . . .”

  We Eat Out Together

  Homeopathic Busyness

  Incidents Report Sonnet

  Incidents Report Sonnet #2

  Incidents Report Sonnet #5

  Sonnet: “ash . . .”

  Sonnet We Are Ordinary C’mere

  Sonnet: “To perform for you . . .”

  Sonnet: “Beauty of songs . . .”

  Incandescent War Poem Sonnet

  Clap Hands

  Sonnet: “You read about Uranus . . .”

  The Phenomenon of Chaos

  from The Formal Field of Kissing

  The Formal Field of Kissing is a book of translations, imitations, and epigrams from the work of ancient Greek and Latin poets, especially Catullus.

  Catullus #48

  Catullus #99

  After Catullus and Horace

  Large Imitation Classical Lune

  Hendecasyllables on Catullus #33

  Catullus #67

  Two from the Greek Anthology

  New Poems

  The Incorporation of Sophia’s Cereal

  Max Carries the One

  Ode on

  “First turn to me . . .”

  I Am Told I Must Bomb the Tappan Zee Bridge

  scifi lee ann

  Sonnet: “Suck me my virgin . . .”

  Marie You Must Meet Cristina at the Music School Tomorrow and Not at Her Home

  I Want to Talk Now about Reason, Riddle

  I Wish You Were Up Late, Gerard

  The Guild

  Death Is a Cambric Fabric

  Sonnet: “a little tiny poem . . .”

  The Ballad of Theodore

  Sonnet: “Swell is the attribute . . .”

  Mums

  Failures in Infinitives

  Say Goodbye to Legacy

  Beginning Middle End

  Experimentation in Rubrics

  Manicatriarchic Sonnet

  Marie Makes Fun of Me at the Shore

  Acknowledgments

  world haunts back of mind like lens

  from Ceremony Latin (1964)

  from Story

  In the slightest degree one of these begins to be opposite the other and every thing does the following: with little above more below and much still lower it is closer to one of these than it is to the other and each thing does this: it presents the other thing.

  Anecdote

  A chance to cut, fold, wrap, and tie.

  One day was the day to start, that day only in the sun, rain, snow, hail, sleet, or shade.

  Profile

  A fall may make ends meet—the head meets with the foot or the head with the end of the street, anyway it’s a way of ending up or down.

  Life Story

  To start.

  The formation of these things.

  Since the end is here or makes an appearance, this or another one will come again later, if it could when once is enough but since probably it must—it’s end to end.

  After a while a struggle stops.

  And a riddle stops.

  What did the rose do to the cypress?

  Every one of these of that thing of one of those has its own things.

  O
ne day once and then once again.

  A showy flower, pink or white, must have been planted a while ago.

  These are opposite each other in space.

  They are suited to those things under which they are meant to live.

  Once again, here, makes it a different story.

  Something made up in the mind.

  To come into being.

  In all many things may fall.

  Except for those that are connected with those others, they are all bound by those things of that thing within the other thing assigned to them.

  All stories at least are not the same.

  Something put down or round about.

  Accents fall.

  Nor is this the case only on that.

  In any case one day—it wasn’t two . . .

  A small statue.

  Apples fall.

  Those, these, and those others might be seen as the things keeping them within certain things.

  . . . one day I fell several times, perhaps three or four times; each fall took place at a different time of the day or during a different part. I might say I fell morning noon and night, or, I made a day of falling down, or, I fell having fallen twice before, but not, I fell apart.

  Dancers on the stage don’t fall but buildings do.

  This as well as that has its things bound within those.

  I stumbled at times due to things.

  The feminine of this, dresses fall.

  One of those as to the effect of that will explain this.

  On one thing, over one, and then, on account of none but because of something made up in the mind.

  To be or do in the slightest degree.

  Estates fall.

  Scenario

  We all live under some of this and that.

  Saga

  The first of five makes a waterfall and a trap; it calls to him when it becomes full.

  Love Story

  Which is an engine and which is a stone?

  One of those (or more than one, of more than one of those things).

  Eyes fall.

  Now, thirty-two of those under that doubles that thing since . . .

  His bales of sliced smoked salmon roll along behind him (the first of five), knocking him down.

  To cause to start.

  It could only be shown with pictures—in its original sense, and not shown in another sense, other than the sense of the mind’s eye—which is which.

  Not in the original sense, faces fall.

  . . . a thing of this, thirty-two of those in that is equal in that other to the thing of one of these.

  Things fall through a hole in his pack, until he patches it.

  Fiction

  For three hundred years people may have done this, stumbled, perhaps for a longer time.

  In another sense.

  An inside thing, glances fall.

  To commence.

  At this of thirty-two of these, then, anyone is under that thing of two of those—that of this, and of one of those of that thing equal to it.

  He roasts cabbages in hot ashes, and sends them out to people whose relationships are ended.

  But, that many years ago, a person did fall perhaps more than once or even three or four times.

  An outline or shape, as of the human body.

  Governments fall.

  At sixty-four of these he is under that thing of three of those, and so on.

  He models girls from bark.

  On a thing then, over one, or simply because of one, whether real or imaginary.

  Leaves fall.

  That of one of these is always added for every thirty-two of those of that other.

  He pretends to die, and is buried with his face exposed.

  Lie

  Orange upholstered pouf chair.

  Some things are still and still they show.

  For example, a tree.

  To cause to come into being.

  Meetings fall.

  There is a great thing in that of those.

  The girls walk over him (he modeled them).

  Enameled metal desk lamp.

  Where is there one?

  To originate.

  News falls.

  Some of these live at a great one of those and find this and that genial to them.

  He arrives and wants to sleep with them.

  A setting into motion of some action, process, or course: as, to begin this or that.

  Laminated wood rocker, leather seat.

  A tree lasts for many years.

  On the side, poems fall into two categories: these and those.

  Others would be killed at once by the same thing.

  They desert him.

  Tubular metal chair.

  It is there at the beginning of them, and then, at the end of them.

  To begin a ceremony or an elaborate course of events: as, to commence something or other.

  Prices fall.

  These naturally seek those that are shallower.

  He travels making waterfalls and dams.

  Tubular metal table, glass top.

  You can stumble on anything, even over ten feet tall, as trees are, especially over ten feet tall if it is small enough, as it would be written or fallen.

  To do this out.

  Prizes fall.

  Everyone knows that he must throw a long one for those.

  To leave a point of departure in any kind of progression: as, to start something, something started something.

  He marries and has a son.

  Planter lamp.

  Written down or falling down.

  To carry out the first steps in some course or progress with no indication of what is to follow: as, to initiate Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, etc.

  Rivers fall.

  With a common one, though, he will catch plenty of them from those things near it.

  Corn

  Corn is a small hard seed.

  Corn from Delft

  Is good for elves.

  White corn, yellow, Indian

  Is this kernel a kernel of corn?

  The corn they sought

  Was sown by night.

  The Corn Islands are two small islands,

  Little Corn Island and Great Corn Island,

  on an interoceanic canal route.

  Any of several

  insects that bore in maize is a corn borer.

  Pope John

  Noah spoke singly

  sucking Calliope’s throat

  and Cheops sat

  in a sort of jeep

  hoping for rain.

  corn pone said Aunt No-No.

  Pop is in a hodge-podge.

  Edgar Poe, supposed a hen.

  o poop deck

  o epic poem

  Joe, John, and Joel Oppenheimer

  went home.

  Index

  a briar, a blunder, a bungalow

  -awning

  Spelling is becoming more

  briar Steward

  blunder

  bungalow

  tawdry

  the blunder, a briar, a bungalow

  thigh

  Tradition

  tuck

  Yellow-Orange

  my jig was a sage ear

  the mirror focuses on warm fog

  wise marrow ram, queer fig,

  curious razor smear in a coffee mist

  the war was a sexic soar for merry rims.

  As far as I come,

  the sow and the ram wager

  wish arrows.

  various Sim is a coxic rage,

  my soul

  wax saumurai

  swore on his swarm rock arrow

  come with a quick wag of veer

  carry sex

  ask ear’s frame

  carcer rim

  game in a jock axe searing

  and curry the same maze

  in exotic

  sez the worm

  in cox in jam
>
  Laura Cashdollars

  cut mats are even

  come to rest when

  cut mats securing

  the park bits to

  poor Laura secure

  as yet with still

  less to neck than

  the drink as four

  corners the stick

  to mix the fourth with.

  François Villon Follows

  the Thin Lion

  for Bill Berkson

  fill the tin voodoos

  Ovid’s dill moon, the doffers hunt

  to loop.

  doll-less in linnets.

  Dillon pilfers oolfoos, fin-lips!

  the thinning third

  of avoir dupois.

  Huns unlid at the onicker’s kiln

  a flint and a linx,

  the infinite minnow.

  off lightning

  fools lift digits

  the lieutenant fills the ocean

  give him onions.

  Tapestry

  secret as mummies

  the wild psychoanalysts

  grow

  more sleek

  than hundred-dollar

  -a-night girls

  noses and anuses

  turned to Bach

  Springbok the Manycolored

  is calm again

  as a day of the week.

  demons scatter museum pieces

  carrots,

  blood,

  a grandmother.

  Thick

  Hashish the Ghost is rumored dead

  the slow boor had the rheum

  worm and bug gagging him

  higher than a gourd shouting whoosh

  a shower and the rum you piggish shrew

  to oust your mother from the same shroud as you

  Owl, bitch, hog and whore met at the bog’s mouth

  to bludgeon the womb

  it was only a gag

  at least the author’s brought his luger

  he’s ogling that myth

  a gob of rum for the wretch with the hookah

  the oil-rout grew

  bulging the gulch with rush & shout

  there boils the ocean.

  Poem

  I am beginning to alter

  the location of this harbor

  now meets with a channel

  joining one place with one.