Showgirl Gnoetry

Third Sorrow

"The curtain drops. The show herself. The air!
A show. A certain party takes a job
until the morning, if a show in town.
The funny thing about the show herself.

The act. The act. The show. 'A bottle of
champagne, lieutenant?' We were nothing but
the author says 'The Cadillac, the stage,
in such a fluffy ruffles, I suppose.'

The leading lady for a chance. The stage.
The way, the show, a jug! The way, the scratch!
The prima donna, and a chorus girl,
because the stage, the wind in his success."

Katrina Gnoem

It is a grand thing, a string of text
that can arise, arise, pathos, arise, unzipped.
The irritation from exposure or the lingerie

we downloaded. Katrina. The fossil of a flower,
the organ of the mountain it completes
at the first appearance of a problem.

The baby of the bees is the egg. The day,
the fine. Her face, the ruins. From the day
before the storm to war, the only pass

is across a gulf. It's in her old cocoons.
How before the stigma of a new beginning,
they explained a new beginning.

How it occurs in grafting trees, already.
How unlike the president, a deer observes, its
jaws evolved, crustaceans, everything.



Texts: Katrina Sources, VA
Origin of the Species
Linux Tutorials

Gnoetry and the Ego

I was reminded of this issue by Joe Hall's post "Hello Gnoetry" on his blog, Pigafetta, Poetry, and Painkillers.

Here's my response to the post:

Hi Joe,

Just a comment on my use of Gnoetry: I think it would be inaccurate to say the function of Gnoetry “at the heart” is to “remove the ego” from the writing process. Jackson Mac Low, who for years worked with generative methods to achieve such a goal, gave up on this concept sometime in the 80’s or 90’s, realizing that it was an impossibility. Selection of the “best” outputs is the principle strategy of the Gnoetry user, and as such it is firmly founded in ego considerations. I think it does help the author/user to write outside of his/her own “voice,” personality or habitual idea of self, but it relies wholly upon the sense of the author/user as a being who enjoys, and who has the power to select what it most enjoys and reject what it does not. This is a more basic and less deceptive mode of the ego, but still ego nonetheless.

As a Buddhist, I’ve thought a lot about this subject, and I mostly agree with Mac Low’s opinion, which you can find in his (few) speeches and essays (see the front matter in A Thing of Beauty). I think it is best to be honest about what we do as poets and not just try to keep deceiving ourselves (and others) by propping up our troublesome senses of self. The operation of the ego through generative processes (or machine prosthesis) can work outside of the self and more in the realm of pleasure, as Mac Low outlines in “Poetry and Pleasure.” Poetry, as a conceptual act of wit, intelligence and imagination, cannot be fully transcendent, though it may facilitate some beneficial transformations within the reader and author. That’s my current opinion.

Although perhaps, we’re using two different definitions of ego. Are you talking psychoanalysis or Eastern philosophy, because I’m mostly stuck on the latter?

These are my thoughts so far on this issue. I'm curious to know what other Gnoetry end-users have to say on this issue.

P.S.: As an addendum, I just found the passage in the foreword of A Thing of Beauty that addresses this issue:

Showgirl Gnoetry

Second Sorrow

"The funny thing about the breakaway:
another took the money for the show
herself. The only star performer. I'd
a let her have her wedding trip across

the pond. The scow, hurrah. The phonograph.
The next caboose, hurrah. The skipper of
the church. The justice of the berth, the show,
a couple of the party. Wilbur says

another was nonplussed. The skipper of
the other evening, and the future, and
the wind in red? The show herself. 'The stage,'
remarked Sabrina, 'touches on the stage.'"

Showgirl Gnoetry

This week I'll post five, twelve-line blank verse poems shows Gnoetry 0.2 at work with a single text: Kenneth McGaffey's The Sorrows of a Show Girl: A Story of the Great “White Way” from 1908, a collection of stories first printed in the New York newspaper The Morning Telegraph.

One might, with a little nudge, say that this constraint is like having a “Gertrude Stein” key on your keyboard because of the clipped language and repeated phrases. But that would mean the gnoems were mere aper & parodist. & tonal intent can not be the case – Gnoetry is a machine that statistically analyzes human linguistic transcriptions. It cannot parody or ape.

But a human end-user can.

First Sorrow

A trip across the stage. The prima and
the stage. The other with the title of
the menu. We were standing. But the show
herself. A trip. The stage. The chorus girls.

The stage. According to her, you behold
in me the game. The show, a stormy night,
a boob? The other night. The rest. The stage.
The stage. The table at the table at

the table. I, except in truth, the show,
a jug! The second act, rehearsal, so
the other evening. I suppose. The stage.
The morning after that the stage, hurrah.

The Features - Fri Aug 21 00:18:48 2009

Heading into risqué territory now, somewhat inspired by Jean Baudrillard's The Transparency of Evil and his analysis of the ideology of transexuality in the Western imagination. What exactly is "The Hell of the Same," and is The Same a hell under construction?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


the features of the human form · attached ·
the booby · and the great entangled hair ·
a little body like a hostess · big ·
afloat · the tail · the serpent · fastened to
a native woman devil · so defined ·
the beauty of a dualism · as
the same idea · to appear · combined
together · for a sally of Brazil ·

the balls were left in peace · a little way
apart · the wild banana · having been
a hundred dollars · as the gauchos say ·
perfect · a great deposit · for a wild
Brazilian youth · the whole acquires such
a petticoat · combines · becomes erect ·
the metaphysics of the organ · as
a part · a portrait of a stick · afloat ·

a little body with a hole in each ·
afloat · a dualism · now exposed ·
transparent · of a single sex · perhaps
the most obliging · with a body like
a mirror · like a toy · the people are
composed · the best · the power to express
a few degrees beyond the cock · until
the lower parts were veiled in fleecy clouds ·



Texts:
Robert Louis Stevenson, An Island Nights' Entertainments
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature
Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle

Grammatical Propositions

It's interesting to consider Wittgenstein in the face of a syntax-connecting machine like Gnoetry. Are the utterances merely expressions of grammatical rules, since it is through the random survival of these rules that the utterances have any meaning at all. When we read a gnoem, are we only merely accepting rules and finding meaning that can be niether confirmed nor confuted by experience. Or, are we engaging in language that has been jarred from its moorings in such a way as to be much better arbiters of messages of and from the world at large?

The Border - Sat Aug 15 11:45:42 2009

the border of the same · a copy · and
a contradiction · as the forms · a stream ·
a little wood · the most terrific noise ·
the action of the pretty creatures · and
the same result · the limit of the will ·
conceived in common · contradiction is
the sign in token of the soul · the stream
in which the proposition is the stream ·

the same result · the more completely webbed ·
the circumstances · incomplete · combines ·
performing · and became exhausted · as
the same result · the propositions of
a series · to proceed · the instincts of
the soul · engaged in propositions · that
the false were really objects · understand ·
together with the absence of concern ·

the same in that · commenced the avalanche ·
postpones the essence of the soul · in that
excited fashion · nothing is a more
convenient situation · then the best
were gone · a proposition is a more
convenient situation · then the end ·
afloat · in that excited fashion · seen
in token of affection · this delay ·



Texts:
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature
Johann David Wyss, Swiss Family Robinson
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

The Sun - Tue Aug 11 00:14:33 2009

the sun · in other countries · well equipped ·
returning · by the bearings of the sun ·
the situation · having been designed
in Europe · half a quarter like the palm ·
the beauty of a will · the larvae of
surprise · upon the end · in which the whole
conditions of the system · likely to
explode · the great advantage of the end ·

a moment · if a quarter like the palm ·
in other lands · appeared · a moment · on
the sun · a single line · the line · perhaps
extending far away · the priests and
the father of phenomenon · in which
the system · having been designed · towards
the end · among the unforeseen · a will ·
in answer to the sky in which a will ·

the end · against the sky · degrading · and
encouraged by the situation · as
a better course · the most exposed · the end
a will · a single line · in other lands ·
in many actions of the damned · toward
the unfamiliar · by the bearings of
the damned alive · the booms were tearing through
the surface of the end · a great eclipse ·



Texts:
Samuel Butler, Erewhon
Charles Fort, The Book of the Damned
Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

The Reason - Fri Aug 7 03:25:46 2009

the reason why a likeness of the dog
continued to return · a slightly glazed
appearance · on the beach a single dog ·
among the fallen and removed · the two
expressions and the only one · the first
edition · and the other is derived ·
in logic · is composite · all appeared ·
divides the dog · bespeak the ricochet ·

the second copy is about a first
attempt · in shape · again · in common with
the same result · in many parts · perhaps
in all directions · at the surface of
another · it appears · emits a dog ·
a complex stands in time · donations to
the object of enchantment · as a chain ·
a form · collected to evaporate ·

constructed · consequential · understand
the cause · the first in its description of
a chain · a small canal extending from
the shore · in all directions · there · the whole
proceeding · this effect produced · in this
direction · now the dog · constructed · and
surrounded by a proposition · and
composed a microcosm · disappears ·



Texts:
Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island

The Diagram - Thu Aug 6 00:23:24 2009

the diagram · another species of
remembrance · as the whole proceedings · on
the thickest was resolved · in structure · stands ·
a great advantage to describe · a good
idea · so · employed in several parts ·
in order made · in an advantage by
the look · the most convenient end · in and
about the body and behind · described ·

a good idea · but a kind · preserved
in an extraordinary manner · for
the best adapted to the nails · the like
in others · that the people are preserved ·
a house in cogitation · and were kind ·
in this employment · radiating · as
the union of the best adapted to
the standard of perfection will produce ·

the people are alike · in dwelling on
details · upon the recollection of
the dead · the living species will produce ·
the land · the bud · again · a fit · a good
idea · so · in many parts · the same
formation · vary · that the nest · produced
in such a nature · with the structure of
the night before · the new conditions · stands ·



Texts:
Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels
Robert Louis Stevenson, Island Nights' Entertainments
Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species

The Natives - Tue Aug 4 01:51:52 2009

the natives · and the first awake · received
a great enormous breakfast · and marines ·
amidst the products of the trees · the dead
flamingo · after being skinned · arranged
the morning · brightly with the bones · the skins
the better part alone · in danger · and
in view · the natives of the sky above ·
were cherries · bloody · terrified · embarked ·

the skin · the scientific men · the flesh
belonging to the king · amidst the air
the dead flamingo · on the cliff · the moon ·
in power and in great delight · received
the name · the natives of the air above
the level of the tree · the natives of
the entrance of the french · the rocks along
the southern species · now submerged · retired ·

a species of the angry sea · the plates ·
divide the manufacture of events ·
the natives of effect · beyond the name ·
the same · beneath the beak · peculiar to
the gap · a hole in which the natives of
the skin · in which the heat · the fruit · about
the shore became detached · embarked · among
the rocks were satisfied · remained unhurt ·



Texts:
Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island
Johann David Wyss, Swiss Family Robinson
R.M. Ballantyne, Cannibal Island

That Subject Lute

Matthias Regan ( a great ally of and thinker on Gnoetry) a few years back started to think of Gnoetry along musical lines, saying that it comes very close to Coleridge's and the Romantics' "subject lute" that stands in the breeze and captures wind into song. The end-user is the in- and ex-piration, perhaps. Also, an addition to the program was made, again based upon a comment by Matthias Regan. That the end-user should be allowed to "turn up the volume" on a particular text, having it become a sort of lead singer, while the other texts act as the Pips to the lead-text's Gladys Knight.

I think that it is fruitful to think of Gnoetry as a poetical and hence musical instrument.

The Seed - Thu Jul 30 11:01:45 2009

I've begun to think of what we're doing with Gnoetry (in general) as not just a form of composition, but also a unique form of poetic improvisation, with gnoetry functioning in this metaphor much like a musical instrument. I won't go any further with that idea right now (it might become ridiculous), but I may later.

I'm without a stable internet connection in the apartment I'm staying at in Brooklyn, and the poems are piling up. So here's one more installment of The Same:

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

the seed · a prospect of the island as
the two extremes · within the sexes · and
admired · may produce the kingdom and
the great external things · the palace with
a little spring · between the trees · the coast ·
a lovely place · a little river · now
a double canon · and the echoes made
the island where the mother is convex ·

the population · it began · in this
forsaken · solitary island · as
the night before the coming of the fear ·
the two extremes · between the sexes · and
the two extremes · between the trees · in which
were quite a distance from the island as
the rain · the wind · the food · the water all
around the palace gates · the seed · away ·

in its ascent · in all directions · as
a passing over · this confusion of
a wife in private as a wedding gift ·
a man in love · canals · assisted by
the stars in their perfection · there were tied ·
behind the trees · the two extremes · upon
the breeze · the seed · devices to secure
the seed · in its ascent · in these elect ·


Texts:
H.G. Wells, A Modern Utopia
Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
Fannie Louise Apjohn, The Enchanted Island

The Scratch

"The curtain drops. The show herself. The air!
A show. A certain party takes a job
until the morning, if a show in town.
The funny thing about the show herself.

The act. The act. The show. 'A bottle of
champagne, lieutenant?' We were nothing but
the author says 'The Cadillac, the stage,
in such a fluffy ruffles, I suppose.'

The leading lady for a chance. The stage.
The way, the show, a jug! The way, the scratch!
The prima donna, and a chorus girl,
because the stage, the wind in his success."



Text:
Kenneth McGaffey, The Sorrows of a Show Girl