14

 My sister appeared to me in a dream last night as a fourteen-year old girl. She explained to me that this is how I should remember her; I felt myself creating the image of her in my mind, knowing that I was dreaming but also accepting this as a genuine visitation. Her face was similar to that of a particular photo we had used for the funeral, when she was perhaps 18? 

I was weeping and woke up, but woke up still in the dream. The woman sharing my bed was angry with me for crying and waking her, but fortunately I was actually alone, and that part of the story was also within the dream. 

Notley

 I was reading some Notley poems from Early Works that are based on dreams. It occured to me I could write up dreams as poems, but prefer to just accurately write them down without poeticizing them.  Part of what I'm after is the banality and non-coherence of them, so the best ones might be the worst after a manner of speaking. 

***

In choir we are singing "O Taste and See," and thought of the Levertov poem (and book of that title), but the piece we are singing is based on the Bible verse Levertov took for her poem: "O taste and see! the subway bible poster said...."  That is not a dream, just a (not very) interesting experience of finding two works of art based on the same text. 

Instrument

 There was a strange instrument that I brought in to be tuned. It was an electric device played by plucking, but not in standard lute / guitar / mandolin like shapes. They were making fun of me for thinking it needed tuning, and I couldn't seem to get a note out of it, or know where to start. Then I saw that there were fruit shaped items inside of it, like bananas, representing different notes. I still couldn't really play it, and left without paying for the tuning, since we were interrupted by another dream event. 

Now a dog was trying to go through a door. I solved the problem by opening the door, since the dog (a large white one) was theoretically allowed access to these other rooms. 

Gestalt

 It occurred to me that a meter is a gestalt. The word is usually used for visual information. Seeing a face, we don't see individual features, but a face. Of course, we can describe a nose, etc... but those 19th century description of peoples faces feature by feature don't work all that well. 

Faces vary a bit, but fall into the same gestalt. The 11 syllable Spanish line is essentially a shape, not a collection of 11 syllables. 

Here is the most canonical pattern: 

x/xxxx/xxx/x   [accents on 2, 6, 10, evenly spaced]

El dulce lamentar de dos pastores 

Another common pattern: 

xxx/xxx/x/x [accents on 4, 8, 10]

The other patterns are accents on 1 6 10, or 3, 6 10.  

The gestalt is the feel of the meter, not the number of syllables, since we aren't counting them unless we are unsure. Even then, if we are off by a syllable, it shouldn't even matter that much.

Here's one with a stress clash:

Siempre la claridad viene del cielo:  1,6, 7!, 10. It's odd. We hardly ever get stresses on 5,7,9. Notice that there is still a stress on 6. 

The grammar paradox

 The grammar paradox: anyone peeving over grammar is more likely to be incorrect than the bad grammar being corrected. 

Latter days

 Every date by definition is the latest date so far in human history. Nobody thinks of themselves as early folks. Of course to think at all of what position one occupies chronologically is already to think historically. 

Normandy

 I’m coming back from a trip to Normandy. I asked the guy who invited me why I was invited.  He said he had read an article I had published in PMLA on Guillen in the early 90s. He said 20 years ago but it is much more than that. Neither of us remembered what I said in the article though I’m sure I could if you gave me a few minutes. He also invited some of my favorite poets but a bit randomly since he didn’t know that I knew these poets and was friends with them.