Issue 42 - Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art

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Fork Addiction his is a tale of the birth of Limited Fork Poetics. The birth announcement, actually, of the inevitable offspring of a poet who becomes so immersed in awareness of the dominating presence of dynamic systems in every facet of her observable existence that poetry and the structures she studies merge. Dynamic systems, processes of interactions, produce active structures that populate the landscapes that exist simultaneously at all scales. Mutability, multiplicity, and adaptability are stunning traits of existence that occur everywhere, on different scales of place and time. Most of these structures escape human notice, but continuing advances in evidence capture (for instance, better and better microscopes and telescopes) reveal more and more information in every location examined with these devices that extend the limited range of human perception. Within revealed areas, previously unknown structures offer enough connections, enough similarity to previously encountered patterns that metaphor not only becomes possible but is also encouraged. We catalog these new things with links to what we are reminded of, even as the science of these things emerges in the data, enabling recognition of the galactic within the microscopic, the sombrero within the galactic. This is the dynamic texture of existence. Patterns repeat on all scales, in whole and in part, and the poet seeks them in those neighborhoods that have become local (so available for access) by that poet. This dynamic texture is particularly prolninent in internet searches where thousands of links can appear almost instantaneously, but since we cannot follow all of them all at once (though they are there), we move through the options one at a time instead, never pursuing most of them, yet we remain aware of the vast network of connections that the ones we choose to follow are part of. That influence remains and shapes responses to pursued search outcomes - perhaps only subtly, even only imperceptibly (at first; impact might become more pronounced as it builds through further connections made in other locations at other times). Active structures resist (models of) geometric perfection with bulges, bumps, punctures, wrinkles, folds, zigzags, nicks, crinkled contours (think of the pocked moon, of planetary rifts, tectonic buckles, valleys), and these appear even on those things that are generally smooth (a feature that generally increases with distance). Departures from smooth ideals tend to be revealed as powers of magnification (including thinking) are increased. So within limits (skin is such a limit), there is (apparently) endless variation such that specifics cannot be predicted precisely. Every day my eye is drawn to those shapes it considers interesting (such as clouds, flowers, mountains, birds, trees) because my brain is shaped that way also, is generally cumulous, bulging with recognition, possibility; cerebral folds like aerial maps of river systems, tributaries like liquid branches and liquid nerves, like three-dimensional portraits of an idea and its tributaries making multiple connections simultaneously, both consciously and unconsciously. Yes, the circulatory system is an inner tree. The nervous systenl is another tree within the human forest, capped with a jellyfish of brain from which nervous tentacles sprout and house everything imaginable. That the products of dynamic humanity would themselves be dynamic makes sense; they already are without our knowing it, but when realized, possibilities previously dormant with potential become activated, and my understanding of poetry expands as it seeks to apply principles of behaviors of dynamic systems to itself. Limited Fork Poetics is in the blood - that's how basic and essential it is; already there, but needing to be named in order to be perceived. It embraces all of my humanity, so of course is fully compatible with how thinking behaves, and makes predictions that my work actively attempts to fulfill. To understand poetry as a dynamic system is to allow poetry to see itself in many different mirrors, each distortion accurate. Each contribution taking a crack at improving (the reliability of) the sum. One such mirror is the elm, outside my office window, that (on the day I looked at it as the dynamic system that it, like poetry, already was) offered more possibilities than it ever had. I remember thinking how the aesthetic appeal of tree would be weakened for me if there were only the trunk to consider. I would not call
trunk alone tree. It was the fuller package that defined it, making it recognizably ehn - the visible width of bifurcating elm, the uncompressed departures from trunk including those twigs, branches, and roots culminating in dead ends, terminal locations which happened to locate points in the sky and the earth - and made me want to look at it again and again - each elm within the general limits of elm but with unpredictable specific branch, bark, and root patterns, even such variation in the general structure of the leaves - I love the fatness of the system of branches. I love those things whose generalities are predictable but not their specifics, some of which can exert so much influence, the general structure is changed - And I did need for that itnpressive branching width to slim down to trunk (respite) as I journeyed both outwardly Thinking is more like time itself, a vehicle transporting us, that meanders as it moves generally linearly. to what branches pointed to and inwardly to what roots pointed to: everything. I had access to everything through that ehn. It was an ultimate fork. I held up a plastic generality that happened to be on my desk, finding the placement in which my eyes allowed the plastic fork handle to become proxy elm trunk, the idea firmly in my grip, the plastic tines there to help me access more of the pos sibilities of the idea, but with gaps between them because I could not possibly grasp everything. Hence (some of) the limitation. a those lovely gaps! - like those between elm branches, offering a ragged, irregular beauty not available to something completely filled in. I could see, fork preventing me from seeing anything else, that gaps were preferable to a solidity that I couldn't think of, considering space between the components of and the atoms of everything. Space between my thumb and plastic, between plastic and window, window and elm, between (the system of) elm and the bifurcating system of lines (branches) on my hand that branches from my trunk of arm that branches from my trunk of body (that branched inside my mother). In using a fork, the user who would digest what the fork manages to lift and move through space to the mouth (the danger of losing some or all of what is speared, draped across, or dangling from the lap of tines always present) becomes an extension of fork, the arm branching into body so that the collaboration of user and fork gives birth to another form of tree, another branch of larger structure. The act of writing is largely linear in that it tends to happen sequentially; word follows word. Forking paths my poems pursue are conceived of simultaneously (consciously and unconsciously) but are captured one by one, linearly, even if placed irregularly on a page. Sometimes only one path is captured, or part of a path. Thinking blossoms, sometimes explodes in a temporary"Aha!" of knowing only to be funneled sequentially and trimmed, but blossoming can again occur each time the poem is experienced. Each encounter offers opportunity for enhancement or amendment (including dynamic decay and recycling). That which pulses and flows is myriad, that which throbs, including, possibly, big bang residue in the form of subtle vibration, maybe even deep-space signals transmitted in hopes of chance interaction with those able to recognize and find meaning in structure. A consideration of dynamic systems is a consideration of how the mutability of structure intensifies at boundaries where there are greater opportunities for new structures to take shape whether or not they succeed. Where more variables are present whose interactions can reshape the interacting systems in subtle ways or ways that approach profundity. The full range. Motion, the dynamic necessity of dynmnic systems, is also journey, at the very least through time. Things move for the most part, apparently linearly through time, but thinking and imagination can also move in any direction while basic linear progression is underway. Thinking is more like time itself, a vehicle transporting us, that meanders as it moves generally linearly, creating different implications for each location in time. Multiple streams of time, such as past and present, apparently head toward future streams, but at any time, any of these can be twisted, merged, or folded - if only in the thoughts of those moving with time. Consider that sunlight that illuminates the present on earth is light from the sun's recent past. And sunlight emanates from all the sun-sphere all at once, so a radiant mane (not a single line) travels a widening path in time. Because LFP emphasizes fluidity, implications for the LFP page can be startling. I am Proforker and Text Choreographer as I work on identifying and understanding how moving products of LFP occupy moving space. Poems may happen at any stage in cycles of structure formation, decay, and reformation; and any part of these events may appear in any location of the LFP page simultaneously, some parts imperceptible, some variably revealed and
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Issue 42 - Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art

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