Afternotes and Appendices

Afternote One -- Remember when I wrote "Jean-Louis"?

It's funny how one mention of the name "Kerouac" can bring out the PARRRRR-TAYYYY AAAANNNIMAL -- WOOO! in certain burnt-out cases around my age.

It seems people don't understand the guy any more now than they did back when he was alive. A 'regular guy' with a troubled past, a football injury that killed his college career when the term 'red shirt' meant something else, and a yen after that to find the truth wherever it lead him is what I think of when I hear the name, personally.

Maybe all the drugs and drink and vido loco in his poetry was necessary for him to find what he was looking for, and maybe it wasn't.

What this blog has been about -- all about, really -- is that, if it ever was necessary, it no longer is.

(That doesn't mean you won't suffer travails, neighbors -- just that you don't necessarily need to dive in looking for them.)

___

I've always focused on Kerouac the poet, having heard years ago he was a mediocre novelist. But, after finally reading On The Road (the standard prose version, looking for more clues to his poetry), it's clear to me now why the 'party animal' label sticks to him so securely, even after a half century.

As for his having been a mediocre novelist, Kerouac may have had the last laugh: Look at some of the longer prose poems of Baudelaire (one of Kerouac's more obvious forebears) and compare them to the allegedly awkward beginning and 'overwritten' sections of On the Road. Hmmm ... . Maybe the novel wasn't the point, after all.


Afternote Two: Quartos

Why did ol' Tom write the Four Quartets?

To be famous? He already was. To secure his literary heritage? Nothing is less secure. To make some 'grand statement'? See the first two answers.

Without having read any major biographies or done any real research, I want to suggest an answer: he was afraid of moving back to London and helping people cope with the Blitz.

To me, Four Quartets lives under an umbrella of the poet's search for 'ultimate answers' in life and death -- hiding under the umbrella is Eliot's real-world fear of getting blown to bits by a buzz bomb.

He probably realized volunteering to work as an air raid warden would get him sent to the worst place in London -- an area surrounding an old Roman road that would have made an easy WW2-bomber target.

This road is in the poem. I'll let you find it. The road runs through the whole work -- sometimes quite literally, sometimes in bits, like a mosaic.

I am probably way off-base. (Online sources have him drafting Four Quartets while he was an air raid warden or watchman or whatever.) I usually am. But just think about it, anyway. Eliot may even have had a real, direct and personal motive for actually going and doing what scared him the most. Something that would have overmastered his fear.

Think about that, too. 


Matt’n’Jack

One wrote about "The Future" that was pretty accurate, one wrote about that portended present in something he called Mexico City Blues.

One might be thought of as (in a Redress of Poetry sense) a frustrated member of parliament, the other as a disappointed halfback. One was a professor of Measure, the other was a laureate of Beat.

One expressed himself in moody reflections like "Rugby Chapel", while the other did much the same in "Bowery Blues". (One obviously took a lot more care with variety in titles than the other one did.)

Both had to let their respective muses and closest collaborators go -- Marguerite and 'Tristessa', Clough and Ginsberg.

Both wrote about time versus eternity. One gave up the life of the poet at 45 to become a critic, the other never got much past that, dying at 47. Both never dealt with politics in a partisan way (in the current sense, at least that I'm aware of), but both (I think) were very aware of Realpolitik.

To me, they are both poles apart, yet points on the same curvy wave coming at me from the past (a wave is a circle viewed from the front [or the rear -- have they both gone that far by me?]).

It's impossible to know what either would have thought of social media (one might have thought of it as a form of telegraph, the other as smoke signals -- but that's just my guess.)

But somehow, at least to me, they are very close in space and time.


Afternote Three: Wade in the Water, Children

There's this thing you see in every group -- subgroups. At group meetings, they usually sit together (which is why, if I'm new to a group, I deliberately sit in the back, away from the main body. This allows me to see all the subgroups.)

At poetry readings/meetings I've been to, there is the main group -- the core, the nucleus. They sit front-and-center, usually.

Then, there is usually a pair of support groups -- the wings, the banks, the estates. Yes, they often group politically and in the proper side relation, at least in view of the aforementioned subgroup watcher in the back of the room in that little table by himself.

Then, there are little nests of secondaries. Some carp, some kibbitz, some sit politely while wishing they were sitting further front. An interesting subgroup flits here and there among them -- the semi-outsiders. In poetry groups I've been in, the last are primarily musicians. (They want to play.)

Then, there are those around the bar. The rebels, outliers and mad scientists of the group, they form a nucleus of their own. The barista front-to-side, the barkeep/owner in the rear are referees, umpires, enforcers. The emcee/chair/etc. sits at the bar, keeping an eye on the rebels and an ear toward the barkeep/owner.

My seat is next to the swinging door where the cafe/caterer staff exit to dump garbage and wash dishes. Right where I belong.

What has always bugged me is this -- the subtext to these subgroups seems to be sustaining the attitude that such groups are all about being poets, want-to-be being poets, wish-to-be being poets or having-given-up-wanting-or-wishing-to-be-being poets.

Assuming all in the group-at-large have a gift for writing, this just seems to be a waste of valuable resources. Where are the critics? Where are the promoters? Where are -- most importantly -- the editors?

Are there critics at elbow with the rebels at the bar? Are there promoters sitting in the wings? Are there editors among the nests?

Critics, as I have tried to point out here, do not necessarily carp and tear down. They can, and should, serve a positive function in setting canons of taste (for which there is no "accounting" -- Victorian English for "quantifying"). This function has both a general aspect and a local aspect. ("A good poem is a good poem, but what's best for here?)

Promoters get the general audience to come to events. They make sure the events are run well, publicized and set in good places, and also feature the best and most exciting talent for that particular event (A New Talent Night would feature different poets than Old Guard Night.).

I've saved the biggest waste for last: editors. They are often the poets who count themselves lucky to get (1) an honorable mention in contests, (2) more than a smattering of applause at open mic nights, or (3) anyone at the front table to remember their names.

But do they write well? Have they considered prose poetry, for instance? Writing essays about poetry of any kind? Starting or taking up or working on a journal?  While I agree with most that you need to be a poet yourself to properly edit a journal, review or chapbook series, I don't see why you have to be a Dante or a Milton to do it. (I don't recall reading anywhere that either great ever edited anything other than their own work.)

To me, a great editor is a good poet with the broad taste of the best critics, an abiding concern with promoting other good poets, and a searing passion to make sure the best poems in every category see the widest possible circulation.

We need more of this water. Such growth happens around the country, but it occurs in a diffusely localized situation. Hundreds of tiny puddles instead of a few big new waves.

If you're in a poetry group, use what I have written above (or what others you respect have written elsewhere) to re-assess the potential of your contribution. Critics, promoters and editors alike form the aqua vitae (in its literal sense) for great poetry movements.

And consider this: T.S. Eliot would have had to leave his masterpieces to the care of relatives (as Emily Dickinson had to do) without people like Harriet Monroe and Conrad Aiken. Without people like Joyce Johnson and Mark Van Doren, Jack Kerouac would have been the writer of one or two failed novels and a desk full of semi-coherent scribbles. And without Eliot or Kerouac or their like, who would remember the critics, promoters or editors who supported them? There is mutual benefit available to those ready and willing to grasp it.

My message is this: you, O poetry club member, can do more.

Just what is up to you.


Done ... (in script).

The search is over. The search for my 'hand'. Script hand, that is.

In working on my 'fair copy' thing (see Fair Deal, my post on July 18, 2010), I found that my old, informal script hand (handblock, print hand, whatever), which I've used for decades and worked just fine for notes and garden-variety jottings, just looked like sh*& on page after page of My Collected Works (first typed 'Words' -- which fits.)

So, I started trying to remember how I was taught script hand (we called it 'hand-printing' instead of 'handwriting', which was cursive) back in grade school. It looks pretty much like the "Normal" font for this Blogger account, though without serifs. But, when I got to writing titles for the poems, as well as a title page for the collection with its own title, it still looked wrong.

I didn't know what to do with 'I' -- the capital letter, that is. If I made it like a straight line, it looked like a little 'l', and that was confusing because I had one title with the word "Ill" in it.

But if I added little 'caps' on the I, it still looked wrong.  And if I put a tiny 'serif' on the little 'l', it looked pretentious and even more wrong.

Then, like a bolt from the blue yesterday, it hit me. There are three kinds of letters in script hand. No typewriter I know can reproduce them, so it seems to me we've forgotten about that third kind.

Back in the days of Greek parchment manuscripts, there were three kinds of script. One was capital, one was uncial, and one was minuscule. Because both capital and uncial are large letters ("majuscule", in script-speak), they were combined in typesetting and then in personal typewriters.

But capital letters and uncial letters have different functions when all you've got is paper and pen. I can't reproduce it here, and I know of no custom type fonts that have them in a personal-computer form (the keyboards we use are mostly the same as typewriters -- with a number pad, a function pad and some command keys added).

What we casually call script hand is merely a combination of capital and minuscule ('little') letters. But if you add modern uncial English hand, and if you combine the three properly, there is no confusion.

Here is my short hand (ouch) guide:

Most uncials look just like short capital letters in modern script hand. There are two exceptions: the capital "I" and capital "J" have the caps, which are wider than serifs though not as wide as the cap on the capital "T" (ditto). The uncials of those letters have no caps and are the same height as the other uncial letters. If you were writing capital letters in script hand that filled almost the entire space between the lines of standard pre-lineated paper, the uncials would be about three- or four-fifths that high.

The minuscule "i" and "j" are dotted, the dots reaching about the same height as the capital letters.

Capital letters are used to start sentences, identify proper names, etc. in both uncial and minuscule script hand. All-capital hand is for book titles (magazine names, etc.). A mix of capitals and uncials would be for chapter names (and perhaps the author's name, etc.), while capitals plus minuscules are for plain text. The all-uncial hand would be like bold text (citations for book titles, signage in text, etc.), with underscoring reserved throughout for emphasis, including subchapter names and so forth. Italics -- well, that's another post.

I know all this is confusing, when a scan of my script hand formula would show what I mean in a second. I just don't have that capability here. Sorry.

Nobody I know does this anymore, and you'd only see it probably on fair copies nowadays. For the hand(ouch-ouch)ful of us who even want to do that.

But figuring it out made me happy. Thought I'd share.

___
BTW, 'lettering' in word balloons for comic books is usually different: it uses what I'm calling 'uncial' hand in all but the letter 'I'. It seems most comic-book letterers by convention use the uncial 'I' in all but one instance -- first-person singular, when they use a capital 'I' with its 'caps'.


Wow

It seems I was not the only one confused: A recent search for 'uncial' turned up a lot of interesting responses. As did one for 'capital I'.

What 'uncial' represents, even in the true script hand of various ancient languages, appears to be a crap shoot. Usually a mix of what we customarily consider capital and minuscule letters, 'uncial' may not be the term I need.

Upper case, lower case ... middle case? 'Case', in case (!) you were confused, is a typesetter's term from the days of manual letterpress (that's setting all the letters by hand, rubbing ink on them and pressing them against a piece of paper or a card). Once upon a time, 'moveable' type was just that, moving from press to press in a giant rack that held 'cases' of letters.

I recall seeing, but never using, an old letterpress in this retail store where I worked as a teen. It fascinated me. It was used in the store to print cards (I think 10" by 20") to advertise certain 'specials' offered from time to time that were to be displayed point-of-purchase (yeah, 'purchase' and 'pay for' are different. Another post.).

And it had three sets (or 'cases') of its one and only alphabet (or 'font'). It was kept around because the guy who printed up the signs with the newer letterpress (that had only two sets of alphabets) occasionally needed an extra letter or two from the old one. Made of soft metal, many letters had been worn down by use over time and, frankly, this old deal was way too heavy to move -- so there it sat, collecting dust.

Something this guy pointed out to me one day was the difference in the 'i' letters for the old one, the difference being the one I described in the last post.

As I searched various Google fonts since I last posted, it seems this 'third' distinction is not even in the specs for digital fonts. It also seems that few, if any, digital san serif fonts exist with the proper form of capital 'I' -- the lineal 'caps' on that and the capital 'J' not being serifs, but actually parts of that size letter, just as the dot in the lower case or minuscule versions of those letters is not decorative, but essential.

In the offhand (I know, ouch) type (yeah) of script hand I'd used for 20 years or more, I did not bother dotting a single 'i'. But now -- using the more formally recognized script hand with dotted 'i' and 'j' -- the re-copied results look clearer. Poems just snap into focus (or further out, depending on how well they were written). Odd.

It seems my offhand hand was not so much "off", as merely my own kind of misapplied uncial. Hmmmm.

We are at the beginning of a revolution in typesetting. Isn't it high time we drop the old typewriter "two-case" alphabets and start doing it right, before the situation gets any more 'wrong'?
___

By the way, 'wow' is probably close to how the Greeks once pronounced a letter their alphabet actually lost -- the digamma.

It happens.


Homework

Ancient Greek had two 'hands' -- a cursive or 'running' hand that was used for everyday writing and a 'book' hand that was used by scribes on scrolls. This book hand was called 'uncial' -- from a term that means 'twelfth part'. In short (ow), you could get twelve letters (formally called 'characters') per line on average in a scroll book.

This Greek uncial created scrolls in papyrus and much later on parchment for an early type of book called a 'codex'. But, as the ancient world gave way to the Middle Ages, this uncial hand got less readable as less-able hands put quill to vellum.

In the 9th Century, some Greek monks reformed the whole thing, creating 'minuscule'. This prompted a publishing revolution -- partly because you could get a lot more letters per book in minuscule, and partly because they were easier for copyists to make. Books got smaller, cheaper and then more widespread, as demand increased production.

But making sure scribes had the best texts to copy in the first place took painstaking research and careful forethought. Awareness that this was even necessary for holy writ took centuries, as did methods for doing it right, since ideas about and techniques for both largely passed with pagan antiquity. The whole process, such as it was, stayed inside the monastery until Renaissance humanism put another revolution in motion.

The first New Testament in Greek set in movable type was printed in 1514 at a university in Spain under the auspices of a cardinal there as part of a multi-language project for the entire Bible. Some 200 characters were created for this and similar projects to represent all 24 Greek letters and their many variations, along with combinations of Greek letters called 'ligatures'.

A less-expensive but nice Greek-only NT came out around this time at a high-quality press in Venice. Erasmus also edited his own version of the Greek NT, and presses (Protestant) in France and Switzerland got busy with their versions based all or in part on that one in several sizes. Soon afterward, most of the literate Western world could get hold of a Greek book in some form with a far more familiar (to them) Latin translation on the facing page.

That's what I found, in a nutshell. However, the details of this story are much more complex. I'll let those interested find more on their own.

___
BTW, the digamma was pronounced more like 'wau'. And there were several other Greek letters that had dropped out of the ancient written language besides that one.

And one more note: I got all the above from books I have, not from the Internet. You do need books. Written by knowledgeable people. There just is no substitute.


Final Note

I've added a Content Notice to this Blogger account's main page, just below the profile. It places a copyright on everything I've written here, 'except where noted'. The exceptions are those versions of the poem that ended up being called "The Mandolin's Song", all of which are covered by a Creative Commons license, along with all posts those versions appeared in or directed the reader to see. Other than those, everything in this blog is copyrighted by me.

The individual copyright notices on other separate poems I wrote, posted and commented on here remain, just to make sure the distinction between them and "The Mandolin's Song" is crystal clear.

When I started this blog almost five years ago, I decided against including a specific copyright notice, because I wanted this material to be freely adaptable by anyone interested in doing so. I wanted to avoid inhibiting any reuse in any way.

But things have changed since then. This blog became longer and more involved, and the ideas and techniques within it became several entities that others could spin into a book or two, and -- for all I know -- earn themselves a considerable reputation and maybe even some money. This is a sensitive topic with me, so I have decided to copyright everything that rests herein, except "The Mandolin's Song", its various versions and any related comments.

That this weblog could be adapted into a book of my own has obviously also occurred to me, so I've added a Chronological Archive sidebar to help anyone who wants to 'unscroll' this blog and read it in book-like continuity, in addition to what you have here.

I have no problem with anyone using materials herein to stimulate their own original creative thinking and writing. That is, in fact, this work's purpose.

One of my heroes, John Milton, wrote many things with no expectation of any financial return whatsoever. We'd probably nowadays call that his pro bono work, borrowing a term from lawyers who take clients unable to pay them 'for the public good'. I doubt whether you can separate Milton's work like that -- he wrote everything he did largely for others' benefit -- but I think you get my drift. This blog is here for you to use as you see fit, but it's not here to steal.