In the fifth pairing of the Ten Buts thru Ten Comms Project reading “A Piece of Coffee.” through
“Thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother,” Eleanor Smagarinsky, recognizing
the complexity of this subpoem comprised of seven stanzas broke her discussion
into sections.
A PIECE OF COFFEE.
More of double.
A place in no new table.
A single image is not splendor. Dirty is yellow. A
sign of more in not mentioned. A piece of coffee is not a detainer. The
resemblance to yellow is dirtier and distincter. The clean mixture is whiter
and not coal color, never more coal color than altogether.
The sight of a reason, the same sight slighter,
the sight of a simpler negative answer, the same sore sounder, the intention to
wishing, the same splendor, the same furniture.
The time to show a message is when too late and
later there is no hanging in a blight.
A not torn rose-wood color. If it is not dangerous
then a pleasure and more than any other if it is cheap is not cheaper. The
amusing side is that the sooner there are no fewer the more certain is the
necessity dwindled. Supposing that the case contained rose-wood and a color.
Supposing that there was no reason for a distress and more likely for a number,
supposing that there was no astonishment, is it not necessary to mingle astonishment.
The settling of stationing cleaning is one way not
to shatter scatter and scattering. The one way to use custom is to use soap and
silk for cleaning. The one way to see cotton is to have a design concentrating
the illusion and the illustration. The perfect way is to accustom the thing to
have a lining and the shape of a ribbon and to be solid, quite solid in
standing and to use heaviness in morning. It is light enough in that. It has
that shape nicely. Very nicely may not be exaggerating. Very strongly may be
sincerely fainting. May be strangely flattering. May not be strange in
everything. May not be strange to.
THE CATEGORY OF RESPECT
In Step 1 of her analysis,
Eleanor looked at the commandment.
“It reads Kabed
et avicha ve'et imecha—‘Honor your father and your mother’ (Deut. 5:16).
Respect your parents. Nowhere will you find in the Torah an exhortation
of ahavah —to love one's parents. That is taken for granted.
But love is not enough. We must show kibbud — our deep esteem
for them.”
She pointed to a sermon that further illuminated what she meant. Than she
provided a gloss on the commandments and the fifth commandment in particular:
“NOTE - In Judaism
the commandments are not considered to be individual commandments, but
categories. For example, here - teachers are also included as requiring our
honour/respect. This might mean that certain words used by GS in her poem may
refer to her Medical School teachers, as well as her parents.
“It is said that
the first 5 commandments encompass the God/human relationships, and the next 5
encompass the human/human relationships. So why is this number 5? Because
parents are the creators of people, and in that sense an insult to a parent is
equivalent to an insult to God.
"It is
interesting to note that kibbud, the Hebrew word for respect,
and kovade, the word for weight or burden, stem from the same root.
The Hebraic concept is that kibbud and kovade go
together. If we want to be respected we must be willing to assume a burden, to
carry a load, to shoulder responsibility. From here.
“This is reflected in the
last stanza of the poem—to be solid, quite solid in standing and to use
heaviness in morning. Here, morning
may refer to mourning.”
ALL ABOUT HER
Step 2 of Eleanor’s
analysis involved linguistic leaps initially noticed in the Steiny Road Poet’s
close reading of “A
Piece of Coffee.”. The essence of the discussion is, as Eleanor notes, that
one way of honoring your parents is by producing an heir so that the family
name and lineage will continue into the future. The catch was that Alice and
Gertrude could not reproduce, as in birth a living child. However, as any
author might tell you, what is written is considered offspring and one might
hear an author refer to his or her book as my
baby. For Gertrude Stein who was brought up by a father keen on his
children getting the best possible education, what she produced mattered. Both
aspects of reproducing an heir to continue the family lineage and getting a sound education (Steiny purposefully
chooses the word sound to emphasis
the multi-dimensional meaning suited to this Modernist) is emphasized in the
major work that preceded Tender Buttons,
Stein’s long novel The Making of
Americans: Being a History of a Family's Progress.
The emphasis on er words in “A Piece of Coffee.” came across to Eleanor as
Stein playing obsessively to invoke the word her. The her that is
never stated overtly is, of course, Alice. Eleanor takes this one step further
by noting the proliferation of the article A
(Steiny counts 17 occurrences including the title), which also stands for
Alice.
Here’s Eleanor’s close
reading of stanza 4:
slighter & simpler -
there is no fecundity.
negative answer - not pregnant.
the same sore - no change in the pain.
the intention to wishing - says it all really.
the same splendor, the same furniture - G&A are both women, they have the same
bodies with the same sexual organs.
"same" -
appears 3 times.
"sight" -
appears 3 times.
“They see that they are the
same, also may refer to site—their
home, the place in which they make love. A further pointing is possible—to the
difference between parents and offspring—G might be hinting that she is not at
all a copy / same as her parents, in any case.”
By chance while Eleanor is
out doing errands, she runs into her mother at the supermarket and steals a few
minutes to discuss this subpoem.
“When I showed Mum
what I thought was a subtle reference to children being different from their
parents, Mum said: ‘Every child comes into a family to give the parents
something they don't have... bringing new things into their lives.’
“Mum then read
stanza 5: The time to show a message
is when too late and later there is no hanging in a blight. Her
reaction was this: ‘You know what I always say—men do not know the good
that was in their hands 'til they have lost it.'[Later, Mum called to tell
me: ‘It's not my quote, by the way, it's Sophocles.’] Mum went on to
explain that it's all about links in the chain, and when that chain is broken,
there is much pain.
“Me: This matches
something I've been thinking of.... She writes about designing / making /
cleaning / perfecting something. I'm wondering if she's referring to her
creation of a new 'language,' that she perhaps views her words and writings as
her progeny. Certainly it has survived her—for we're sitting here, outside the
supermarket, discussing her words.
“Mum went on to
read the phrase strangely flattering
[last stanza—
‘That's what happens with
children and parents, there's a strange connection-with-a-gap. Love can't
conquer all. There's a gap between their experiences and personalities and it's
a strangeness that remains.’"
FINDING MAY AMONG THE A's
Then Eleanor had this
breakthrough that extended a eureka shouted by Steiny:
“15 days ago, we studied
‘A
Method of a Cloak.’ and I thought that the many occurrences of the letter
‘A’ created a type of coded love-letter to Alice. Karren then wrote this: ‘Now
I understand why Alice got so mad with Gtrude when she learned about May
Bookstaver and how Stanzas in Meditation
was heavy with the word may.’
“There are 5
occurrences of ‘May’ in the last stanza of this poem.
There are 3
occurrences of ‘one way,’ and 1 of ‘perfect way.’
Then there is this:
may not
may be
may be
may not be
may not be
strange to.
“I'm not sure about this,
but I'm going with my gut feeling. Gertrude has decided that she will honour
her parents through the productivity of her mind, and she does this with Alice
by her side, as her one and only love. But the memories of May remain... and
yet... there can only be ‘one way’.... only one ‘perfect way' ...... but still
the hesitation... may not, may be, may be, may not be, may not be, and finally
------- STRANGE TO. Gertrude decides and proclaims that her family is Alice,
and that May is a stranger.”
And so this discovery of
all the ‘may’s’ and how this poem could be talking how Stein is honoring her
parents with her creative products like Tender
Buttons, made Steiny see all printing lingo and how "A Piece of
Coffee." seems to be a perfect companion to “A
Plate.”
“Look at such words as:
double, table, clean mixture is whiter and not coal color, simpler negative
answer, no hanging in a blight (maybe the darkroom is polluted?), supposing
that the case contained rosewood and a color (ever hear of a California job case
that printers use?), settling of stationing cleaning (lots of cleaning goes on
between print jobs on the old printing presses), a design concentrating the
illusion and the illustration, it is light enough in that.”
Collaborative learning is a
mighty powerful coming together. Thank you, Al
Filreis, for ModPo!
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