Stepping on Tender Buttons: “A Little Called Pauline.” Part 2 of 2

SPATS & LACE IN THE BUTTONS BOX

THE BOOK ..........................-           TENDER BUTTONS

THE SUBBOOK ...................-           OBJECTS

THE SUBPOEM ...................-          ALITTLE CALLED PAULINE: NUMBER 46

WORD COUNT......................-           182

STANZA(S)............................-           11

THE LEADER........................-           THE STEINY ROAD POET

CO-LLABORATORS..............-           MODPO STUDENTS/THE BUTTONS

GENRE..................................-           VIRTUAL OPERA

LOCATION............................-USA, UK, Australia, Philippines, S. Africa, Canada.

TIME......................................-           ALL HOURS OF EARTH’S CLOCK

TONE.....................................-           FANCIFUL

“Does anyone else see that 'shudders' minus the 'sh' is 'udders'?” Sarah Maitland Parks

“In fairy sea, I heard Pharisee.” The Steiny Road Poet

"Apollinaire sounds like A-Pauline-heir, heir to St. Paul?" Peter Treanor

A LITTLE CALLED PAULINE.

A little called anything shows shudders.

Come and say what prints all day. A whole few water-melon. There is no pope.

No cut in pennies and little dressing and choose wide soles and little spats really little spices.

A little lace makes boils. This is not true.

Gracious of gracious and a stamp a blue green white bow a blue green lean, lean on the top.

If it is absurd then it is leadish and nearly set in where there is a tight head.

A peaceful life to arise her, moon and moon and moon. A letter a cold sleeve a blanket a shaving house and nearly the best and regular window.

Nearer in fairy sea, nearer and farther, show white has lime in sight, show a stitch of ten. Count, count more so that thicker and thicker is leaning.

I hope she has her cow. Bidding a wedding, widening received treading, little leading, mention nothing.

Cough out cough out in the leather and really feather it is not for.

Please could, please could, jam it not plus more sit in when.

BABY WITH NO POPE

Connecting to associations about Pauline and Marie Laurencin discussed in Stepping on Tender Buttons: “A Little Called Pauline.” Part 1 of 2, came the association of childbirth.

from Eleanor Smagarinsky:

Hmmmm....

“Looking at that list of verbs, above....[see the end of Stepping on Tender Buttons: “A Little Called Pauline.” Part 1 of 2]

I can't help but feel that a baby is being born. A little girl or little boy, who receives a name, but has no pope (Papa).

“There's even mention of counting and ten—full cervical dilation. And that tight head. Nearer and further...in sight...and perhaps even an episiotomy (a stitch)? 

[Could this be] The birth of a new artistic age? 

“Birds don't only fly with those feathers, they also feather their nests. Those Roc birds in "Sinbad the Sailor" had an egg. [The mythological Roc bird was mentioned in Apollinaire’s poem “Zone” which was  quoted in Stepping on Tender Buttons: “A Little Called Pauline.” Part 1 of 2,] You can't fly around with your egg, you have to sit on it until it hatches.”

from Peter Treanor:

“Yes I can see a birth here too. I have been wondering if "A Little Called Pauline." could refer to something small (a child?) named (called ) by Pauline, so could maybe this could be Marie (Laurencin).

from Eleanor:

"’A little,’ called Pauline.

“Is that what you mean? Gosh, speech in a button-poem. How exciting!

“Makes sense, thematically, what with Genesis describing creation as a product of God's speech:

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.  God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.  God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

“What about taking it a step further...Pauline is declaring the first letter of the alphabet ‘a little’ which is a, as compared to ‘a big’ which is A. And later on Stein writes "A letter a", which pleases me greatly. And of course there's a sea—C. But what does she have against B? B is for boils, oh... if you say boils, boils, boils, quickly it sounds like boys!!

“A little ace makes boys (but it's not true)??” [A little lace makes boils. This is not true.]

from Karren Alenier [a.k.a. The Steiny Road Poet]

“I'm thinking some of the language might be caused by having anesthesia—e.g. the last line. Please could, please could, jam it not plus more sit in when.  

“But so much of this is drunk talk. 

“Let me see if I can better explain the drunk talk that might be drugged talk as if one has been drugged to have a baby or maybe the woman is just delirious.

“A little baby called anything comes with bloody shows and gives me shudders.

“Come and say what imprints (makes a strong impression)  all day—A child, A whole few water-melon (the pregnant mother's stomach). There is no pope (no father).

“No cut in pennies and little dressing and choose wide soles and little spats really little spices.  (The mother who has to pay her own way is concerned about what the baby will cost her. She only has pennies.)

“A little lace makes boils. This is not true. (The mother is confused and contradicts herself.)

“Gracious of gracious and a stamp a blue green white bow a blue green lean, lean on the top. (The mother calls on God--gracious of gracious, to help her.)

“If it is absurd then it is leadish and nearly set in where there is a tight head. (The mother is trying to push but the weight of the baby's head seems stuck.)

“A peaceful life to arise her, moon and moon and moon. A letter a cold sleeve a blanket a shaving house and nearly the best and regular window. (The mother had a peaceful life but was often awakened by the moon during pregnancy. The father of the child doesn't respond to her letters and gives her the cold shoulder and now she has been prepared for this birth in a room where she can still see the moon.)

“Nearer in fairy sea, nearer and farther, show white has lime in sight, show a stitch of ten. Count, count more so that thicker and thicker is leaning. (The mother's waters breaks, she has counted her breathing—she awaits the episiotomy.)

“I hope she has her cow. Bidding a wedding, widening received treading, little leading, mention nothing. (The narrator of the poem hopes all goes well and she has the child--cow. She could not make the wedding happen, she just has to tread these troubled waters and say nothing.)

“The poem ends with trying to take some action to speed along the birth and then just babbles.”

Cough out cough out in the leather and really feather it is not for.

Please could, please could, jam it not plus more sit in when.

BURSTING THE IMAGINATION: ANOTHER KIND OF BIRTH

Peter ratcheted up the human birth association to a burst of the imagination.

Stepping on Tender Buttons: “A Little Called Pauline.” Part 1 of 2

SPATS & LACE IN THE BUTTONS BOX

THE BOOK ..........................-           TENDER BUTTONS

THE SUBBOOK ...................-           OBJECTS

THE SUBPOEM ...................-          A LITTLE CALLED PAULINE: NUMBER 46

WORD COUNT......................-           182

STANZA(S)............................-           11

THE LEADER........................-           THE STEINY ROAD POET

CO-LLABORATORS..............-           MODPO STUDENTS/THE BUTTONS

GENRE..................................-           VIRTUAL OPERA

LOCATION............................-USA, UK, Australia, Philippines, S. Africa, Canada.

TIME......................................-           ALL HOURS OF EARTH’S CLOCK

TONE.....................................-           FANCIFUL

“Has Stein taken little things from Apollinaire's work, and incorporated them into her own cubist portrait?” Eleanor Smagarinsky

A LITTLE CALLED PAULINE.

A little called anything shows shudders.

Come and say what prints all day. A whole few water-melon. There is no pope.

No cut in pennies and little dressing and choose wide soles and little spats really little spices.

A little lace makes boils. This is not true.

Gracious of gracious and a stamp a blue green white bow a blue green lean, lean on the top.

If it is absurd then it is leadish and nearly set in where there is a tight head.

A peaceful life to arise her, moon and moon and moon. A letter a cold sleeve a blanket a shaving house and nearly the best and regular window.

Nearer in fairy sea, nearer and farther, show white has lime in sight, show a stitch of ten. Count, count more so that thicker and thicker is leaning.

I hope she has her cow. Bidding a wedding, widening received treading, little leading, mention nothing.

Cough out cough out in the leather and really feather it is not for.

Please could, please could, jam it not plus more sit in when.

“A Little Called Pauline.” is a big subpoem of the “Objects” section of Tender Buttons, not just for its size: eleven stanzas and 182 words, but also for its scope of possible meaning and methods. While larger subpoems of Section 1 “Objects” have preceded “Pauline.”— “A Substance in a Cushion.” (470 words),  “A Piece of Coffee.” (300 words),  “A Box.” (subpoem 11, 302 words),  “A Plate.” (257 words),  “A Chair.” (256 words), Stein’s strategy seems different from other particularly mysterious subpoems like “A Substance in a Cushion.”, “A Piece of Coffee.”, or the short “Malachite.” (18 words).

The Buttons Collective has looked at "A Little Called Pauline." from lots of perspectives:

--Pauline as Pauline Laurencin, mother of artist Marie Laurencin,  a lifelong friend of Stein & Toklas

--Pauline as activist Pauline Newman, who had worked at the ill-fated Triangle Shirtwaist factory

--The overall subpoem in connection with the literary work of Guillaume Apollinaire, especially his poem "Zone."

--The overall subpoem from fairytale and myth.

--The overall subpoem as depiction of birth of a child.

--The overall subpoem as depiction of birth of a piece of writing.

--The writerly elements of the poem relative to Stein's rhyme, lyricism, and embedded words within words.

--The eroticism of various words.

"A Little Called Pauline." is not the first subpoem of Section 1 to have a person’s name in the title. Subpoem 8 “Mildred’s Umbrella.” refers possibly to Gertrude Stein’s mother who was nicknamed Milly. The “Pauline" and “Mildred” subpoems share elements in common that point to color, sewing and dressing, themes that pop up regularly in the subpoems of Section 1.

So what is it that makes this subpoem seem unlike the others before it? In the odd shadows of all that has come before, the Steiny Road Poet can point with certainty to the stuttering jumble of words at the end: Please could, please could, jam it not plus more sit in when. And Steiny suggests that select vocabulary of this subpoem is a little more exotic from the earlier subpoems, such words as pope, boils, gracious, and fairy. But is that the whole nut? More on Stein’s language play soon. Here in Part 1 of this blog discussion are highlights from the study session relative to Pauline Laurencin, Pauline Newman, and Guillaume Apollinaire:

A LITTLE ON PAULINE LAURENCIN

Pauline Laurencin (1861-1913) was mother of artist Marie Laurencin who was part of Pablo Picasso's circle of close friends and a lifelong friend of Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas. Never married to Marie’s father Alfred Toulet, Toulet most likely gave Pauline financial assistance to move to and live modestly in Paris, earning a living as a seamstress. Gertrude Stein writes about Pauline and Marie in The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas as follows:

“Marie Laurencin, leading her strange life and making her strange art, lived with her mother, as if the two were living in a convent. The small apartment was filled with needlework which the mother had executed after the designs of Marie Laurencin. Marie and her mother acted toward each other exactly as a young nun with an older one.”

How does this single mom of an artist relate to the subpoem? 

Single mom, making modest livingè No cut in pennies and little dressing, A little lace, a stamp a blue green white bow, Bidding a wedding, widening received treading, little leading, mention nothing. (Pauline works alone without partner or boss, making pennies, making or repairing the small things a seamstress does. She adds a little lace and her signature bows in various colors. Occasionally she gets a bigger job like one for a wedding where her pedal sewing machine is used but it is done under the table, she doesn’t flaunt this additional income.)

Other elements that add to the Pauline Laurencin story:

—   There is no pope. (The cloistered mother and daughter operate without pope/male head of the family.)

—   A peaceful life to arise her, moon and moon and moon. A letter a cold sleeve a blanket a shaving house and nearly the best and regular window. (Pauline has an understanding with Alfred Toulet who is represented in this passage by the letter, cold sleeve, shaving house. The understanding is that she won’t tell the higher society he lives in about his illegitimate daughter as long as she can maintain her best and regular window in her tiny Paris flat where she can live a peaceful life.)

—   Cough out cough out (By the time Stein writes this subpoem, Pauline has died, coughed her last and perhaps that collection of words that makes up the last stanza is Marie mourning: Please could, please could, jam it not plus more sit in when.

A PARALLEL PAULINE STORY

Buttons Collective member Eleanor made a case as follows for another contemporary of Stein’s who was an American activist in the garment industry.

“Perhaps Pauline is also Pauline Newman. The rhythm of the sewing machines reverberates throughout the poem, as does the strength (violence even) of this "frail-looking little woman who is hailed as the...east side Joan of Arc". Interestingly, Joan of Arc's beatification occurred in 1909, but only a Pope can canonize—There is no pope., and this [canonization of Jeanne d’Arc] didn't occur until 1920.”

A side note to Pauline Newman’s story is that because she had worked in the Triangle Shirtwaist Dress factory, it is logical for the Buttons Collective to link Newman to “A Little Called Pauline.” since the Buttons had already discussed the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in subpoem 14 “A Long Dress.”

WHAT POPPED UP IN POPE

When Karren Alenier [a.k.a. Steiny] decided during the study discussion to get a definition for pope, she found something unexpected in thefreedictionary.com:

pope  (pōp)

n.

1. often Pope Roman Catholic Church The bishop of Rome and head of the Roman Catholic Church on earth.

2. Eastern Orthodox Church The patriarch of Alexandria.

3. The Coptic patriarch of Alexandria.

4. The male head of some non-Christian religions: the Taoist pope.

5. A person considered to have unquestioned authority: the pope of surrealism.

The example given for item 5, a person of unquestioned authority, related to surrealism. This made Steiny think that pope was a popular term in Stein's and Apollinaire's day. André Breton is known as the pope of surrealism and was one of Apollinaire's and Picasso's friends. However, Stein wasn't into surrealism and maybe she was being negative about Breton—There is no pope.

Stein might also have been referring to the fact that neither Marie Laurencin nor Marie’s lover Guillaume Apollinaire had recognized fathers when they were growing up. The joke in Picasso's circle was that Apollinaire was the bastard son of a pope.

Stepping on Tender Buttons: “Water Raining.” & “Cold Climate.”

SEEDING THE BUTTONS BOX

THE BOOK ..........................-           TENDER BUTTONS

THE SUBBOOK ...................-           OBJECTS

THE SUBPOEM ...................-           WATER RAINING: NUMBER 31

WORD COUNT......................-           11

THE SUBPOEM ...................-           COLD CLIMATE: NUMBER 32

WORD COUNT......................-           10

STANZAS..............................-           1 each

THE LEADER........................-           THE STEINY ROAD POET

CO-LLABORATORS..............-           MODPO STUDENTS/THE BUTTONS

GENRE..................................-           VIRTUAL OPERA

LOCATION............................-USA, UK, Australia, Philippines, S. Africa, Canada.

TIME......................................-           ALL HOURS OF EARTH’S CLOCK

TONE.....................................-           EFFUSIVE

“Rain can make a meadow or it can make a flood. The meadow is passive. The stroke is violent.” Randy Parker

WATER RAINING.

Water astonishing and difficult altogether makes a meadow and a stroke.

COLD CLIMATE.

A season in yellow sold extra strings makes lying places.

The Steiny Road Poet saw the key words for this study session as water, raining, meadow, stroke, yellow, strings, lying. A great deal of the comments focused on objects in the natural world but veered languorously into painting, writing, the Stein love relationships, saffron, the yellow fever epidemic of 1793, string theory, and kabbalah.

WADING IN

Here are some samples:

From Randy Parker:

“Making a meadow is life-giving.

“Making a stroke--well that could be the painting reference that we talked about in ModPo—standing water in the meadow like a stroke of white or grey paint. But a stroke is a kind of statement. A striking, perhaps. Like lightning.  A stroke of genius. A stroke of bad luck. A debilitating physical stroke. Stroke can also refer to swimming.”

THE FLUIDITY OF LOVE

From Peter Treanor:

 “I wonder if water raining could be tears, is she or Alice crying? Raining seems like a very active description of what is happening to the water.  Its astonishing and difficult, maybe they have argued. And the flow of tears makes you wipe/stoke them away.

“And stretching it too far probably, could meadow be "me adieu", me ( GS) saying goodbye. Maybe that’s why there are tears, one of them is leaving?
 I like Randy's reading of this too and like the idea of the meadow as a meadow, and a meadow is such a good place to make hay..
 And "altogether" seems so "all to get her" every time I see it now that I wonder if the meadow is Alice and the stroke is GS stroking her, her meadow, and if the water is GS raining/ reigning down her love and (wet) passion, making hay and making the meadow's wild flowers grow.


“I was [also] thinking of the ways that water is seemingly like love. How it flows, how we get swept away in it, flooded  by it, lost in a sea of it, have oceans of it, float in it, swim in it, drown in it, set  sail away on an ocean of it. Are buoyed up by it. Love and water go together like a cup and saucer.

from Claudia Schumann:

“Water raining is like water passing by (or may mean people passing by). Maybe GS is thinking of May Bookstaver [Stein’s college lover] and trying to forget.”

BRUSH STROKES

From Allan Keeton:

“This makes me think of the strokes of paint in daoist watercolor paintings.

“I am struck by the graceful (astonishing & difficult to achieve)

harmony between humans & nature.”

STRING & PARTICLE THEORY

from Mary Armour:

“This [“Water Raining.”] brought back a memory of walking in a wet spring through water meadows near Richmond, London, grasses undulating and surfing my calves, and later watching some androgynous swimmer doing breast stroke in an Olympic-sized pool, the swift parting of waters and  cleaving, not as dramatic as  swimming the butterfly stroke and heaving up shoulders but scooping water horizontally, parting of ways like the Red Sea, like  tall grasses in Africa.

“The crawl stroke was what we were taught at school, the swift clean slicing forward motion taught after we graduated from doggy paddle. We had to practise it at the side of the pool before we got into the water, moving our arms through the air as if air was lighter helium-filled water.