tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post7728149398730219586..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: D. H. Lawrence: Like snake marks on the sandUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-20525869720635787122012-06-23T09:28:26.893-07:002012-06-23T09:28:26.893-07:00Did he say a snake?<a href="http://dippingbutterflies.blogspot.in/2012/06/snake.html" rel="nofollow">Did he say a snake?</a>adityahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16078144194220301083noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-5113891716114999262012-06-19T12:25:28.054-07:002012-06-19T12:25:28.054-07:00Unknown, I had that same feeling with the rugs. Ab...Unknown, I had that same feeling with the rugs. Abstraction in art comes from the mind and the soul. Money makes it fly back to the New York art gallery and the auction house.<br /><br /><br />Terry, this beautiful passage encompasses (and perhaps extends) the point of Lawrence's poem:<br /><br />"One contributor wrote about 'the spirit line': 'If a weaver weaves a perfect rug, she makes a little mistake on purpose---an imperfection...so the rug will not be perfect.' So as not to offend the divine."TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-91706106409975805092012-06-19T10:07:11.825-07:002012-06-19T10:07:11.825-07:00Dear TC: One of the first books I produced during...Dear TC: One of the first books I produced during my time at the Smithsonian's Indian museum was called <i>Woven by the Grandmothers: 19th-Century Navajo Textiles from the National Museum of the American Indian</i>; it included many beautiful works, similar to those you've posted here. One contributor wrote about "the spirit line": "If a weaver weaves a perfect rug, she makes a little mistake on purpose---an imperfection...so the rug will not be perfect." So as not to offend the divine. I wish I had known about Lawrence's poem back then, but thanks for turning me on to it now.tpwhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05909239000589253931noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-89294031204563810022012-06-19T09:09:38.943-07:002012-06-19T09:09:38.943-07:00What beautiful rugs, better than the systemic pain...What beautiful rugs, better than the systemic paintings of the sixties so tied to the visible cycles of light, color, life.<br /><br />And Lawrence. I'm just finishing Leavis's masterwork D. H. Lawrence: Novelist, the great book he deserved. He X-rayed civilization for us, I thought, when I read "The Lovely Lady" 20 years ago.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17996997477246829635noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-38207036019776161442012-06-17T04:18:55.023-07:002012-06-17T04:18:55.023-07:00Tom,
". . . run the pattern out in a little ...Tom,<br /><br />". . . run the pattern out in a little break at the end<br />so that her soul can come out, back to her."<br /><br />And so the lines in the patterns continue --what else to say? <br /><br />6.17<br /><br />grey whiteness of sky next to shadowed<br />walls of buildings, line of black wire<br />in foreground, sound of cars in street<br /><br /> this setting itself as well<br /> as what, something of<br /><br /> an ending suddenly leapt to<br /> mind, then, answering<br /><br />brick red wall against green of trees,<br />cloudless pale blue sky across from itSTEPHEN RATCLIFFEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12339481653546188412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-47190833404712274992012-06-16T22:04:21.038-07:002012-06-16T22:04:21.038-07:00The poem, the photos and the comments invariably w...The poem, the photos and the comments invariably weave their own tapestry; in this one, I can see women <a href="http://vazambam.blogspot.gr/2009/12/clotho-at-work.html" rel="nofollow">like this one</a>. Together with their looms, they were permanent fixtures of every Greek household not so very long ago.vazambam (Vassilis Zambaras)https://www.blogger.com/profile/14515165428574974933noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-29128829025591501312012-06-16T16:04:03.745-07:002012-06-16T16:04:03.745-07:00The questions about Quivira were always answered
b...The questions about Quivira were always answered<br />by pointing to the north.<br /><br />The march Coronado’s army made in 1541<br />brought him there—<br />Quivira was a village of Wichita Indian teepees.<br /><br />Coronado writes to the King October 20,<br /> “…some Indians who were natives of other<br /> provinces beyond these had told me that in their<br /> country there were much larger villages and better<br /> houses than those of the natives of this country,<br /> and they had lords who ruled them, who were served<br /> with dishes made of gold, and other very magnificent<br /> things; and although, as I wrote your majesty, I did<br /> not believe it before I had set eyes on it, because<br /> it was the report of Indians and given for the most<br /> part by means of signs.”<br /><br />It is mystifying that the natives gave Coronado<br />a piece of copper or gold he could hang around his neck—<br />the guides confessed they had led him on,<br />hoping they and their horses would starve on the plains.<br />I get hungry reading about it.<br />how there were grapes<br />along some streams<br /><br />“of a fair flavor,<br />not to be improved upon.”Susan Kay Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16277139119869470939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-4905439539139770452012-06-16T14:38:59.415-07:002012-06-16T14:38:59.415-07:00if blankets could talk..baby blankets, hotel blank...if blankets could talk..baby blankets, hotel blankets, these blankets.barkstryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07802148418666645365noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-9678947449588951262012-06-16T13:39:54.365-07:002012-06-16T13:39:54.365-07:00Yes, the lowly foot soldier, that dupe of history....Yes, the lowly foot soldier, that dupe of history.<br /><br />Poor white men, always hungry for something, always walking, always exhausted, always starved for more words, more gold. <br /><br />Poor Coronado, misled by Friar Marcos de Niza about Cibola which turned out to be nothing but a small development of modest Zuni pueblos, not a pot of gold, and by the lying Sioux or Pawnee named the Turk, about Quivira, where there turned out to be only a lot of naked Indians, and less precious metal than was already in <a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Francisco_Coronado_picture_IMG_4884.JPG" rel="nofollow">Coronado's shiny hat</a>.<br /><br />Such a very <a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Coronado_expedition.jpg" rel="nofollow">long way to go for so much nothing</a>.<br /><br />There's an account of the voyages by <a href="http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth3161/m1/1/" rel="nofollow">George Winship: The journey of Coronado, 1540-1542</a><br /><br />The Navajo appear to have learnt weaving from the ancient Pueblo people -- the Anasazi, or Enemy Ancestor.<br /><br />Lawrence seems to have got a pretty good sense of what darknesses lay huddled in waiting under those woven blankets of the ancient night.<br /><br /><br /><br />Mountains blanket-wrapped<br />Round a white hearth of desert --<br /><br />While the sun goes round<br /><br />And round and round the desert,<br />The mountains never get up and walk about.<br />They can't, they can't wake.<br /><br />They camped and went to sleep<br />In the last twilight<br />Of Indian gods;<br />And they can't wake.<br /><br /><br />Indians dance and run and stamp --<br />No good.<br />White men make gold-mines and the mountains un-make them<br />In their sleep.<br /><br />The Indians laugh in their sleep<br />From fear,<br />Like a man when he sleeps and his sleep is over, and he can't wake up,<br /><br />And he lies like a log and screams and his scream is silent<br />Because his body can't wake up;<br />So he laughs from fear, pure fear, in the grip of the sleep.<br /><br />A dark membrane over the will, holding the man down<br /><br />Even when his mind has flickered awake;<br />A membrane of sleep, like a black blanket.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/in-shadows-of-white-house-ruins.html" rel="nofollow">In the Shadow of the White House Ruins</a>TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-84842623127585696502012-06-16T09:36:15.831-07:002012-06-16T09:36:15.831-07:00Not all of them
were looking
for gold
so obviously...Not all of them<br />were looking<br />for gold<br />so obviously<br />hungry.Susan Kay Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16277139119869470939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-53041791980887224752012-06-16T09:04:39.512-07:002012-06-16T09:04:39.512-07:00Coronado who?
enquired the ewe.
Having seen th...<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/7326810@N08/2126321964/sizes/o/in/photostream/" rel="nofollow">Coronado who?</a> <br /> <br />enquired the ewe.<br /><br />Having seen the men come and go.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-23828276534594269242012-06-16T08:34:46.888-07:002012-06-16T08:34:46.888-07:00Coronado and his men
well, asked for directions
ye...Coronado and his men<br />well, asked for directions<br />yet<br />gave them <br />instead.<br /><br />After this<br />we had to deal<br />with the wool.Susan Kay Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16277139119869470939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-78458690924732929572012-06-16T08:06:00.471-07:002012-06-16T08:06:00.471-07:00Yes, Lawrence, rough, scratchy on the skin the fab...Yes, Lawrence, rough, scratchy on the skin the fabric -- the abstract design always shows through.<br /><br />The colours and the shapes. <br /><br />Not till the railroads came in the Eighties, bringing aniline dyes among other bloody additives, could the bright red colours ("eyedazzlers") be obtained.<br /><br />Some trace the geometries back to octagonal designs from the weavers of the Caucasus. Abstractions come from and in turn speak back to pattern recognition centres in the mind that are probably universal.<br /><br />Don Lorenzo Hubbell (he of the trading post, top and bottom images), by the way, was a half Spanish half Anglo trader whom the Navajo weavers evidently trusted a great deal. He was the first white man to be buried on Navajo lands.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-27792603393155917312012-06-16T07:43:45.399-07:002012-06-16T07:43:45.399-07:00Poetry takes what is surrounding and shapes it, us...Poetry takes what is surrounding and shapes it, using what's available--sticks, animal pelts, rocks for weight. Some poems are like math, like geometry but still rough, scratchy. Those are the desert poems. You may ask, what is all this color about, these shapes? Are they learned or made up, all the while watching for wolves, for anything changing.<br />It was <br />a great relief<br />when I could go<br />to the loom<br />and someone else<br />had to watch the kids.<br />I had switched jobs<br />with my man<br />in order to survive.Susan Kay Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16277139119869470939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-75218317104917832372012-06-16T07:35:38.183-07:002012-06-16T07:35:38.183-07:00Yes, he's always involving the living moral in...Yes, he's always involving the living moral individual in the collective twistings of the tail, and investing value on the one hand (in the not "civilized") and detecting its depletion and indeed evanishment on the other (in/from the way things are). <br /><br />How inconvenient. This sort of thing was never going to do for the tenured latterday avantgardistas. You'd naturally not want to invest your "texts" with your career ambitions too openly, assuming those are what passes for your values. Small wonder Lawrence no longer exists, in an age dedicated to its comforts his uncomfortableness was always going to cause discomfort.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-39689435924916197962012-06-16T07:04:52.556-07:002012-06-16T07:04:52.556-07:00Lawrence ends his "Snake" poem--which im...Lawrence ends his "Snake" poem--which immediately came to mind-- with the sense of the smallness of the observer only<br /><br />"And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords<br />Of life.<br />And I have something to expiate:<br />A pettiness"Conrad DiDiodatohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18312831623791642286noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-10547437946796794752012-06-16T06:27:25.607-07:002012-06-16T06:27:25.607-07:00The trail of the tail of a tale in the sand has th...The trail of the tail of a tale in the sand has the loops and turnings and returnings of a life.<br /><br />Lawrence's own alas not a very long one, but still with its particular twists that made the art possible, however tormented at times the life.<br /><br />The honesty. The caring and not caring. The not by your leave and the in your face.<br /><br />Perhaps one or two of those who have been hanging about this dry arroyo will have wondered whether the John Collier who took the penultimate photo here might possibly be one and the same with the John Collier who made some of the most striking images ever made of the part of New Mexico where Lawrence had his extended sojourn. A patch of Earth which is indeed <a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/john-collier-church-in-sky-new-mexico.html" rel="nofollow">a church in the sky</a>.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-12728401724921942182012-06-16T05:50:40.733-07:002012-06-16T05:50:40.733-07:00a long trail.....beautiful...!!!a long trail.....beautiful...!!!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-26456663483311345962012-06-16T05:42:01.454-07:002012-06-16T05:42:01.454-07:00The collective element in the cultural tradition t...The collective element in the cultural tradition that permits the individual to make things in which a bit of the individual soul is invested, even as the whole is reaffirmed -- I think Lawrence sussed out a bit of that, from his usual intense anxious distance of interested observation, in seeing such weavings made.<br /><br />Not that Lawrence was unaware of what tourism had done to the indigenous cultures of the Southwest: "Just a show! The south-west is the great playground of the white American. The desert isn't good for anything else. But it does make a fine national playground. And the Indian, with his long hair and his bits of pottery and blankets and clumsy home-made trinkets, he's a wonderful live toy to play with." (DHL to Willard Johnson, "Just back from the snake dance", Questa, New Mexico, late August 1924)TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-15033998779007909752012-06-16T05:22:52.281-07:002012-06-16T05:22:52.281-07:00What we see
in these flat old blankets
is most of...What we see<br /><br />in these flat old blankets<br />is most often money ‒<br /><br />a whole universe<br />laid out wrong<br /><br /><br />My first trip to the US before I lived here was to Arizona<br />The scale of the land and its intricate detail not apparent at first glance teased me out of my little island dwelling mentality . . .Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com