Ryan Pratt : Long Division, by Gil McElroy

Long Division, Gil McElroy

University of Calgary Press, 2020

Back in the day, the historical Buddha gave a stunning lecture on the five aggregates. These aggregates – perception, thoughts, sensing form, consciousness as well as feelings (both physical and mental) – were thought to represent the performative divisions of the brain. The Buddha was less interested in where these aggregates reside in the brain tissue than how they undermine our individual presumption of I – the self that we believe “calls the shots”. Thousands of years later, modern psychology is still fascinated by these aggregates, none of which being particularly in charge but each capable of overwhelming the others in order to express itself, regardless of what the supposed self wants.

Gil McElroy’s Long Division reads like a fascinating account of his own aggregates at work. Over its 143 pages, the author employs a variety of voices that range from stoic to manic, introspective to outlandish, with each vying for a clearer experience of its surroundings. Given that this latest full-length dabbles in early twentieth century surrealism, such a tactic – a strategical surrender to the unconscious, if you will – works wonders at destabilizing and transporting the reader.

“To understand the room

the eyes must flow. The eyes

themselves tremble. The ear

is far too late.

Cheeks slide around such faces.”

(Reverdy, pg. 7)

Taken from the first sequence, “Twentieth”, which originally appeared in chapbook form via above/ground press in 2013, this excerpt can be read as both instruction and meditation for the pages ahead. Ostensibly, these poems explore mental and anatomical forms but it’s the reader who directs the gaze. Occasionally McElroy’s line-breaks bend time, like Dalí’s melting clocks; in other places, his strong, disassociated imagery (i.e. “cushy foreskins, suddenly”, from “Aragon”) provokes in the spirit of Luis Buñuel’s eyeball-slicing Un Chien Andalou (1929). 

Underpinning the disorientation of each entry, however, is a line of demarcation wherein McElroy weaves some of the founding surrealist poets into an emotional compass. Massaging the names of Paul Eluard and Pierre Reverdy, among others, into sentences that reject clear meaning, they eventually become mantras. In this timeless repetition, the author creates a web of vague proximity between these artists and his own voice. So begins a cosmic through-line that permeates this book well into its final sequence “Standard Candles”, which itself performs a similar webbing of psyches from across the spheres of science and philosophy.

Yes, Long Division is a cosmos in the true sense of the word; it has an internalized order by which McElroy’s personal, familial and literary spheres find residence in a surrealist whole. And that whole includes its share of chaos – a boundary-less fray of highly intuitive, experimental writing. Let’s take a look at “Proper 32” from “The Merton Lake Propers”, excerpted below:

“Because to me, I had read of it for

Because to me, the mystery of the view begins to degenerate for

Because I know this concretely for

Because the explanation or nothing for

Because as far as seeing goes, I was drunk with all of that for

Because of little impatiences for

Because diversity tires me out for

Because my tongue is tied for

Because it seems to me that words are hopeless for

Because at first sight, perhaps for

Because there, or because they hurt for

Because the hard discipline of for

Because I also shamed for

Because I wish I wished for

Because I wish I knew for

Because the stones have no ideas for

Because the stories found out for

Because of goodness knows what for”

(pg. 53)

Here, McElroy’s aggregates prove to be his arsenal in breaking down perception to its raw data. Like trains of thought skipping tracks, “Proper 32” sounds no different than our default mode networks – the random chatter that consumes our brains when we’re in an unfocussed state. Little about the construction of this poem appears random; if I omit every “because” and “for”, it presents a rather poignant poem. But as is, McElroy’s runaway momentum transcends verse and taps the unconscious. One can trace a similar dynamic happening within “ABC (IOU)”, which is excerpted below. The repeated assonances and consonances of McElroy making his way through the alphabet take on a sensory thrust, through which old words are sold for scrap and new meaning is fused from the wreckage.

“A back. A bash. A bawdy hand of impulse. A beam. A bed of

wild things. A blanket of gravity. A bloom. A blush. A board.

A body astonished by change. A body yearned for, in a way. A

bound. A box to take too quickly. A brade. A breast. A bridge.

A but. A buzz.”

(pg. 122)

While McElroy delivers a breadth of material that should appeal to both seasoned and novice experimental poetry readers, I must warn fellow constituents of the latter group: with Long Division, you’re getting exactly what it says on the tin. Not only does the text feature full-on experiments (including a revisit of the Word Maps visual poetry McElroy conceived of in the late 1970s), but actual mathematics as well. (In choosing to review this book – by admission, putting far more enthusiasm on “Gil McElroy” than the prospect of actual long division – I’ve put myself in the Catch-22 of facing my high school math failures or giving short shrift to this sequence.) Adventurous readers will have to tell me what I’m missing out on, but I found the ten or so pages of integers impenetrable.

Revolving back to Long Division’s second sequence, it’s “A Colborne Psalter” that arguably comes closest to unifying all of McElroy’s aggregates into a true apprehension of the world. Set in the orchard’s sepia hues and the rustic confines of the familiar, McElroy presents dialogues in stanzas so precise, a quietude answers them.

Save me

from my

tongue”

(pg. 26)

This stanza really drives home the aftermath of so much aggregate in-fighting. There are no spectral personalities or stuttering mantras here. Instead, readers are suspended in a mournful headspace of memory and absence as McElroy comes to terms with his selfhood. The geography is less surreal than spiritual.

Considering the contrast of voices that shape its six major sequences, Long Division hangs together well. And although he isn’t striving for enlightenment with these experiments, McElroy’s comfort with his multitudes creates an unstable but fascinating consciousness.  

Ryan Pratt writes from Hamilton, Ontario. His criticism has appeared in literary journals such as The Puritan and Lemon Hound. Cannot transform myth (Ghost City Press, 2020) is his second chapbook.