The 'process notes' pieces were originally solicited by Maw Shein Win as addendum to her teaching particular poems and poetry collections for various workshops and classes. This process note by Robin Caton is part of her curriculum for Maker, Mentor, Muse and her poetry classes at the University of San Francisco. Thanks for reading.
2.7.25
Is there a kind of writing without language? One that has not yet been invented? Threads of time and space, weaving meaning. Sewing up the holes in the human heart. Not to express the inexpressible, but to let the inexpressible express itself without sound or mark. Pure light? Maybe. But even that may be saying too much. Does darkness differ from light?
"Omitting all that is usually said" combines various thought, language, and visual experiments. For many years, I've been trying to discover how language works. Visual artists must really get to know their medium. What do I know about words? Where does meaning reside, and how is it shared—or is it never fully shared? What role do sound and silence play? These are abstract elements, yet when they are interwoven, they make the objects to which language gestures seem real. How does that happen? To explore, I've tried to omit much of what is usually said, including the usual forms of grammar, syntax, and word order.
Humid breeze, apparent patterns
buried earth far above the center.
Enclosed by shadow, quiet clouds,
worn as ideology. Sailing against
this immensity, a white bird soars.
I steer clear of wings. In twilight,
to see the stones made strangely
immaterial leads to uncertainty.
In my heart, heavy with visions,
I am the name for things.
I realize that my choices, including not using titles, may lead to confusion. That isn't my intention. Rather, I want to allow readers to arrive freshly on each page without much instruction, without the author saying what is so. The openness, the play, is a way of delighting in the dance of mind. So, I hope no one struggles too hard with "about-ness". I hope, instead, they enjoy what's interesting or inspiring, or sparks their own wish to experiment.
Interspersed with poems are short prose passages. These are my attempt to re-write a novel, Beauty and Sadness, first published in 1964 by the Nobel prize winning novelist, Yasunari Kawabata. It's about a young girl seduced by her much older teacher, and written from his point of view. Not many people would have patience for it today. Yet, Kawabata's style is extraordinary! His ability to say so much with so few words fascinates me. How does he do it? For me, the process of re-writing is not only a way to transform the story, but also an exercise in learning to be spare.
Along with the poems and prose passages, "Omitting" contains images of pages from an earlier book I wrote, "The Color of Dusk." Several years ago, I saw a retrospective show of the work of the Italian artist, Lucio Fontana. In the 1950's and early 60's, he cut holes and slashes through his canvases to open the space of the work, calling these "Spatial Concepts." It was startling how stunning and also freeing these canvasses felt to me. I wanted to learn more about it. I went home and literally cut chunks out of a copy of "The Color of Dusk," and then photographed what remained. So much light came through!
"Omitting" takes its title from a line of an experimental work by David Jones called "In Parentheses". Young British soldiers in World War I have just been told that they must gear up for battle. It's the middle of the night and they've been sleeping near the front line. Hastily, they pull on their clothes and gather their weapons. Their chaplain says a prayer, but they must hurry and so he keeps it short—omitting all that is usually said in the circumstances. When the men leave, they are going to their death.
While today we may not pray—or believe in anything to pray to—we seem to hold in our hearts a longing for knowledge, a wish to know why we are here, living for such a brief moment on earth. Where this longing comes from, and how it manifests, interests me. Our everyday words often touch only the surface of who we are. In our depths are hidden places we don't often explore. If we continue only to use the language we were taught, in the ways we were taught to use it, it's not likely we ever will.
The world is a place of beauty and richness, and also terror and madness. With sounds and symbols, silence and rhythms, we create both.
Robin Caton is the author of two volumes of poetry, The Color of Dusk and Omitting All That is Usually Said. She holds a JD from the University of Michigan, where she was Editor-in-Chief of the Michigan Law Review. After 15-years as a litigator with a large San Francisco firm, she relinquished her partnership and began a new life as a writer and teacher. Robin received an MFA in poetry from Saint Mary's College of California, where she worked with poets Brenda Hilman and Michael Palmer. She is the former director of Dharma College in Berkeley and continues to teach online courses on the Tibetan Buddhist view of the nature of mind and self. She currently lives in Walnut Creek, California with her husband, Curt.
Maw Shein Win's new full-length poetry collection is Percussing
the Thinking Jar (Omnidawn, 2024). Her previous full-length collection Storage
Unit for the Spirit House (Omnidawn, 2020) was nominated for the Northern
California Book Award in Poetry, longlisted for the PEN America Open Book
Award, and shortlisted for the Golden Poppy Award for Poetry. She is the
inaugural poet laureate of El Cerrito, CA. Win's previous collections include Invisible
Gifts and two chapbooks, Ruins of a glittering palace and Score
and Bone. Win often collaborates with visual artists, musicians, and other
writers and her Process Note Series features poets on their process.
She teaches poetry in the MFA
Program at USF and is a member of The Writers Grotto. Along with Dawn Angelicca
Barcelona and Mary Volmer, she is a co-founder of Maker, Mentor, Muse, a
literary community. mawsheinwin.com
