Stan Rogal : Mean Free Path: Ben Lerner

 

                                                   For the work,
                                         the work did nothing but invite us
                                         to relate it to
                                                   the wall.

To be totally up-front and honest I’m not really sure precisely what it is I enjoy and/or appreciate about Ben Lerner’s poetry, but, from the first sampling of poems I stumbled upon in the Norton Anthology of Postmodern American Poetry a few years back, I was curiously (delightfully) both attracted and somewhat (somehow) baffled.

It’s not as though Lerner’s poetic language is difficult to understand, it isn’t. In fact, for the most part, it’s casual, almost conversational, yet there’s something about the way he constructs and combines his sentences that lends a level of complexity and open-endedness that invites — even demands — a reader’s close attention, involvement and free-wheeling interpretation.

Given the title of the book, this apparent casualness needn’t have been the case. As a term used in physics, in the kinetic theory of gases, the “mean free path” of a particle, such as a molecule, is the average distance the particle travels before colliding with another particle. Lerner could have chosen to explore this phenomenon using the discourse of physics, offering up abstruse sentences such as: “The cross section is a measure of the probability that a specific process will take place in a collision of two particles. For example, the Rutherford Cross-Section is a measure of probability that an alpha particle will be deflected by a given angle during an interaction with an atomic nucleus. In a way, it can be thought of as the size of the object that the excitation must hit in order for the process to occur, but more exactly, it is a parameter of a stochastic process.” Or: “In gamma-ray radiography, the mean free path of a pencil beam of mono-energetic photons is the average distance a photon travels between collisions with atoms of the target material.” Not that there’d be anything wrong with this approach, believe me. I mean, I’ve used the technique myself on more than one occasion and — rather than apologizing for employing such esoteric language — I’m fond of commending my efforts with the quote: “Facts are beautiful in themselves” (though I hasten to confess I can’t readily recall where or when I happened upon the quote or who originated it, hm... Curious. Hey, maybe it was me who said it first! One lives in the hope).

But no, I believe that Lerner was likely more interested in the imagistic and metaphoric nature of the occurrence as opposed to the science itself, since he’s chosen to eschew the jargon in favour of: “It’s the motion, not the material, not the nouns / But the little delays.” 

Ludwig Wittgenstein said that a writer’s job was to describe, not explain. Lerner manages to do neither, he presents, and his sentences hang together along a thematic rather than a narrative schemata. I wouldn’t go so far as to say his sentences assume their final position in the same way as a bathtub full of triggered mouse traps do, flying chaotically in all directions and landing in some indiscriminate fashion on the floor when a ping pong ball is tossed into the pile, but there are similarities. As the blurb on the book’s back cover states: “The poems are full of discrete collisions — stutters, repetitions, fragmentations, recombinations — that track how language breaks up or changes course under the emotional pressures of the utterance.”

Let’s also introduce further literary conceits — why the hell not! — such as enjambment, broken narrative, and sentences placed out of order (so as to keep a mindful reader on their toes and second-guessing) and we arrive at poems that appear to be made up as they go along and — as Lerner writes — “invite us / to relate it to / the wall.”

But wait, did I hear someone mention Plato (or is it just me who twigged because I happened to recollect a pertinent snatch of Philosophy 101from my university days) and his famous allegory of the cave wherein all of us are only privy to seeing distorted and blurred shadows on the wall through our limited senses rather than being able to attain any true knowledge, which requires deductive reasoning and logic? Is Lerner actually requiring us to think? He doesn’t say. He doesn’t explain, simply drops the image, the notion, into the field of action: snap! snap! As he says later in the book: “I … / can’t look at it anymore, that wall / across which shadows play / Sorry to be vague / at such an hour.”

Mea culpa, mea culpa…

Of course, Lerner not only negates human senses and feelings as reliable sources of knowledge — oh, I should point out that he does, however (perhaps in a weak moment of remorse or nostalgia) quietly admit the old adage, ignorance is bliss, by saying: “We were happy in the cave” — he repeatedly negates himself, both as the all-knowing writer, and as the writer per se. Here’s a short list of examples: “For I was a fraud in a field of poppies.” “I’m writing this one as a woman / Comfortable with failure.” “I’m writing this one with my eyes closed.” “I’m writing this one with my nondominant hand.” “Waking, the sudden suspicion the teeth / In your mouth are not your own, let / Alone the words.” One of my personal favourite lines of observation goes: “I held the hand / Of a complete stranger during takeoff / Unaware it was my own.”

There are further examples, some quite comical, as you can see from the above. Lerner’s humour is maybe best described as droll, more often situational, though he does have a few zingers, such as: “We moved to Canada / Without our knowledge.” And: “Since the world is ending / Why not let the children touch the paintings.” And: “Since the world is ending, may I eat the candy / Necklace off your body?” So, okay, maybe not hilarious in a stand-up comic kind of way, more subtle-academic comic, but at least providing some levity amid the turmoil. As he says: “Funny / Strange, not ha-ha funny.”

And how does Lerner respond to all of this uncertainty, ambiguity, and mad clash of particles? He writes: “For I felt nothing, / which was cool, / totally cool with me. / For my blood was cola. / For my authority was small.”

Which I suppose leads me to another major reason why I am attracted to his work. As one judge from the National Book Awards wrote: “Lerner’s poems compact layers of thought into a language of emergency. No offhanded commentary, no prophecies, no reassurances. Instead, a sane voice orbiting the failed authority of a culture.” 

Lerner closes his collection with just such a modest yet generous thought in mind: “Movements have become / citable in all their moments / With my nondominant hand / I want to give / in a minor key / the broadest sense.”

We should all attempt to achieve as much. Or as little.

 

 

 

 

 

Stan Rogal lives and writes in Toronto along with his artist partner Jacquie Jacobs. His work has appeared almost magically in numerous magazines and anthologies. The author of several books, plus a handful of chapbooks, a 13th poetry collection was published in March 2025 with ecw press. Co-founder of Bald Ego Theatre and former coordinator of the popular Idler Pub Reading Series.

Stan Rogal : [on first looking into] Postmodern American Poetry: a Norton Anthology, second edition, 2013, edited by Paul Hoover

Postmodern American Poetry: a Norton Anthology

edited by Paul Hoover

Second edition, 2013

The events leading up to and what revealed itself to me:

While cruising the book aisles of HMV, pre-pandemic era, I stumbled upon a used copy of the above stated anthology and decided to give it a read. I had, some time prior to this, paged through an edition of Norton’s Modern Poetry [the copy of which I still retain] and — for whatever curious reason — casually made comparisons between the two, as one does when one suddenly has time on one’s hands, in isolation. A number of things initially struck me as noteworthy.

Firstly, images that repeated. Dogs — especially barking dogs — were of equal abundance in both volumes, which I easily accepted as a reasonably commonplace occurrence, given: pets, utility animals, dogs existing in both city and rural areas, et cetera, so, okay. Next, the colour orange (or oranges, the fruit), I noticed was quite popular within the modernist group [which surprised me, somewhat, that this colour, ‘exotic,’ really, as opposed to…y’know?] while the colour blue [more conventional, mundane, even, yes?] appeared most often within the postmodernist collection. Fine. Remember, this is merely an informal observation. I leave any psychological and/or zeitgeist interpretations to the varying specialists.

Secondly, more women and cultural/ethnic minorities were featured among the postmodernist group. Not overly surprising, given the cultural shifts that have taken place over the time period. Speaking of which, two Canucks were invited to join the ranks, the editor saying: “The work of two Canadian authors appear because they have lived for a significant period of time in the United States or been intimately involved in the development of a new practice influential in this country.” Bravo, Christian Bök and Steve McCaffery!

Thirdly, a majority of the poems/poets deal with urban issues/themes, with nature acting as an adjunct [necessary, yes, but…] to the environmental construct. For example, in the poem “Under the Bright Orchards” Gustaf Sobin opens with: “…ink’s for the / phosphorous white eyelets, for sprinkling the / pages with / blown / phonemes, a counterworld.” Where, in God’s name, is the orchard? It’s been turned into language, the written word, a very urban [urbane?] and [a sadly, regularly ridiculed] intellectual pursuit. The poem ends: “yes, here, in a shiver of / blossoms, gloss of / winds, draws us — in / the / hollow coil of our own scribbles — past.” Speaking strictly formally/structurally/verbally/imagistically, I [personally] think this is a fascinatingly beautiful passage, beyond anything it might ‘mean’ or ‘represent.’ In fact, I am content to simply read and re-read it for its innate beauty; its crafts(manship). However, at some other [perhaps further] point of, I dunno, contemplation, part of this beauty [for me, again] is the fact that the passage is open to interpretation(s), as: what does [for one small example] the term ‘past’ mean at the end? ‘Past’ as in time past? ‘Past’ as in past scribbles? ‘Past’ as in the wind blowing past? Or…? Intriguing.

In Marjorie Welish’s poem “Possible Fires” she writes: “Let a leaf be cultural in this world; then, let a leaf’s waxy index of antihistamine eventually be an event it (the leaf) might not have issued.” Here, something as innocuous as a single leaf becomes [in a flash!] a cultural event, a work of art, through the act of writing.  

Among the postmodernists, Charles Bernstein writes: “The text calls upon the reader to be actively involved in the process of constituting meaning… Reader as a producer and consumer of meaning.” Robert Palk states: “It is not enough to let a poem echo through your being, to play mystical chords upon your soul. The poem must be understood and felt in its details; it asks for attention before transport.” This, following T.S. Eliot’s earlier dictum [I paraphrase, purposely]: “Art should be an escape from personality, not a wallowing in it.” 

Paul Hoover (editor) explains that postmodernist literature grew out of Dada, Situationism and Oulipo, into language poetry, conceptual poetry, Newlipo, cyberpoetry (including Flarf) and into the postlanguage lyric, with much of it being an attempt to “do away with the author.” Kenneth Goldsmith says: “With the advent of internet, it’s all fodder for the remix and re-creation of works of art: free-floating toolboxes and strategies unmoored from context of historicity.” In fact, Goldsmith’s writings consist of exact reproductions of previously written texts. He “wrote” and published a 900-page book in which he retyped a day’s copy of The New York Times. He teaches a class called “Uncreative Writing” where students are rewarded for plagiarism, identity theft, repurposing papers, patchwriting, sampling, plundering, and stealing. Why go home and write something à la Gertrude Stein, say, in order to gain insight into her style? Isn’t it better — and more advantageous — to copy out eight or ten pages, exactly, if you want to truly experience the ‘Gertrude Stein’ method and manner? After all, isn’t this what musicians and artists do all the time, copy, until they eventually create/develop their own voice/signature?

(As an aside — did you know; were you aware? — that one can paint as many exact reproductions of Picasso, Bacon, Kahlo, or whomever, as one wants, even sell them, so long as one signs their own name. It’s only a forgery and a crime to sign the original artist’s name. It is the signature that is the true work of art, legally and commercially speaking. Whereas in music, use more than two words from a popular song and lawyers are on you like shit to a shovel. Why? Copyright law as it relates to money. Which is the beauty (and freedom) of poetry: there is little (if any) money to be made, ergo, no one bothers you, ergo, feel free to steal away!)

Following the sad fact of no monetary gain and slight recognition…

Fourthly, reading the bios of each poet it was quite clear that the vast majority of them teach (or taught) in colleges or universities. Moreover, not only were the younger often mentored by the older, but each served to publish the other, either in small magazines or anthologies or even in small presses built for the purpose. In other words, many of these people would likely never have been published if it wasn’t for the fact that they created opportunities for themselves (and friends/associates) to support this type of literary engagement and provide necessary platforms, whether within or outside the academic walls, for them to participate. Fine. This is a tradition that applies to every sort of experimental art, those of which would languish and die as yet another “exquisite corpse” if left to depend on mainstream media, conservative mind-sets, and public taste for its only survival.

Which brings me (us) back to our two Canucks, Christian and Steve, also teachers practicing their craft within the ivory towers along with a... Well, who and how many, no one knows, because there are few presses/magazines in Canada that regularly publish anything even remotely postmodern [huge kudos to those that do! (you know who you are)]. And when, on the rare occasion, it does happen that an anthology appears showcasing a small number of these relatively obscure personages [Christian was involved with two that I’m aware of, one co-edited with Margaret Atwood, the other with Greg Betts], it was more a bewailing than a celebration, more a dirge than a paean — and not without a strong sense of apologia, I might add — the volume clearly citing the general lack of support and/or appreciation for such literary endeavours and their authors.

To be fair, I don’t claim to love [or even enjoy] all of the poets or poems in this volume. As well, when there is any attempt to package an individual poet into one group or another — language, cyber, conceptual — the lines frequently blur. That said, none of them are “wallowing in their personalities,” as is often the case with a great number of so-called poets. I mean, really, let’s admit it, as a rule, poetry is the lazy person’s art form: mix a few clichéd images with an over-abundance of similes, a great dollop of heart-felt, gut-wrenching personal sentiment, a sexy theme-du-jour, add Evian water (flat) & stir: voila, a poem! Or endless poems. If these same people were forced to [instead] write an essay or a short story or [God forbid] a novel based on their particular angst-ridden, too-serious-by-half, subject matter, where they’d have to employ some semblance of rigor, skill and knowledge of craft, they’d pack in their writing devices early and go back to watching re-runs of “Friends” or making a show of trying to slash their ankles with dull plastic knives. Whereas, there’s enough well-wrought and stimulating stuff in the Norton’s to keep an open/curious mind pleasantly occupied for hours. And who can’t love the term Flarf [Gary Sullivan claims to have found the word online, on a police blotter, where some stoner had described marijuana as ‘flarfy’] used to label a legitimate poetry movement, defined by Drew Gardner as: “A smutty, expressive swan-bear hybrid at a clam bake,” the motive of which is “the pure amusement of the online carnival.”

Not me. Send in the freaking clowns.

[Hey, now, what’s that sound? Outside the window: packs of orange and blue dogs barking the wilderness.]           

Stan Rogal's natural habitat is the wilds of Toronto where he exists mainly on a diet of roots, berries and red wine. His work has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies throughout the known (and lesser known) world. He is the author of 26 books, the most recent being a novel, titled The Comic (Guernica Editions), not so funny given its arrival coincides with the "Age of Isolation and Physical Distancing," a Kafka-esque sort of humour.