LinguaQuake, Heller Levinson
Black Widow Press (2018, forthcoming)
Book Cover Image, “Quarry,
VIII” (Detail)
Pastel
pigment on cotton paper
60
x 44 inches, 2015
Linda Lynch
Ephesus
Glom:
An Interview with Heller Levinson, Part 1
by Jonathan Mulcahy-King
Proscenium
Ephesus was the
birthplace of Heraclitus, the pre-Socratic Ionian thinker who abdicated
Apollonian rigidity for flux, the essence of his universe. As a first
scientist, in the Western sense, this marked an important turning-away from
ontology to a more expressive, linguistically challenging mode of inquiry. Glom, as in to clutch, to grasp, to
secure. Enter self-proclaimed hinge scientist, Heller Levinson, author of six
books of practice-led research exploring “Hinge Theory:” Smelling Mary (Howling Dog Press, 2008), From Stone This Running (Black Widow Press, 2011), HingeTrio with Linda Lynch and Felino A.
Soriano (La Alameda Press, 2012), Wrack
Lariat (Black Widow Press, 2015), Melancholia: Hinge As Innominate Limina with Will
Alexander, Mary Newell, and Linda Lynch (McNally Jackson Books, 2016)
and Tenebraed (Black Widow
Press, 2017). As the above would suggest, Levinson has adopted the modus
operandi of capturing flux, holding the flow, embracing the liminality of
language. X-Peri interviews Heller in anticipation of his new book LinguaQuake (forthcoming in February
from Black Widow Press), the latest
installment of hinge theory in practice, an important and exciting offering in
an otherwise emptyful deluge of form. Contributor to hinge theory, Mary Newell,
has defined Hinge as a ‘… material of connectivity that introduces an
intentional and generative biasing’. Michael Annis’, author of the Hinge Manual, has reinforced Hinge
Theory by citing the 18th century German philologist Jacob Grimm, noting that
hinge merely follows the various sound variables, morphemes etc. already
inherent in the make-up of language. Elsewhere, Grace Dane Mazur in her
anthropological studies of Lascaux, Renaissance and Byzantine images (See Hinges:
Meditations on the Portals of the Imagination, AK Peters/CRC Press) relays
the idea that hinges work to highlight the entrancing lure of various real and
metaphysical thresholds. Catherine Barnett describes “hinge words” as allowing
the poet both ‘… continuity and gap; unity and difference’ and that “hinges” ‘…
keep the parts of the poem in some working relationship to one another and at
the same time allow the poem to retain some of what Aristotle calls the unities
of time and place (Taken from ‘A Brief Poetics of the Hinge’ The University of
Arizona Poetry Center). Enter Heller
Levinson, hinge functions more as a type of counter-language than a vehicle for
ideas, it is the freshly laid highway, the sound of a hidden river, bringing
hope and ideas of infrastructure to tired settlers——it is the wormhole.
Jonathan: Welcome, Heller!
Thanks again for taking the time to riff with X-Peri, as always we are very excited to have you! Off the bat,
could you describe for readers (or ‘un-describe’) the key tenets of this
ambitious project/ way of saying, referred to as “Hinge Theory”?
Heller: Even to “un-describe” would suggest that
there is a structure to describe, which would be misleading. Instead of a list of tenets, I can suggest a
foundational ‘creed’, which is that Language is alive (whether referring to
organic or inorganic life would be another discussion), respirative &
reproductive.
Hinge both molds & melts, is
diffusive, emanative, disseminative, & collectivizing. It is the bird of prey & the swallow on
the wrist. It is Revolutionary Liquidity
immune to the Trump wall or the Clintonian fence.
Jonathan: As a creed then,
hinge must be identifiable within a greater tradition, how would you situate
hinge (its context, emergence, trajectory etc.) within the history of
innovative poetry and poetics/linguistics? For me, it seems to be both a
continuation and a criticism of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry, insofar as it concedes
the ephemerality between beginnings and endings, while also challenging the
principle that ‘series is not essence’, or is series too reductive here, as
this might, in a sense, impinge on the flow of language hinge is attempting to
amplify?
Heller: These are interesting questions as they
highlight the difficulty of discussing Hinge in historical terms. As I have said before: “Hinge departs from all other poetic
fashionings in declaring itself an ongoing ever-fulfilling linguistic
enterprise.” Hinge overlaps with any
poetry that respects the integrity of Language as event, where the words of,
say Gertrude Stein or Jackson Mac Low, create their own sculptural
resonance. But, Hinge is definitively
Not ‘word salad,’ a mix-mash of unlikely juxtapositions tossed together -- mere
gimmicky gamesmanship. Nor is it “I”―based
personal narrative, which is as dead as the Image. Doctor Newell put it this way: “Hinge is material of connectivity and
introduces an intentional and generative biasing. Like a pool table with
all the balls commotioning and someone lifting the pool table slightly so all
that activity is directed. (With the additional image that new balls are
being added all the time as the pool table itself enlarges).”
At this point I would be fine with
disengaging Hinge from any poetic context as it has so little resemblance to
what is, in general, being practiced. It
is my belief that Hinge is an under-recognized Universal Function that has
‘emerged,’ for those of us who are discussing it, in the format of
language. There is no reason to believe
that the same behaviorisms don’t underlie botany, physics, mathematics,
basketball, military science, etc. When
discussing Hinge with a friend in the Special Forces he responded with: “Sounds like a multiplicitous simultaneous
ambush.”
Jonathan: So hinge is very much staked out in terms of
forward-motion, it is both reactionary and incendiary, an interconnectedness
inviting continuous work that can have more poems or ‘modules’ added to any one
idea. Are there any new hinge developments you are aware of?
Heller: Yes. I have currently identified a new Hinge
contribution: The Investigation of the
Linguistically Undocumented. By this I
mean words or ideas, which I am calling “terms” (When a term is chambered in a
Hinge Module it has been called the ‘particle.’
At this point particle/term/subject matter can be viewed as
interchangeable. See “Hinge Diagnostic”,
Smelling Mary, p.71) that have been
Under-Examined. I stumbled upon this
insight while writing “tenebraed to trespass.”
Seeking to enrich my understanding of “trespass,” I found the only
resource I had to consult was my former work (See “with trespass,” Smelling Mary, p.113; “trespass in
obdurate credulity,” “trespass like rolling liquidity,” “trespass in cumulative
bruise, among others, From Stone This
Running pp. 191, 193, 194).
Exploring trespass led to an outcrop of terms such as swarm, stroll, meander, aperture, ambulate,
wander, drift, drip, seep, . . . terms I had hinged previously. These shade-offs of the term being
scrutinized, which in turn become scrutinized, form a Bundle of Constellative
Refractive Impregnations. This behavior
leads to a thickening of the Word, a greater musculature, & affords one a
deeper intimacy than the current tendency toward pan-abbreviation. We employ Language to Deploy insight. A new
universe materializes. The formerly
abstract & remote is now Resplendently close-at-hand, -- shoulder
rubbing. Going back to your mention of
the “language school” where cleverness reigns, this is a stark departure. The
applications (The ‘application or ‘postulate’ replace the term ‘poem’) are very
clearly mission oriented, methodically conducted, an archaeology intent upon
di(g)scovery. Comments about there is
‘nothing left to be done’ in the arts is laughable when one perceives the sheer
overload of opportunity just ‘begging for it.’
In the upcoming volume, LinguaQuake,
terms such as aptness, askew, knot,
vacancy are being addressed/investigated & disseminate other terms
which in turn will be applicated & cycle back to densify/magnify the
original term. I hope this discussion
stimulates some activity in this area of the remote approachable.
Jonathan: Reinterpretation plays a large role in what you are saying, there is an
almost beat-like philology at play here (previously in interviews you have
replaced the word “collaboration” with the word “intercourse” as a way of
better expressing the intentions present (or missing) from everyday language,
and in the case of the latter… the sheer ‘fucky’-ness of it). This gives a
wider sense of what we could otherwise think of as “momentum language”, made up
of the gerundial, appropriate sound making and association. How much of hinge
would you say is hermeneutics?
Heller: I would be more
comfortable with saying multiple submissions or offerings rather than
‘reinterpretation,’ as that might suggest a devaluing of the original
application. A comparison might be to
Cézanne’s 82 paintings of Monte Sainte-Victoire, a mountain he studied at
differing times of day from varying perspectives, a ‘motif’ undergoing ongoing
scrutiny.
One must resist the temptation to enclose
(circumscribe) the newly emerging within the already existing, i.e.,
hermeneutics. Such tendencies sacrifice 'novelty' to the safety nets of
the familiar. I appreciate the
Philosophical Hermeneutics of both Heidegger & Hans-Gadamer (In ToxiCity, pp. 102, 103, 104, three
applications are devoted to “Contouring Philosophical Hermeneutics: “The Expressed Expresses The Inability To
State What Is Said In The Unsaid,” “The Expressed Inability Expresses The State
To What In The Unsaid Said Is,” “In The What Is Said The Unsaid Expresses To
The Expressed State Inability.”). I very much like the way they attempt to
dethrone the subject, to fore-play/cleanse the foreground, the eidetic
reduction permitting ‘otherness’ to appear.
Similarly, Hinge is opposed to the Western white man’s rectilinear
hubristic notion of ego/subject as supreme leader, -- the idea that whether
conscious or unconscious the self is always choosing. Hinge suggests ego dissolution through Linguistic-Fusion
as one approach. The Hinger becomes an element among elements, an instrument
among instruments. At this level of
creation, each word insists on its word associates. The practice is to detect the reproductive
impulses inherent in the word being witnessed.
The ‘you’ is no longer choosing the word or the syntax, it is the ‘life’
of the word fulfilling its own path.
‘You’ as no longer a domineering filtration system, but an absorptive,
contiguous, cohabitation. As we are
developing an aptitude for animal intelligence & the sensate of trees, let
us also sensitize to the ecology of language.
The calling is to ‘uncover,’ (The Greek word for truth is “Alethea”
which translates as – unhiddeness) to approximate the mysteriously elusive.
I trust ignorance, i.e., I don't have a
clue how this experience or that experience led to the experience or expression
in question, unless I am approaching a piece on the Mongolian Eagle, or the
Native American Indian, as in “from Buffalo this Indian” (Wrack Lariat, p. 163), -- these applications are direct results of
study & examination, stimulus & response.
Hinge
was not manufactured, it was discovered,
&
continues in that vein of wonder & enterprise.
Jonathan: I took two
classes on Heidegger’s Being And Time
as an undergrad, part 1 & 2, the professor was a philologist writing a new
translation, you could tell it consumed him as he dove into every reassigned
word, every piece of jargon, it became so abstract I feel like I know Heidegger
as I know Joyce or Thomas, or Heller Levinson for that matter. Also,
that’s a great point about premature labelling; new ideas need time to breathe.
You’re right also in that a lot of emphasis gets put on the cultural-intuitive
links we make when writing, again, this is all about personal responsibility and
author/ownership. Are there any
limitations or so-called limitations you have encountered working with Hinge?
Heller: No.
Jonathan: How self-regulated is the work
in practice, could we for example, hinge together other people's work? Also,
there is a strong influence of musicality in the work and in your reading
practice, though presumably hinge need not rely on externalities or given
'lyrical' clichés? How important is the beat?
Heller: Absolutely. One work can Hinge to another work. It can also mix-mash-cutup & copulate
with other work. Hinge is intended to
invite inclusivity so that ‘terms’ can receive the full exuberance benefiting
from multiple inquiries. My intercourses
with Linda Lynch (the visual artist) exemplify this. We Hinge to a term such as Pathos stimulating
expansion, complementarity, & densification, which enriches the lifeblood
of “Pathos.” In the case of Hinging to a
drawing such as Linda’s “Karst drawing,” I fructify a double Magnification, --
thickening the term as well as Linda’s drawing exploring the term. I have also hinged with musicians such as the
guitarist, Joe Giglio, saxophonists Jimmy Halperin, & Sedric Choukroun (See
“part beatitude/part beast, YouTube). Now that we’re on the topic I must
revisit your question “are there any limitations I have encountered” &
reverse my former response with an emphatic Yes. I lust to work with a dancer or dance company,
to explore how they could further flesh-out the terms. I would love to work with mathematicians,
architects, physicists, & other disciplines. Living a life dedicated to exploring
infinitudes, I am limited by my finitude.
Music/beat are quintessential. If I assert that ‘language is alive,’ then
certainly it is both rhythmic & musical.
Language is Juicy with Sound. At
my last reading I had the audience sing-out a line with me – “pothole ruckus backwater bushwhack” (from
“the road to melancholy road,” in Melancholia
As Innominate Limina, p. 93). If one
recites the line from the belly, with full breath, recites the line with gusto,
puts one’s whole body into it, relishing the fleshiness of the words on the
lips, the vibrations of the embouchure, the result is deLiCious. I call it a word-tasting.
Jonathan: Very interesting,
I would love to see you hinge with an architect! Though I suppose it would be
easier at technical drawing or model stage, still, the possibilities are
endless! I hope like Gaudi or Hundertwasser, you might one day have your very
own “hinge village” somewhere in the mountains! This is very ambitious for a
poet; it actually reminds me a lot of Joseph Beuys, when he introduces the idea
of social sculpture into his philosophy of art. He too of course strove to
escape categorization, to open up new possibilities for what constitutes art
practice.
Jonathan: Might the
difficulty of language to which you are referring hint at a wider problem—that
our propensity to extrapolate meaning in matters of experimental/innovative
language is symptomatic of Wittgenstein’s “language games”, or a rule-governed
character of analysis that feeds our auto-effective desire for meaning? How
might this relate to your work, and how might we better discuss
“meaninglessness” in innovative poetry practice?
Heller: Yes, there is a wider problem, & it is
the nullification in the post-Sumerian (See Apocalypse, D. H. Lawrence, Penguin
Books) world of a vitalistic, open-ranging, un-bordered, inclusively responsive
uncaged virility. To a large extent, the
‘blinders’ are a result of commercialization.
Commercialism has necessitated indexing, record keeping, filing,
labeling, shelving, categorization, packaging, coupled with the necessity to
attract consumers. Consumers want it
neat & tidy, shiny & glazed, easily digestible. This is the transactional world & may be
necessary to manage the working day. But
it does not address the interior life of the individual. Clearly these impulses are contaminating
poetry & can readily be seen in the Academies reaping profit from MFA’s,
writing programs & the like. To
attract students you need clear-cut course-definitions. You need to be able to talk about
‘stuff.’ Have you seen any course
offerings for Bafflement 101? I would argue to leave a reader in a state of
‘bafflement’ should be considered an achievement. I urge legitimate poets to
flee the schools & seek the uncomfortably undesignated.
Meaning as customarily approached insists
on finality, on conclusion, on establishing.
As you know, Hinge insists upon the ongoing & extensive. “Ongoing” does Not refer to a sequence, or
from a start to a finish (A future exploration of the term “glide” beckons),
but more in the manner of leaping, associating, . . . Fecundating Rotational
Clusters. I am very much enchanted by
burrowing into the undeclared. It is ironic that in this time of
technological tyranny & GPS locatability the modern soul has never been
more lost, more anguished. In America,
suicides are up & the number of persons on opioids is steadily rising.
How does our idea of “meaning” fare
against our notion of the ‘Glimpsed.” A
glimpse would be difficult to transform into ‘meaning’ because it asserts
itself as insufficient. Yet the
‘glimpse’ beckons us, urges us to take-in
more (the augmentative peer) -- “the
regard is the look strapped with the interrogative” (Wrack Lariat p. 205). Perhaps we are closer now to your last
question: “How might we better discuss
‘meaninglessness’ in poetry?” If you
look at many of my titles such as the
road to lost road, trespass in cumulative bruise, tenebraed to a capsizing
algorithm, tenebraed to nothing, you can see that I am searching for
insights that dwell where ‘meaning’ abdicates.
Could we not say something like this:
Hinge seeks to explore nutrition where meaning has no meaning. Or, instead of saying ‘meaningless,’ let’s
propose that we seek insights that mean something other than what meaning
means, not meaningless, simply Other-li-ness.
Recently I have become fascinated by the
notion of facets, aspects of things, those splinters (Splinter is investigated
in the upcoming LinguaQuake – “the
Splinter in its disengagement flares into the Open”) that assert they are not
an entirety, that cannot be checked-out at the register, -- the realm of the
non-scannable.
Jonathan: Yes, bafflement!
The Nietzschean blow to the temples, the disjointedness we need to see beyond
our given pinhole. I also agree with your comments concerning a need for
categorisation, as belonging to a particular tradition of inquiry “… just throw
it in the [Dada] box and move on”. However, commercialism, consumerism and more
generally, capitalism, are enabled by the coveting of copyright (that’s a lot
of “c-words”!) Equally, innovation, in striving to be so asymptotic (in an
anti-commercial sense), might also rely too heavily on the above processes you
mention, suffering the same nullifying fate in the name of over-inventiveness.
For example, we might ask why it is many innovators are so averse to playing
with cliché, it seems still too hot to pick up and toss around. Do you think cliché will “cool” anytime soon?
Heller:
I cannot speak for what others are averse to or not & I don’t follow
the current stock value of cliché.
Personally, I think cliché can serve as a challenge to revitalize something
that has become stale. A word such as
“gossamer” should be resuscitated. I
would welcome a book entitled Cliché where
the formerly ghettoized would appear as the newly freed. “Bring-it-on” so to speak.
For the record, I see Hinge as being not
so much about ‘innovating’ as ‘reclaiming,’ – restoring language to the
firmament of its original fire & gases.
Jonathan: Finally then, my closing
question is in the form of a poem on a key theme in our discussion, what could
be considered “the tragicomedy of backward turning.”
Feb. 1916 – Mar. 1915
Avenger na dna Victim A><
tnevloS A Type <blockquote>
bannock bread baking in ice
auger holes, hesperian flight-
ripped aluminium slopes </
–A Test<p
align”left”><a
renepO eyE nA Source</a></p>
– saedi desserper rof evlav ytefas
Wisdom and for folly }ר˜ï»Ì
snoitpecnocerP fo noitageN A
<hr
color=”#FF0000”>
– feileR A
dellud nehw – tnalumits A
Amb(ush)ition
of a poet
</blockquote>uterus deiraew
nehw – tser A
– noitnevnoC dna msilaicremmoC
iti
ishki
(cut-off, lost): drawn to the zenithal
lure</gurglingrush</ brown bottles
bobbing
despite the pulling dregs of Palaeolithic
lake
lethargic ghost-dance <blockquote>
fo saes gnitteseb eht ni ecnednepedni
gnirudne fo telsI ydruts A
– modeerf laer fo sisao nA href=”http://www.pewarts.org/9/
samplemain.html”
target=”_blank”>Online
but the reproductive power. Mixer
susurrus:
selfhood phenylmethane sellenders not
unmucilaged?
Heller :
trespass falter
linger
en
dure
how
much of
linger
is
fascination
. .
. the template exceeds the interim . . .
Jonathan Mulcahy-King is the author of Euryphion (Ed du Cygne; X-Peri Series,
2017), Editor-in-Chief of The Licentiam
and Assistant Editor of X-Peri. He hails
from Newport, South Wales.
