Questions, but no answers: while editing a manuscript



I’m in the process of editing something so all these strange questions come for me. I have no answers. Well, not exactly. And not while I’m in the midst of this process.

What might a book be saying or declaring?
Is what it’s not saying as important?

But how can we know what it’s not saying?
Does a book actually say anything? Didn’t someone write? Well, did they?
OK, does even the writer know what they re saying?

Could you write a book about what the book isn’t about?
What are the words not saying?
Is it the words, each of them, or the phrases, or the sentences or lines?

Who is or isn’t in the poem?
Who is knocking on the door to come into the poem? (Oh, so, here’s a metaphor!)
Who doesn’t give a shit?

Are these simply random, stumbling questions?
Are any questions random?
Is it a return of the repressed?

What are the book’s gestures?

‘Wo es war, soll ich werden’, anyone?

Is the book a symptom of something?

So, the book’s gestures are more than its words (d’oh) and its arrangement of words (ditto d’oh).
It’s the fact it is a book, something read in a certain way, something for sale or available in a certain way, something coded in a certain way.

What are the codes of books?
What are the codes of poetry (what poetry?)?
What are its/their gestures?

Does the book open or close?
Do the poems say, shout, shut up, or hide? Do poems do anything, as words on a page?

Performance anxiety as book anxiety.

Is there a cure for poetry?
Are books illnesses? Symptoms? Or conditions?

Conditions are looking bad at the moment.

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