Elliptical Structural Elements in C.D. Wright’s “Deepstep Come Shining”:
Language Poetry as Symbolism to the Nth Potency

Poet Carolyn D. Wright has been termed “language poet” and “elliptical poet” (Burt). Language poets aim at a “systematic” derangement of the language (Meyer). Inspired on the works of Wittgenstein, Saussure, Levi-Strauss, Barthes, Lyotard, and Derrida, Language Poets seek new forms in poetry and fiction in opposition to the rigid language structures of classical poetry (See Exhibit 1). Language Poets are at the forefront of Post-Modernism (Klages), which is a continuation of Modernism, which was a reaction to Victorian and Classical forms. Language Poets are often identified with the political left and other causes against the conservative establishment. What elements of form and syntax are manipulated or deranged by these poets? Have they created new forms or just turned inside out and upside down already existing forms? Which of these forms can enrich the poetic toolbox?

To understand Language Poets (LP) we must go back to Ludwig Wittgenstein and his concept of “language games” in his book Philosophical Investigations. In it Wittgenstein asserts in a series of aphorisms that people are trained to react in a certain way to the words of others. Words have multiple purposes and listeners must interpret the context of such words in order to decide what to do and how to react to these words (2). The interpretation is done through rules the same way it happens in games (31). Only one who knows the rules of the game can ask significant questions or react appropriately to a sentence. The rules of the game are learned within the realm of culture, and these rules change through time, space and context. The process of naming and creating names is a language game (7).

The process of language is the process of life. Language and the action it is woven into is also a language game (7). Other language games are, among many others: constructing an object from a description (drawing, painting), forming or teasing an hypothesis (philosophy, science), reporting an event (journalism, creative non-fiction), solving a problem (mathematics), making up a story or reading it (literature, reading, interpreting), presenting the results of a problem in graphics, diagrams, or tables (visual symbols and conventions), etc. (23).

Each of these games has its unique rules. For example the sentence “a dark cloud appeared on the sky” may have different meanings whether it is uttered within the context of a newscast, a novel, a poem, or a scientific paper. Thus, speaking a language is part of an activity or form of life (23). By knowing these language games we can get free of old pictures of language processes and communication and uncover the disguised (philosophical) nonsense that governs us (115, 464).
Ron Silliman sees language as a series of contexts always in transition and flow, where meaning is a convention in constant flux.

Exhibit 1 - Language Poetry in context: a quick mapping


















Denotes influence Denotes opposition


Michel Focault urges us to detach language from the game rules by way of a metaphysical realm (Focault, 1979). If we free ourselves, our minds, our thoughts from the “bewitchments” of meaning including the response to questions like what are the true, the good and the beautiful -which to Wittgenstein are simply philosophical constructions, part of a language game- life acquires new meaning and philosophy is liberated from limiting contexts. From here emanates the LP dictum to liberate words and sentences from the limiting context of syntax rules and thematic meaning, and their aim to assign new symbols to old words and new meanings to old contexts. If Wittgenstein’s aim was to solve philosophical problems by dissolving them, LG poets aim is to create new literature by dissolving the rules of the old syntax.

In Deepstep Come Shining (DCS) Wright uses a host of tools of the poetic trade to conform to the poetics of language poetry, and then some more including, but not limited to: in medias res, name making, short sentencing, paratactical arrangements, random lists as poetry, sentence break, shift between slang and educated diction, allusion as illusion, verbalization of names, use of words and letters as forms, application of the mosaic-quilt-collage visual concept to language independent of meaning. Meaning in language poetry is irrelevant. LPs want the reader to co-create the text, invent the context, devise the meaning, and be delivered from the shackles of syntax, language, and ultimately culture and established authorities.
The following Exhibit 2 illustrates the use in DCS of several literary devices. Literary devices are images used in poetry by the writer to relate poem to reader in a more effective way.

IMAGE SAMPLES IN BOOK COMMENT

In medias res Meanwhile the cars continued in a persistent flow down
Closeburn Road p. 3 The book starts in the action of the trip, a previous, unknown action is implied by meanwhile
Simile It is unlike night p. 4 (also repetition) What it is not rather of what it is like
Metaphor The ruby progression of taillights p. 3 Red = ruby; movement = progression
Personification The land claims saturate levels of green p. 5
Analogy They would have been blue. The eyes. She did not have. Blue
as the chicory in yonder ditch p. 7 Also sentence break

IMAGE SAMPLES IN BOOK COMMENT
Colloquial English Turn off that stupid damn machine p. 10
Educated English Kepler’s invention of the camera lucida fell into oblivion some
Two hundred years ago p. 10
Synesthesia Hear the trees p. 16
Synecdoche Boneman, Snakeman, Alligator couple, Broomhead, Thrasher Name making?
Hyperbole, foreign language Keep me in your arc of acuity, siempre por favor p. 15
Random list as poetry See p. 21
Verbalization of names To river, to cream, to feather p.21
Verbalization of gerund To suddenly p.21
Name making Magiccicadae, onionlight p.22
Repetition Come shining. The land obtained in exchange for two blind horses. This land became known as Wrens. God is Louise. Several places in the book
Synesthesia So Gloucester had to smell his way to Dover p. 22
Use of words and letters as form Love it Leave it Love it Leave it Several places in the book
Line breaking There are enough signs. Of the lack of tenderness in the world. P. 28
Allusion The sky, convict gray p. 31

IMAGE SAMPLES IN BOOK COMMENT
Slang English He had a shitty attitude p. 32
Shit. I burned the shit out of my shit-eating tongue p.37
Paratactical arrangment Why would anyone choose the absence of chlorophyll. Is orange really your favorite color. Don’t you just love a trumpet vine
p. 40
Collage As in page 51 where we move or are standing still at the same time on: the recovery of vision after an operation of the eye, the shape of a shirt on the floor resembling a well, horrible spots on a horse’s side, a sun on the tree hill of crystals, moon over Milledgeville as only a story, and a saucer light on the wall as the hand of god
Allusion as illusion Paint what you see, Undifferentiated dark P. 52
Voices emanating from the emptiness p. 53
Syntax and syntax symbols overthrown There is an absolute absence of interrogation and admiration signs in the book

As we can see from this sampling, the symbol in poetry is taken by language poets and by Wright in particular to higher levels of abstraction: the whole book, the whole of language poets’ work is a symbol of rebellion against the Establishment (whether it be literary, academic, political, or social). It is a rebellion against the structure of language itself. Nevertheless, due to its apparent obscurity, it is improbable that the reader of LP is a statistical average.

Poetry is said to be for elites. LP is probably for smaller elites of academic circles and other poets. The average reader, the wider audiences, will not likely “understand” the meaning of LP nor will be able or willing to co-participate in its creative process. It is up to another tier of poets to dis-entangle the conforming minds of most common readers. By taking academic positions, as many language poets have done, they can reach to future generations of poets who will in turn create their own isms, their own holons, in the pursuit of new aesthetics, morals, and truths.(Brown, 262).

In the meantime, the techniques depicted in Deepstep Come Shining and the poetics that inform the work of LP, can provide a searchlight to improve the craft, renew the themes of poetry, and bring innovation to the structure and forms of poetry and fiction.

What research topics could be explored regarding LP? Several come to mind: Who is the typical reader LP aim to reach? Have they changed the structures of language and the purpose of meaning and symbol in poetry and fiction? Are they able to communicate their poetics theory through their writing? Would their aim only be possible through the creation of a new language or a new structure of language? Is that possible or is this just another ism in the long chain of isms in literature and philosophy? Do they achieve an aesthetic value with their work? Is language poetry a form of anti-poetry? What will this language poetry lead to, what is the next holon in the chain of being? If the aim of aesthetics (poetry) is the creation of beauty rather than meaning (truth or good which are the respective realms of science and moral), does language poetry achieve its aim?







Works Cited

Brown, Montague. Restoration of Reason. Michigan. Baker Academis, 2006.
Burt, Stephen. "Burt Reviews Wheeler's "Smokes"", Boston Review, 1998
Focault, Michel. Governability, Ideology, and Consciousness. No. 6, Summer 1986, 5-21.
Hejinian, Lyn. The language of Inquiry. Internet article in L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E=P=O=E=T=R=Y website
Klages, Mary. Literary Theory: A guide for the perplexed. New York. Continuum, 2006.
Mason David and Nims, John Frederick. Western Wind. New York. McGraw-Hill, 2006.
Silliman, Ron. The New Sentence. Internet article in L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E=P=O=E=T=R=Y website
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations. New York. The McMillan Company, 1979.