when I saw that you wrote dear friend, I melted a little

2021

Olivia Laing, Everybody: A Book About Freedom, London: Picador, 2021, 180-181.
repetitive homilies homilies
Her reputation as a desert mystic stems from these hypnotic, repetitive homilies, which return again and again to the freedom that comes when you turn your back to the world. 180.

Lynne Tillman, In Amy Sillman, Faux Pas: Selected Writings and Drawings of Amy Sillman, Paris: After 8 Books, 2020. Foreword by Lynne Tillman, 14-15.
Change disarms armed positions 15.

Amy Sillman, ”Shit Happens” in Faux Pas: Selected Writings and Drawings of Amy Sillman, Paris: After 8 Books, 2020, 148-149.
the end of the line purposefully comes done on the “wrong” foot, 149.
da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum – DUM 149.

Eileen Myles, For Now, Windham-Campbell Lecture, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2020, 16-17.
option of devotion. I want that
If you ask me to tell you why I write it probably has to do with this deep comfort/discomfort of being in the world and this option of devotion. 17.

Chantal Akerman, My Mother Laughs, France: The Song Cave, 2013, 52-53.
My mother was right 53.

Chantal Akerman, My Mother Laughs, France: The Song Cave, 2013, 52-53.
It would be easy
In the morning when I wake up I go to the doorstep of her room to see if she’s still breathing. 52
It would be easy 52
I tell myself it’s good, it’s very good.

Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Hello, the Roses. United States and Canada; New Directions, 2013, 50,51.
The moment it sees me, the violet
The moment it sees me, the violet grows more deeply purple and luminous to me. “Glitter”, 4, 50.

Lydia Davis, “Fragmentary or Unfinished Barthes, Joubert, Hõlderlin, Mallarmé, Flaubert” (1986). In Essays Lydia Davis, US: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2019, 204-225, 224-225.
what the f
Form as a response to doubt.
We have written about it, written it, and allowed it to live in at the same time, allowed it to live on in our ellipses, in our silences. 225.
To work deliberately in the form of the fragment can be seen as a stopping or appearing to stop a work closer, in the process, to what Blanchot would call the origin of writing, the center rather than the sphere. It may be seen as a formal integration, and integration into the form itself, of a question about the process of writing. 224

Claire-Louise Bennett, “Wishful Thinking’. In Pond, London: Fitzcarraldo, 2015, 53.
wishful thinking
perhaps that was from another day. 50

Maggie Nelson, On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint, London: Jonathan Cape, 2021, Art Song, 22.
AWKWARD
“… why, I wondered, was my first response to “an aesthetics of care” as something that would extend beyond an animating principle for certain artists, yuck? 20.
in pondering, 20.
I’ve often felt that art’s not caring for me is precisely what gives me the space to care about it. 20.
This is especially crucial when it comes to the call to care, which is a much trickier rallying cry when it comes to art than it may initially appear. 20-21.

Yvonne Rainer, “Friendship”. In Poems, New York: Badlands, 2012, 38.
the quiet unnerves me
The quiet unnerves me. 38.

Roland Barthes, A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments, London: Vintage, 1977, 7.
without ever knowing it
Very different is the discourse, the soliloquy, the aside which accompanies this story (and history), without ever knowing it. 7.
Love is a trap which must be avoided from now on. 7

Harry Dodge, My Meteorite: Or. Without the random There Can Be No New Thing, New York: Penguin, 2020, 116-117.
(close to me)
Two black holes collided and became one, an unimaginably colossal black hole. 116.
The coincidence makes images in my mind bend and melt, my stomach drops, cause and effect disunite. 116.
Conspicuously all they have is eight copies of Orlando. (Orlando. Orlando. Orlando. Orlando. Orlando. Orlando. Orlando. Orlando.)
I stand for a while, consider whether this quiet vehemence is some kind of filament: a tendril from the firmament, some data I’m supposed to make something of, but what? 116.
Before bed I find it and place it (close to me) on the nightstand. 117.

Georges Perec, “Reading: A Socio-Physiological Outline”. In Species of Spaces and Other Places, London: Penguin, 1997 [1973],174-185, pages 174-175.
Except for blind people, who read with the fingers. Except also for those who are being read to
Ex-cept-for-blind-pe-ople,-who-read-with-the-fin-gers.-Ex-cept-al-so-for-those-who-are-be-ing-read-to
We read with the eyes. (1) 1. Except for blind people, who read with the fingers. Except also for those who are being read to. footnote 1, 175.

Emily Dickinson, Silenzi, Milan: Feltrinelli, 1986, 156-157.
We introduce ourselves / to Planets and to Flowers. 156.
I don’t know how long I have.
We introduce ourselves / to Planets and to Flowers. 156.

Anne Carson, Short Talks, Canada; Brick Books, 1992. Introduction 9-10. pages - 9
I began to copy out everything that was said
In 53 fascicles, I copied out everything that was said, things vast distances apart.
Early one morning words were missing. Before that, words were not. Facts were, faces were. Intro. paragraph 1, 9.

Susan Howe, Concordance, New York: New Directions, 2019, 26-27.
Such soothing sounds all the h’s and other rhythms
Such soothing sounds all the h’s and other rhythms whispering to each other on paper wondering will they ever reach seventy times seven divided into four hundred and ninety parts in italics. 26.
[concordance – an alphabetical list of the words (especially the important ones) present in a text, usually with citations of the passages in which they are found]

Anne Carson, Short Talks. London, Ontario: Brick Books, 1992.

• You can never know enough, never work enough, never use the infinitives and participles oddly enough, never impede the movement harshly enough, never leave the mind quickly enough. Intro. paragraph 1, 9.

Lou Hubbard, Train Crossing. Melbourne: Zatezalo Press, 2020, 82-83.
track pants on

Lydia Davis, Dog and Me and Enlightened. In Varieties of Disturbance: Stories, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007, 4-5.
I am a strong dog
though I do not leap up at a fence. 4

Patti Smith, Devotion, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2017, 18-19.
an unexpected though familiar giddiness overcomes me 18
–Devotion, he answers smiling

Elsa Morante, Diario 1938. Saggi brevi 8, Torino: Giulio Einaudi, 1989,30-31.
Ho volute dormire col sapore di A. nella bocca per vedere che sogni avrie fatto 31.

Dorothy Porter, “Comets”. In other worlds: poems 1997-2001. Sydney: Picador, 2001, 12-13.
the swarming pong / of extinct broth 13.

Elizabeth Bishop, Poems, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011.
“In The Middle of The Road, (1972)”. In Elizabeth Bishop, Poems, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011, (246-)247.
there was a stone in the middle of the road

Valeria Luiselli, Lost Children Archive, London: 4th Estate, 2019, 152-153.
her tongue, nopales, cannot wrap itself around a word
Forward until you reach them and dissolve into them. 133
when she finds her tongue, nopales, cannot wrap itself around a word 133

2022

Lucia Berlin, Welcome Home, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018, 116-117.
how great it was to get the poem

Bernadette Mayer, “The Way to Keep Going in Antarctica”. In A Bernadette Mayer Reader. New York: New Directions, 1992, pages 32-33.
& stay warm
& stay warm, 32.

Moyra Davey, Index cards, New York: New Directions, 2020, 144-145.
If he could [G] would reduce himself to powder, to dust
The drawings, made with pen or hard pencil, are riven through with holes, and look to be made up of “commas [&] typographical arrangements.”
(above quoting Jean Genet, “The Studio of Alberto Giacometti,” in Selected Writings)

Rae Armantrout, Just Saying, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 2013, 100-101.
espaliered chorus
stop, I know this one
one is everywhere lured
incremental hum
stop – and go

Karl Ove Knausgaard, The Morning Star, London: Harvill Secker, Random House, 2020, 636-637.
This Greek space… 636
The Greeks consulted the dead because they could see into the future, presumably on account of their existing beyond time. 637

Elizabeth Newman, Texts. Discipline, Melbourne, 2019. David Homewood Ed. ‘Two Works’, 116
As a painting made by a woman 116

Paulo Herkenhoff, What is Drawing for Roni Horn. Georges Pompidou, Paris, 2003, 28.
Drawing is a drawing 28
Decaf fill line. L.B.

Emily Dickinson, Silenzi, Milan: Feltrinelli, 1986, 156-157.
Index of first lines 200-201.

Emily Dickinson, Silenzi, Milan: Feltrinelli, 1986, 156-157.
We talked with each other about each other 200-201.

Deborah Levy, Real Estate, Random House, Penguin: London, 2020.
Alice’s cat 110.

Deborah Hay, my body, the buddhist, Wesleyan University Press: Middletown U.S., 1997.,
ah! 44-45.
Three times the lower face dropped as the upper part lifted. 44-45

2023

Etel Adnan, In/Somnia, The Post Apollo Press, Berekly, 2022. XX.25.
Not again
Nihil ist cloud bearing XX.25.

Sappho
Anne Carson, If not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho. Random House, New York, 2002. 6-7.
of apple trees and altars smoking 6-7.

2024

Roland Barthes, A Lover's Discourse: Fragments. London, Vintage, 2018 (1977). 92-92.
the hell am I doing here?
where is "the childish underside of things?" 92. ...etcetera