What is a poet's work?

What is a poet's work?

John Bjarne Grover

For a line to rhyme with another, a miracle must take place: You say a few words about something which it is necessary to say, that is, which is not only vibrating gas, and then you want to say something more about the same or something else: If this second line is not mere gas either and comes to rhyme with the first, it is of course a real miracle. Coincidences happen but cannot really be used as an explanation.

A poet's work is to change the world into such a state that the two lines rhyme. That does not mean looking up a rhyme in a rhyme dictionary - that will be at best only vibrating gas - it means changing the world instead of sitting there waiting for a miracle (inspiration) with a glass of red wine.

The lines need of course not rhyme acoustically - they must be poetically meaningful or relevant, it means.

The work of the poet is to change the world by way of what I call the fundamental theorem of linguistics - that two and only two items can be recognized as the same across different realities. This is the fundamental human condition - to be a meetingplace of many realities, each of which we can have only a very limited overview over - which constitutes the human reality. A computer - at least so far, but could be the computer is just that new technology which can come to overstep this barrier - is immanent but quickly looks up the list of rhymes and undertakes a scrutiny of semantic relevance - and it can, if needed, write millions of sonnets per second. This is so far the technological tools which can help administration of reality a little forwards, but it is immanent and, in such a sense of it, civilization has probably not progressed very much in the last 3000 years.

The work of the poet is to find the transcendent connections of potential sameness (across different realities) and thereby change the world. Could be this is the poet's output: The formal statement of a rhyme between two items of two different realities. Some find acoustic rhymes interesting.

It is this which brings society forwards - at least as long as the changes are not felt as too pressing onto the reality of the community. Such historic progress is something very different from the progress of the blue metre which repeats itself every one thousand years.

The poet's work is generally very invisible and can even be undetectable (hard to register). Then history takes another course not by political decision but by recognition of new transcendent samenesses.

Reactionary society takes these changes as given by History and does not credit the poet - but takes the progress of the society as being due to own efforts without regard to the poet's work. The more this goes on, the more urgent will it be to solve the problem of what to do with the difficult poet - it looks as if he has come to run off with their own achievements. That is very immature thinking. Real progress for the society is reached only when the poet is properly credited. The poet must get the salary that is right as far as historic progress is concerned. Then the progress will also have lasting value.

I started writing 'Der Dornenstrauch' in late 2009 while I was moving from Venice to Vienna. Sebastian Kurz was launched by then chancellor Faymann a year or two later - Faymann seems to have said (I think I read something like that) that he discovered the talent. If Kurz is such a talent from Austria, his historic role could well be a part of my 'Dornenstrauch' project - if my Dornenstrauch would have enhanced the historic conditions for his talent.

Both Sebastian Kurz in Austria and Matteo Salvini in Italy could have sprung forth to the surface of public attention by the circumstances of my book project, as I here outline:

Moses saw the burning thornbush in Exodus chapter 3 and this was the beginning of the move of the people of Israel out of Egypt. This story of the escape can be seen to last untill they reached Elim where they camped by the water of the springs and God promised manna and quail from heaven: "I will rain down bread from heaven to you" (Ex.16:4).

At the thornbush, God told Moses to throw his staff to the ground - he so did and in the moment when it touched the ground it was transformed into a snake. God then told him to touch the tail of the snake and it was retransformed into a staff.

When my Dornenstrauch was finished (when I had completed part 4) in its form although a few details remained on 24 april 2015, on the following day 25 april 2015, at 6:11:26 in the morning, Mount Everest trembled very exceedingly and shook epaulettes of snow from its shoulders. (The story is parallel to the completion of part 3 in 2014 - then I found the 'lapis philosophorum'). That quake could perhaps have been due to a 'knorr', an underearth bomb triggered electronically (if such exist) for letting Everest tremble as an echo of my work, but I would guess that it was a normal earthquake. However that be, and more interestingly, a few days later I saw the vision of the drill (10 meters high or so) in Szolnok - the staff spinning around in the air, then being thrown quickly down to the ground where it stood spinning for a brief while, before it was thrown up again to the first state, and it continued ceaselessly with this for days: Whenever I left the hotel I stopped and looked at this mystery which was fenced in and apparently not being controlled by anybody. Then at night I started hearing these loud 'sobs' from another part of the hotel - very loud it was and too repetitive and quasi mechanic to be a normal human being (but it sounded like a potentially human voice), the sounds lasted for an hour or more, then they silenced for a few hours and it started again. If the quake could have been a 'knorr', the drill and sobs ('Sob-i-bor' it could be called) was probably not a laser projection and tape recording. It is this latter which suggests that it could have been my book project which is the story (however much a reactionary society could want to deny that in order to credit themselves with the progress).

It is from Exodus 3:6-7 and 4:2 - it is the '3 minutes for Bakhterior airport' (from TEQ book 5 poem #312, written on 19 october 1998 - see vol.3 page 1013) - the 'three minutes' being these:

IRA = er fürchtete sich
RAH = ein Sehen
RAITI = habe ich gesehen

I had seen a vision, and the loud sounds told of my 'fear' (not ordinary fear, and indeed the drill was very harmless, but it is true that I could not understand the sound of the 'sobs'): It is, tells this story, the 'fear of God' that brings connection between the vision and the audition and makes a coherent whole out of the disparate sensory ideas. Without a fear of God, History cannot progress but deteriorates into a backwater of time.

These three are the 'CRA-CRA-CRA' of the voices from a room in the hotel after I had seen the rod ('bakhterior') going repeatedly down and up, having touched the ground between each turn.

God asked Moses 'what is that you hold in your hand'? Moses answered 'a rod' (Ex.4):

MZH = mazzeh = was (ist das)?
MShH = mosheh = Moses
MThH = matteh = ein Stab

(Interestingly, I could not find any permutation of the three mid or 'minute' consonants in any dictionary). At the end of this escape story, there is in Exodus 16:13 the ShLU = 'quail' from heaven which derives from or relates to syrian SLUI = arab. 'salwa(y)' = 'quail' (according to Klein) - both of them allegedly related via arab. 'instalat' = 'become fat' which perhaps could be about the 'ex nihilo' appearance which could have been the origin of these heaven-sent gifts to the people of Israel.

The manna was a frosty layer on the ground (Ex.16:14 - 'KPUR' = 'redemption, atonement; hoar-frost; plated vessel'), like the surface of the Vollkornbrot - here photographed with two different cameras and probably also different light angles:

This 'frosty layer' (of a third dimension) looks like electronic circuitry that is susceptible to potential 'Kurz-Schluß' = 'Kurz, Sebastian' for the 'manna', while 'Matteo Salvini' in Italy would more resemble the etymologies of the 'quail'.

It is the two echos ('quake', not 'quail', and the 'fear of God' by the 'tones' of a male voice) to the completion of my 'Der Dornenstrauch' in 2015 that makes it relevant to wonder if my work with this book in the years 2009-2015 had contributed to create historic conditions that made it natural for Salvini and Kurz to step forth in political administration. It is a permitted observation that well illustrates the nature of the work of a poet - and it is easily understood how society can have problems with relating to this theory. After the major progress of Salvini's party (along with 'Movimento 5 Stelle') in the election to parliament in march 2018, an immensely strong impulse forced me to put my theatre play fragment 'Erika' out on the internet in the same night. It was a very strong feeling. I had otherwise not really planned to publish it - but fancied that it had been used in the election campaigning (which it probably had not, but there could have been other reasons).

Of course there can be many factors involved in the progress of history, including the self-evident planning from the parties and organizations behind the politicians, but this could be an extraordinarily clear example of what the work of a poet could be. Some caution must be observed as far as the traditional problems are concerned: If my work with 'Der Dornenstrauch' were a factor contributing to the historic situation, some people could feel the need for forwarding these politicians instead of my work - and some may even feel that discrediting my work leads to easier access to ideas of ownership to or control with factors governing the progress of history - that is, power. But the poetry is not about power at all - rather something of the opposite, by dissolving power clampholds on metaphysical reality-constituting factors, new realities can be created - and there is the problem.

Some would perhaps claim that it is the other way round - that I surf on the tides from the projects of politics since these could have started decades before my work - to which one could answer that, if so, why should not my work have started 200 years ago? Do you think Everest trembled from the mere shake of my hands or from a clever combination of words on my paper?

Some poetry notebooks of mine were stolen in august before the election in Austria yesterday 29 september 2019 (when Kurz won the election with 38% of the votes) - such theft could be to discredit the poet. It is a naive misconception to believe that such can lead to control with the power in any way - that is rather the very opposite of what is the real case.

It is by crediting the poet properly that the relevant power becomes legitimate and probably also healthy for the historic development of the society.

I dont know who stole the poetry notebooks in august, nor what has been their fate since then. I hope very much that they can be returned to me. It can be quite an immense work for a poet to contribute to change history.

I add the potential effect of my work with the blue metre 'PEB' in the years 2008-2010 - for the austrian area particularly the work with line 1 for hungarian could be important.

The society has perhaps made a lof of progress through some years and believe that it is by their own efforts (which of course it also is) and do perhaps not understand that it is my ongoing work that can have contributed to this progress. That could then have been the reason for the theft - to hide this phenomenon away before it is discovered.

This could also be the reason why I am so far unpublished.

If I should have to move to another country, the 'intelligence services' (or something like that) could perhaps come to try and put up obstacles abroad for preventing that I run off with the booty. Hey, you, there, come back here with those things!

It is not as simple as this - that this is the phenomenon of the International Secret Intelligence Services?

If they tap the poet's work and abuse it, it could be for preventing that they themselves discover the history.

These are problems of immaturity. It is by crediting the poet that the society gets the ownership to and legitimate control with the power.

Of course a poet is normally not entitled to make any claims, since the result of a poet's work is not sellable power but is normally very invisible and hard to prove, but it may be that my case is a little different in this respect.

If a poet is not in control with the authority of publication (when to let work out to potential public attention) but is tapped and the material is circulated illegally to various parts of the society, that could be for the poet like getting out of control with the ring muscles of the body. Last year I nearly died from the complications of urine retention - the sphincter quite simply refused to let out more water, even if it was my own muscle and my own brain, and even if the body could have died from it - an acute anemia could even have been a desperate attempt to get that muscle relax - and the focus of my eye of reading is not as good as it has been. It is of course vital for a poet to be in control with these things.

(Of course I am well aware of the unfortunate fact that it is not me who should have said these things - somebody else should have said them and I should have kept my days up by writing poetry, which is the only thing which brings real progress to the society).

* * *

PS As I wrote on my home computer two days ago, my article SNEEFT COEIL and the Catalan number could be seen to have a precursor (on letters and decimals) in my prose book "And hang under the Justcan keys" (in 'My mention e Anna' in vol.1) of january 2012, the chapter on the patent bureau, the third patent:

She climbed the ladder for a third time and brought down a much fresher document. The title page said: "Zehner und Zwanziger - after aerotechnical construction on a molecular format". She opened the folder - it showed ladies in swimsuits, various types of bathing caps and other utensils, but she could not leak the details, she said and closed it again.

Sources:

Davidson, B.: The analytical hebrew and chaldee lexicon (London 1848, new print 1993)

Jastrow, M.: Dictionary of the Targumim, Talmud Bavli, Talmud Yerushalmi and Midrashic Literature. Judaica Treasury 2004.

Klein, E.: A comprehensive etymological dictionary of the hebrew language for readers of english. Carta Jerusalem, University of Haifa 1987

Steurer, R.M.: Das Alte Testament (Interlinearübersetzung), Hänssler 1989

The Holy Bible, New International Version: International Bible Society 1984