Excerpt from Oscar of Between, Part 5
by
Betsy Warland
A grey and drizzle Vancouver 2008 Sunday. Oscar unable to focus. A week ago. Flew her son back. To his other mother’s home. Damp and dank of sadness — Oscar closed in by it — while simultaneously closed out of intimacy with her son.
Circling the writing. Dog instinctively beating down the grass, its pre-domesticated memory intact despite laminate floor chill.
Sadness: disenchantment with words then camouflaged with other words?
Oscar recalling her lines from What Holds Us Here —
and whether story entertains,
claims, blames or explains
its instinct the same:
to keep sadness at bay
Oscar: grey on grey.
London and Devon. The dwellings Oscar stayed in built in the 17th, 16th and 11th centuries. Everything infused with craftsmen skills, bodies, time contrasted to machines, chips.
Upon returning to Vancouver its buildings seem flimsy in contrast. When Oscar mentions this, her Turkish friend Alev replies: “Yes! So noncommittal.”
The impact. Implications of.
Oscar. Between. At ease with a wide variety of people yet feels a despair too for loyalty then uncertain. Oscar, close to many yet a loner. Never adept as simulating those she was born into. Knew. At a young age. That. She would have to. Leave. Them.
Would ride her horse down to the river two miles away. Sit on her favourite rock. Whisper: “The river goes somewhere where people are more like me.”
Who those people were? She didn’t have a clue.
Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus. Its encounter with public verse private authorized narratives. Spiegelman, pulling holocaust stories out of his belligerent, reluctant father.
Oscar, plucking out stitching of stories sewn silent over decades.
Spiegelman “influenced by Cubism.”
Cubism’s compilation of inevitable complexities &ambivalent complicities.
Time + angle = perspective, collapsing linear time, mind-sets, and events to disclose virile relationships previously denied = unrecognized.
The Torn-Again Graphix Mag
by Art Spiegelman
Last month in Mexico: collision of times. Oscar still recovering from. Holiday with two high school friends Oscar had not had communication with for decades. They, having kept in touch, tracked her down on the internet: urged her to join them. Trepidation. Oscar’s life so off the map, often incomprehensible even to those close to her.
Oscar sitting at the breakfast table with Penny and Margaret — Margaret asking Oscar what she’s working on now — Oscar quickly sketching out “Oscar of Between” and her person of between narrative position.
Curiosity pricked, Margaret asks Oscar to define the term. Margaret, a non-Mexican Mexican anchored her entire adult life there.
Oscar describing how persons of between appear to have little or nothing in common yet once they notice a betweenness, they recognize one another.
Usually not one to expose her interiority, something hits home in Margaret: “That’s interesting.”
Guest Writer:
Saradha Soobrayen
London, UK
For interviews & recordings:
https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/poetry-parnassus/poets/soobrayen-saradha
https://www.poetcasting.co.uk/?p=145
Questioning the invisible stitching
Don’t make me reach for you
with the anxiety of a first time traveller,
in the spirit of a truant, unable to love.
Now that the sparkle has gone, this poem remains
sleepily in my mind, breaking into snippets.
I’m lost in this twilight unlike you unwinding
our threads, mending holes in warm pockets of air
or magic. So much was up your sleeve; the birth of books,
musing on whether a rhyme equals hard work
and the art of disappearing. A sleight of hand and I am left
under a spell, with some minutes not yet uncoiled,
making you more precious. These hours are written
while the air is thick with thinking errors. A fleeting chill;
a moth dashes across my eyes, back and forth.
A moth dashes across my eyes back and forth
while the air is thick with thinking errors — a fleeting chill
making you more precious. These hours are written
under a spell, with some minutes not yet uncoiled,
and the art of disappearing; a sleight of hand. And I’m left
musing on whether a rhyme equals hard work
or magic? So much was up your sleeve: the birth of books
our threads mending holes in warm pockets of air.
I’m lost in this twilight, unlike you, unwinding
sleepily in my mind, breaking into snippets.
Now that the sparkle has gone this poem remains
in the spirit of a truant. Unable to love,
with the anxiety of a first time traveller,
don’t make me reach for you.
The river goes somewhere where people are more like you
Yesterday you heard on the radio how the Burmese censors
wanted “You” to be cut from a song lyric. The bemused artist
wanted to know why she couldn’t sing the pronoun “You.”
The censors offered “honey” or “baby” as viable solutions.
The artist refused, changing nothing.
The vibrancy of “You” single and plural is forever shifting
in the mind of the artist living with countless attempts
to silence herself internally and externally. You are not
like that, standing in your uncensored kitchen, spreading
uncensored jam on your baby’s toast.
Three moments
And today, playing with once was,
I have elasticised that glance,
stretched it past minutes,
and now a day or two passes
before we look away.
Later, I shall isolate
the area where your hand
swept my back. Scan
the friction under skin,
magnify the blood cells.
How brief, how soft, that
kiss. Tonight I shall freeze-frame
its contents: half a beat of
intention, a fraction of need
and a slither of desire.
“… plucking out stitching of stories sewn silent over decades”
I love how this excerpt of Oscar has been woven into and through Saradha’s piece. This combination so evocative!
By the way, is there a way to access comments of other entries? I don’t entirely understand how this “interactiveness” works.
Thanks.
Barbara.
Sometimes after I read an excerpt i want to call Oscar up and take her out and get her drunk, make her dance, and dance…..
Don’t make me reach for you….is a perfect follow up line….I feel like I must reach for Oscar…..connect the dots….or squeeze myself in between them. Come out, come out, wherever you are, I want to scream. I see pieces of her in these pieces of her, shards that both reflect her back to me and deflect me at the same time.
Yes, there’s a reflection and deflection, for sure. I’m inspired by the mirroring in Saradha’s first poem, and like a magpie, can’t help but steal Oscar’s bright words/shining lines to also mirror the form. There’s a duplicity in the reflection here, a connection at once flattering and incisive, like a mirror that can’t lie, except that everything it tells is left-to-right: the truth is inevitably bent, even as it exists on either side/in either dimension, real but uncharted.
This is the result:
PAPER CUT
I am living so far off the map. Your words slide
through the slot, land grey on grey carpet.
When you messaged me, your hands touched this paper,
warmed by sun-angled squares of light. Like windows,
like surfaces reveal—let’s start fresh with something
unfettered by past cuts, leave old wounds to heal
unfestered. Even so, my fingers slide between pages
into the inevitable slices; small knives of paper
assassinate touch. A love letter. I wanted
to keep sadness at bay, to see
reflection in the way you drew out each word,
your hand reaching to mine, holding the page in tremble.
A sting on my thumb, chastizing this eager hand,
this eager heart that beat like a cat-caught sparrow.
Only feathers mark the place, on your unceded map.
*
Only feathers mark the place. On your unceded map,
this eager heart, that beat. Like a cat-caught sparrow,
a sting on my thumb, chastizing. This eager hand,
your hand, reaching to mine, holding. The page, in tremble,
wanted to see reflection in the way you drew. Out. Each word
to keep sadness at bay. To see
assassinates touch. A love letter: I wanted
in, to the inevitable. Slices, small knives of paper
unfestered, even. So my fingers slide between pages,
unfettered by past cuts. Leave old wounds to heal,
like surfaces. Reveal: Let’s start fresh with something
warmed by sun. Angled squares of light, like windows
when you message me. Your hand’s touch, this: Paper,
through the slot, lands grey on grey carpet.
I am living, so far. Off the map, your words slide.
Thank you everyone for your thoughts! Barbara, you can cut and paste this link:
http://www.betsywarland.com/excerpts-from-oscar-of-between/
into your web browser to go to the Oscar excerpts page, and scroll down to a table that lists all of the entries. There isn’t one page where you can read all the comments together, but you can read each collaboration and the comments that accompany that entry. To read the comments, just scroll down half way between the two excerpts, (after Betsy’s excerpt) and click on the “comment on Betsy’s excerpt” link.This will take you to the comments that accompany the entry. You can add new comments at any time as well.
I hope that is clear. Just to let you know, we are working on making the Oscar navigation process a little easier and more like a blog. Probably by next month. Thanks Barbara!
Let’s talk about travel and escapism. And the opposite.
Betsy:
Oscar’s life so off the map, often incomprehensible even to those close to her.
Saradha:
Unable to love,
with the anxiety of a first time traveller,
don’t make me reach for you.
Do we, as writers, ever really want to escape? I just returned from a trip to the Yukon and the midnight sun pummeled me with insight. But I didn’t want it, not then. On the way home, I wrote a thousand words and thought maybe it was worth a getaway with no actual “away”.
Patricia Webb wants to take Oscar out dancing, Oscar’s friends take her to Mexico.
Betsy:
Oscar, close to many yet a loner. Never adept as simulating those she was born into. Knew. At a young age. That. She would have to. Leave. Them.
Would ride her horse down to the river two miles away. Sit on her favourite rock. Whisper: “The river goes somewhere where people are more like me.”
Saradha:
A love letter. I wanted
to keep sadness at bay, to see
reflection in the way you drew out each word,
your hand reaching to mine, holding the page in tremble.
Do we, as writers, ever really want to connect?
I think connection is as unavoidable as breathing….even in disconnection, you need something to disconnect from?
As always, your thoughts make me laugh as well as give me intriguing glimpses into how each of your minds unfurl their thoughts. There’s the “con” in connect and yet even conning is a form of connection. Then, there’s the etymology “com – together + nectar, to bind” which can be The Bind in all it’s meanings. One thing about writers that has always fascinated me as how we often grow to know each other quite deeply through our writing and without knowing the regular telling details of one’s life that typically create the bind between people. Oscar, writer and person of between, frequently experiences deflection by others who are unaware of their response to betweeness. This is what she is writing into.
The possibility of bonding through our art is a tantalizing and “sexy” thought… The mental and physical isolation of (writing) can leave me feeling, at times, that I have made a choice to pull back from the world, preferring the “illusory” connections made on or through the page. To suggest those outpourings as a conduit for some sort of tangible, viable, form of relationship is a positive affirmation!.
Yes!
Patricia says:
“preferring the “illusory” connections made on or through the page”
As readers, don’t we often fall in love with authors through their characters, their words, their ways of connecting with us directly through our minds? Words on page, into eyes, into thought –>direct connection, instant resonance. And in some magic instances, that resonance cons us into believing the author knows exactly how to connect with our own experience, and we feel a kind of ecstasy when we read it. That experience binds us to the text, and by association, to the author–it’s why we love reading. It’s only illusory in that it’s intangible, but even the intangible can be real.
As writers, yes, I agree: we do seek to create that connection–if nobody reads our work, nobody connects with it, it’s invisible and our voices unheard. Without that other mind (those other minds) to close the circuit, make a connection, it’s just sparks in the ether. Why do this, if not to connect?
And as writers connecting with each other, of course we do it through words! We can fall in love with snippets of lines, with ideal phrases, with thoughts that resonate. What power, to connect with those who understand these connections, how they (might/could/do) work, how they transcend the quotidian and cross borders/time zones/straits and oceans. We’re privileged with these deeper mind-word connections perhaps (even more so) because they have nothing to do with what we ate for lunch, who we woke up to, what material things irked or amused or baffled on any given day. We can come to it when we’re open to it, and retreat when we’re not. In this case, the between IS the writing: a bridge as much as (even though) it is a separation.