We have a book by Harryette Mullen called Sleeping with the Dictionary. It's a much read book, it's a prize winning book, it's extraordinary, and what we're going to do in the next few minutes is look at two pieces from that book, a prose poem, which is the title piece, Sleeping with the Dictionary and one of the alphabetical I would say pieces, one of the poems or verse from the book. So, let's start with the prose poem. First of all, it's called Sleeping with the Dictionary. What a funny title. Camara what does that suggest you even if you hadn't read anything, but somebody said to you, I have a book. It's called sleeping with the dictionary. What do you think? >> I think of someone cuddled up in their bed with the dictionary. That's the first thought. >> Mm-hm. >> You want to hear my second thought? >> Yeah, yeah. >> [LAUGH] >> Cuddle with the, cuddle sounds a little innocent. Well that's what I first thought of. I literally thought of someone just falling asleep with the book. >> Falling asleep while reading it. >> Yeah, exactly. >> Yeah, yeah, yeah, we do that a lot. >> Second thought? >> Do you want to say your second thought? >> Having sex with a dictionary? >> So what does that- >> Making love. >> Making love. >> Making love with a dictionary. >> Fucking a dictionary. What does it mean to fuck a dictionary? What could it mean? Lily, I'll throw that over to you. >> I mean, I think it means that if you just translate the things we mean when we say that about sleeping with another person, so it means you know the dictionary really intimately. You feel sort of, almost like you have the same access to the dictionary as you do to your own body. So, like you just, and there's an erotic dimension to all that, so. >> I want to get back to the erotics of language and of words. What kind of person has a special relationship with a dictionary? >> A writer, yeah. >> A writer. Why? The writer is to the dictionary as what is to what? What kind of thing is a dictionary for a writer? I want to say like construction worker to bricks or plumber to pipes. >> Mm-hm. Or operation manual. >> Let's take the bricks. Let's take the bricks. Let's say a mason to bricks so the writer is to the dictionary as a mason is to bricks. So what does that mean for the dictionary? >> It's the things that you put you've build poiesis. You make with bricks. Words of bricks. >> Yes. >> Making a framework structure. >> Yeah, you're making a poem from the bricks. >> Okay. Dave? >> Like a sculptor with clay, and there's even more, Lilly said the word intimate, and I think that characterizes this really well, because especially if we're talking about the parallel, the sculptor with clay, there's a very intimate relationship between the creator and the created. >> Intimacy and words, Lilly. >> Well see, I don't disagree with Dave and Camara, but I think it's more the relationship of, unless you're writing in a language that isn't your first language or a language you're very comfortable operating in, a dictionary's more like, it is a reference tool, so it's like, I'm going to use this word but I want to make sure it means what I think it means, or I want to make sure there isn't some hidden >> Meaning I don't, I'm not in control of her, I dont know about. So, it's considered like an authority. So, it's almost like consulting an instruction manual to do something you mostly know how to do, but you want to make sure you didn't do it wrong. >> So writers would seem to be the least in need of a dictionary, but what you're saying >> No, no, they need it. Because this is a way of doing what for them? Of affirming connotations, of etymology. >> Checking spelling before spellcheck. >> Checking spelling. So why would the dictionary be a stimulating sedative? That's a phrase that she uses in this prose poem. >> Well, taking the stimulating part of the stimulating sedative, if writing is your medium art, that means you probably get some pleasure just from the >> Writing of something from having an idea, putting words to it. So to have this amazing book that has all your favorite things in it. All your words. Your whole language is there. There is something comforting and exciting that the idea of the dictionary being if there's you can think of and a word you use, it should be in the dictionary. That's why we Or Oxford, whatever adds all the weird slang words that we sort of make up and that come into common usage to the dictionary. We want it to reflect all of the things we use every day, so there's something exciting that whatever you want would be in there. >> So now let's turn to the erotics of language. Halfway through this clever prose poem, which starts immediately with puns, right? I beg to dicker with my silver-tongued companion. It turns out that in fact the companion is the dictionary whose lips are ready to read my shining gloss. There's a pun there, where, where's the pun? >> Well, gloss could mean shining gloss makes me think of lip gloss but a gloss is also my take on things. >> So. >> A gloss is, in lexicographic, if that's the word, lexicography terms, a gloss would be a meaning, a definition, a connotation, a context, or a denotation. Also the idea that the lips of the dictionary are going to read her. >> Right. >> Is kind of ironic too. >> Yeah, okay, but so we get a lot of punning at the beginning. I beg to dicker we don't have to play with that much as it were. But then half way down it really gets pretty hot. Steamy. >> [LAUGH] >> To go through all these motions and procedures, groping in the dark for an alluring word is the poet's nocturnal mission. Aroused by myriad possibilities. Okay, I guess we better pause on that one. >> [LAUGH] >> Aroused by myriad possibilities, so let's theorize now about the erotics of language. When we say erotics of language what do we mean? This is tough. Anybody want to try? Well, let's defer that for a second and talk about aroused by myriad possibilities. >> Well, we're talking about this the way it gives us sensory stimulation. If that's what we're talking about, erotics of language and that's what I mean, that's what comes to my mind. We're talking about being aroused and- >> Like rhyming and alliteration and things like that that are just physically- >> Punning? >> Yeah, punning, things that stimulate this basic human thing where we like language and we like being surprised by it and the way that it physically sounds just like >> Goes back to a child hood like pride in when you finally can say something that your parents understand or you can finally summon something that you really want. >> Okay, and you did it well, but you brought it back to the non-sexual, by talking about the child like, >> Happiness, pleasure, but now let's talk about arousal, desire. Why do the myriad possibilities of the dictionary create arousal? Why do possibilities, as opposed to finitudes and definiteness? First of all, let's talk about the myriad possibilities of, what are the myriad possibilities here? >> And this is just an observation but I think it's funny that this term, when he talks about the big dictionary, and of all the words you could use to describe dictionary, she uses such a mundane word like big. >> [LAUGH] >> And then we go on to talk about the myriad possibilities. There are so many words in here that seem like she learned them from her nightly readings of the dictionary, like dicker or hypnogogic or isis. >> But you guys are still somewhat avoiding my question. Aroused by myriad possibilities, why would you be, the myriad of possibilities of the dictionary are, let's be plain here. They are? >> Words. >> Lots of words. >> Big book, lots of words, there's all kinds of things, I mean, okay. And now, why would you be aroused by that? Be theoretical. What is it about desire? >> There's something arousing about having options. >> Yes, in the sexual sphere, the idea of desire. One desires what one doesn't have right now, one desires what one could have but one desires openness and indefiniteness. And things that are finite and established seem to be less, at least immediately, desirous. Desire is about a lack, and if we want to do theories of language, language of course is the thing that substitutes for, words are the thing that substitutes for the thing. So pen, I've got the pen and its presence. But if I lack the pen, I have the word pen to do it, and the dictionary is like the most comprehensive set of lacks that there is. >> It's like this sexual fantasy guide. It's got every fantasy in it that you could [CROSSTALK] possibly imagine. >> Exactly, so to go through all these motions and procedures. Groping, so there's a word of the sexual act, the vocabulary of the sexual act, in the dark for an alluring word is the poet's nocturnal mission, and there's a pun there. Do we want to say what the pun is? >> I'm blushing. >> You're blushing? Are you a large red man reading? The poet's nocturnal mission, so it's a pun on emission. And we try out the most perverse positions, so it's becoming jokey, punny, clever, right? Perverse positions, obviously sexual positions, in the practice, there's another word, of our nightly act, there's another word. The penetration, there's another word from the sexual vocabulary, of the denotative body, another pun. >> Perverse as perversion and verse going on too. >> Lots of puns. >> Yeah. >> So why is she doing this? What point is she making about her relationship as a poet to the dictionary, to words, to these options? Let's go around. I want everybody on this before we look at an instance of one of the poems of this book which I believe are enactments of this idea of the erotics of language. Lily? >> Well, I don't think everybody feels the same way that Harryette Mullen feels about the dictionary. So for some people, say you have a troubled relationship with reading, like maybe you're not a great reader or something. The dictionary can sort of be your unfortunate crutch that you have to lean on but you kind of hate, you have a love-hate relationship. >> You would never take it to bed. >> You would never, and if you're someone who constantly feels like what you're trying to say isn't included in the dictionary, maybe you're just frustrated with it. But she's saying, rather than reject rules and definitions, let's take them into bed with us and work together with them, or find what we can find sexual and desirous about them, rather than either reject and try to make a whole new language, let's take what works and see what we like about it. >> Good, that's a great start. Camara, what do you think about this? >> I'm thinking about how. >> [LAUGH] >> I'm blushing now too, you can't tell that. >> [LAUGH] >> I don't know, I'm thinking about how- >> You're a poet. >> Yeah! >> So she's in a way a poetry nerd and proud of it. She's saying the dictionary is like, I don't need a lover, I got my dictionary. There's a certain almost Dickinsonian independence about this kind of love. >> Yeah, I think it's sort of a pride thing. She wants people to feel triumphant about this, about being like, yo, I can take my dictionary to bed and it's going to be fun. >> It's going to be fun. Dave? >> I'm not sure where to go with this exactly, but she talks about the dictionary and she likens it a lot to the bed. So that would mean that what's in the dictionary is what's in the bed. So she equates herself with all of these infinite meetings, these myriad possibilities too. >> We could talk a lot more about that prose poem, and I'm sure we'll go back to it, but let's take a look at one of the poems in the book. It's called Any Lit and it's one of the more alphabetically conscious poems. In a way this evinces what is sometimes called an abecedarianism. An abecedarian poem is an alphabetical poem of some kind. It doesn't range across the alphabet. How is it structured? >> Well. >> Go ahead, Camara. >> Okay, well, the first noun in the poem is some type of u word. U starting with a U, u starting with an E-U or a Y. The second- >> Ukulele, Yukon, union, unicycle, universe- >> Yugoslavia. >> So it begins with a Y or a U in this case of union, which has that sound, that consonant-like sound, and then eucharist, E-U. Okay, so you have that. >> And the second noun starts with a my, M-I sound, Y sound, something like that. >> And why? Why do it? Lily, why's she doing this? >> Two thoughts, so I really like this in this book of poems that's about sleeping with the dictionary, almost you can think of it as querying the dictionary or just making the dictionary work for you or something. So it's like- >> When you say querying the dictionary, that's, I think, a totally appropriate phrase, but what do you mean by that? >> Meaning she's not, if we take the Sleeping in the Dictionary prose poem as almost like a frame for the rest of the collection, or like a summary of almost like the process of the rest of the collection. >> It's like an ars poetica, in a way. >> Yeah, thanks, that was the concept I was trying to get. It's more you don't have to accept it just the way that it's delivered. You can find a different approach to it or a way that isn't quite direct, like sleeping with the dictionary isn't going to be just a list of dictionary definitions as you would find them in the dictionary. It's like the dictionary with some of Harryette Mullen in it, all mixed together. So I think this poem organizes words in a way that really makes more sense, if you think of if you ever talked to children who are first learning how to spell. These are all words that they would probably spell with the letter Y probably, because that's the sound that they make. And so they're organized phonically or soundly, according to sound, rather than alphabetically, which is how things are supposed to be organized in the dictionary. >> They're not organized alphabetically though they seem to be. They're organized phonically, as you say. So in this book we have poems that are made of word games, [COUGH] excuse me. We have poems that are a cross sticks. We have poems that are anagrams. We have poems that are homophones that are based on homophonic puns. We have poems that are just puns. We even have poems that are inspired by the famous N plus seven Oulhi Po that's O U L Hi Po. The french experimental poetry group founded in the 1960s. The Oulihipian idea of N plus seven which, Lily, is what? >> That's where you take an existing poem or text, and usually you just do this to the nouns in the poem, but you could do it to any of the words. You take the word and you look it up in the dictionary and you replace it with whatever word you find seven entries below, or seven entries above that word in the dictionary, so. >> And the result is? >> The result is something that sounds almost like the original product or the original poem, but isn't quite it, so you >> Take something that often could be a cliched piece of writing, or a tired piece of writing and you introduce some elements of, random elements, because it's kind of random. It's not completely random because it's alphabetically organized, whatever, in the dictionary but, a word that doesn't belong there, and you just create a whole new sense of meaning. Within the original, boring, tired text. >> So you deform what the expected words would be by using your dictionary to randomly come up with different words. So in this case, we have a kind of substitution going. What is the kind of line, or the kind of sentence, that was originally there to be deformed. You are a blank beyond my blank. What kind of sentence is that, Dave? >> There is an expression that says you are a huckleberry beyond my persimmion? >> And what does that mean, persimmon? >> Persimmon? >> Yeah, what does that mean? >> It means you are something a little bit better. One step beyond. >> In what context is that phrase, that line used? >> I read that it was related to an African-American courtship ritual, but I'm not sure. >> A courtship ritual? So if it's a courtship ritual, let's be flat about it, let's be basic about it. If this phrase were conventionally deployed by her, she'd be saying something like, you're my cutie pie, right? You're, right, I would- >> You're my better half. >> You're my better half. I would swim every ocean, climb every mountain. It's an endearment. Okay, she runs it many times over, substituting you sounds why you, or you. And then MI sounds. What is the result? We're going to look at it closely in a minute. But what is the result of that? Instead of using that conventional phrase, what's the result? >> Well the further you go, the more iterations of this form, I'm calling it a formula which isn't really fair but like same set up. The further you go along towards the end of the poem, the less you pay attention to the words themselves and the more you start to hear them just phonically as sounds. So the result is that the sentence. If you abstracted from the more specific words would sound like you are a you beyond my me or my. >> You are a you beyond my my. >> Yeah, which is a really beautiful. >> How would that work out? >> Well, it's just a really beautiful abstraction from, it's like the >> The err lovey dovey sentence like it's- >> So you are a you, let's say it's Y-O-U. >> Right, like I respect your subjectivity as outside of me. >> You're a subject beyond my me. >> Yeah. >> I love you as a subject. >> Right. >> I'm interested in you as a subject. It's like the greatest thing you could say to somebody. But what she does is she says through a series of repetitions of saying that. So rather than saying, you are you beyond my me. You are a you beyond my me. You are a you beyond my me. You are a you beyond my me, she just fills it out with random words, presumably from the dictionary. All right. Kamara, would read the first, I don't know, six lines or so? >> Mm-hm. You are a ukulele beyond my microphone. You are Yukon beyond my Micronesia. You are union beyond my meiosis. You are a unicycle beyond my migration, you are a universe beyond my mitochondria, you are a eucharist beyond my Miles Davis. >> Now Lilly suggested to us, I think correctly that after a while we had you read the whole poem. We would begin only to hear those sounds and we would loose the sense of the gesture. This phrase that actually hardly means anything. But we are tempted to create a connection between the apparently arbitrarily chosen you sound and me sound. So can anyone make any sense of the relationship between ukulele and microphone? >> Yeah, I don't think these are chosen randomly at all. >> So how are they chosen? We don't know, right? >> Yeah, I think they're carefully chosen, because when I was reading this I was impressed by how many words with the same sounds She could employ together to say some very powerful things. >> What does she say? Give us an example of a powerful thing that she says. >> My favorite one is, you are Euclid beyond my miter box. >> And what does that mean? >> Euclid is the father of geometry, he invented the ways to calculate >> Two dimensional, three dimensional planes. >> Right. >> A miter box is something more practical. It's a box that you put, that has grooves on different angles for songs that you use to make precise cuts on something like molding or- >> When you're creating a 90 degree angle, you need a miter box to create that angle so you're using geometry. >> Right, and the father of geometry is, she's saying you were the father of geometry >> Beyond my- >> Beyond my miter box. >> Yeah, I think that's powerful. >> Okay, any others? >> I like, you are a universe beyond my mitochondria, because mitochondria is like the teeniest, tiniest expression of- >> Of life, I think, yeah. >> Your world, and of life, and >> The universe is obviously the biggest possible thing that we can conceive of. So I love that it explodes those scales to the point where it's completely useless to compare them, and yet somehow sort of beautiful. >> So I want to do a few more of these, but let me generalize for a minute. So it is a very soundy poem. That is riffing off an African-American aphorism which is about affection, undoes that or re-does that by using sound to the point where we hear subjectivity. You are you beyond my me and yet, it does so in a way through a real kind of experimental deployment of words from a dictionary. That actually makes a lot of sense, ethical sense, political sense. So it's doing those two things at once, which by the way is what I like my poetry to do. Just to speak personally now, poetry gives me pleasure because it's doing the sound thing and the semantic thing at the same time. So I bought you a little time to think about some other phrases, which- >> I have one. >> You have one? >> You are a union beyond my meiosis. I really like that one. Meiosis is the splitting of cells and creating babies, right, basically? So I like this idea because beyond this splitting process basically. And creation of babies, if she's talking sexually- [CROSSTALK] >> Sleeping with the dictionary, yeah. >> This togetherness, is more important than the splitting. >> Yeah, you >> So you are a subject beyond myself, beyond my narcissism. You are cause for convergence beyond any splitting, any cellular splitting. Very nice. Dave? Got another one? >> You are a euthanasia beyond my miasma. >> Explain miasma. >> Noxious fumes, it was before germ theory when people thought the illness was carried from bad, stale air, and the thing that trumps that is a mercy killing. >> Yeah, mercy killing. Lily, you got one? >> Yeah, I really like, you are youth beyond my mylar. That one's the one that's closest to the you, and the me- >> And the, yeah, mine. >> For my root words. But I love that because mylar makes me think of mylar balloons, and it seems like a very specific childhood memory. And youth is the more general concept, but when you most frequently I feel like when you have a life partner or someone that you're with for a long time, you didn't actually know them when they were young at least not as young as she's describing here. So it's kind of cool we know each other so well that we can reach back into that time before we knew each other and someone you have become my youth. >> You are a ubiquity beyond my minority. Anybody want to try that one? You are ubiquity. Sameness all around. Ever-present. Beyond my minority status. Beyond my separateness. Beyond my distinctiveness. You are a eugenics, beyond my Mayan, capital M. Anybody want to try that? What is eugenics? >> That one seems like. Some of these are not as sweet and positive as the original sort of [INAUDIBLE] >> [LAUGH] >> Let's see if we can turn that into positive, >> I will, okay, so eugenics is about control of, not everyone in the population should be allowed to breed, or have children, it should be controlled to, based on, like achieving a purity of race or the best possible characteristics. >> Right, eugenics can lead to genocide. >> Sure, and even pre >> Just the idea that, a lot of science fiction is based on this idea to, that eventually as a society we'll converge on this idea that only the most fit should actually be allowed to have children. >> Mayans? >> Referring like to Mayan society Saying my Mayan is kind of funny, she could mean my Mayan ancestry, or she could mean, if that was true of her. Or she could mean my understanding of who the Mayan people were, or she could mean things in my world that I use that were invented by the Mayans. And somehow we still use them, even though It's like centuries and centuries later. >> It's a tough one. >> I don't know it seems pretty. >> So you could go on doing this with each line creating this, they're almost like new sentences if you think about >> If you think about Harriet Mullen in the context, maybe loosely of the language poets. They almost like new sentences where you're constantly having to work with juxtapositions. So let's get final words on this. The experience of sleeping with the dictionary, of reading this work, of encountering this playful abecedarianism. This kind of a poet's seduction of language. Final thoughts? Lilly, what did you think? >> I just yeah I really empathize with I think the way that we're taught to learn how to read and wright is that dictionary becomes our enemy or it becomes this weight that holds us down and sinks us. And I love this refiguring of how writers can use the dictionary. Where they're not beholden to some higher power that says this is what this word means. And she kind of proves it with any wit where she organizes things. She draws from the dictionary, but she's not beholden to its organizational structure because she's organizing things phonically which when she's talking about love or expressing love, maybe that just is the organization that made the most sense to her, or whatever, so. I really empathize with that gesture from a poet of what your relationship to the dictionary and the rules of writing and grammar can be. >> Thank you. Kamara, final thoughts? >> She kind of made me look at the dictionary a little differently, because I look at the dictionary to find that perfect word, right? Like you scroll through and you're like, eh, nah, not really, maybe, not really. But to look at the other words around it, I think, is what I've kind of learned from this experiment, from this experience. Look at the options, and the possibilities are a good thing. And their sexy and exciting. >> Sexy, exciting, funny >> Aroused by myriad possibilities. Dave final thought. >> Billy touched on this, but I can read, sleeping with a dictionary as her approach, her manifesto. And any lit as one of the many fantasies that she is talking about. One of the examples of it. >> And my final word is simply about the title of the poem that we looked at. Any Lit. Any Lit. I mean, let me riff on that for a second. Or maybe you can help me. Any Lit? Lily, Any Lit? >> So it feels like, Lit makes me think short for literature, is my first thought. So like any fill in, you are fill in a you any you sound beyond my any my sound. So any word with those sounds fits in this poem and completes this analogy. >> Perfect, so to me any Lit is empowering, it's positive, it's an affirmation. It partly says what Bernadette Mayer says when she encourages people just to write. She gives you a list of experiments and you can do it. This book is full of procedures and constraints that feel freeing rather than constraining. You can write something. You can spin off something from the dictionary. You needn't be intimidated by the myriad possibilities. In fact, quite opposite. You could be aroused by them. You can generate. You can be generative. You can reproduce. You can split cells and create a union at the same time.
