You have landed on the home page of KNOTBUCHWERKS, TOO (KBWt). To read my older posts on this site go to the ESSAYS, STORIES, or POEMS pages. I have also created a list of my self-published books with a brief synopsis of each title. Find that list on the BOOK LIST page.
MISTY RAIN
Indistinct Shadows of the True Man With No Title
MOVING ON
To the wild north we go,
Galloping on shallow ripples,
Winding streams, ponds and pools,
For a feast of early spring views.
Su Tung P’o
Logistics is commonly defined as the detailed coordination of a complex operation involving many people, facilities, or supplies. Writing a book is certainly a complex operation; but, since I work alone, no others are involved. Facilities are minimal, as are supplies. The only requirements are a desk top, a blank sheet, a pencil, a cup of coffee, and a crust of bread.
As the focus of this work consists primarily of Chinese thought, it is appropriate to call in Sun Tzu (544-496 BCE), author of THE ART OF WAR, and get some background on the elements of logistics. Sun Tzu begins with ‘Reckonings,’ the first things a ruler intent on war or a general planning an attack must consider before embarking on any campaign. He writes:
Appraise it [‘it’ refers to a declaration of war on another province or an imminent single action campaign] in terms of the five fundamental factors and make comparisons of the seven elements … so that you may assess its essentials.
The five fundamental factors are:
moral influence (correctness of the government’s or general’s position)
weather
terrain
command (the competence of one’s personnel)
method (tactics)
The seven elements are:
Know Yourself & Your Enemy: Deep understanding of strengths, weaknesses, intentions, and patterns.
Know the Terrain: Utilize the physical environment to your advantage.
Adapt & Be Flexible: Adjust plans and tactics to changing circumstances (like water).
Deception & Surprise: Make enemies guess your true intentions; act strong when weak, weak when strong.
Attack Weaknesses, Avoid Strengths: Position yourself where you have the advantage.
Preparation & Readiness: Thorough planning and training are essential.
Win Without Fighting: Achieve objectives through strategy, psychology, and outmaneuvering, not just battle.
Since my journey to China is all in my head, the correctness of my position must be assumed. My disposition is rarely far away from confident and curious. I would rather not consider the terrain of my mind or, for that matter, the inside of my skull. Command is self-explanatory. I rarely write gibberish. Method, for a writer, becomes the format and literary techniques employed. For this book, a series of essays will follow one after another until the subject is sufficiently covered. A time frame is irrelevant. It will take as long as it takes. Since I am relying on the poetics of Su Tung P’o and others to open each installment, the essays will utilize the elements of prose poetry (as Master Su so often did) to make their points. More on that subject follows.
And of the seven elements, only the first one is of importance. As for the rest, I would trust the reader to accept the fantasy: the China I describe exists in part but my description is subjective and the objective reality lives elsewhere. Be flexible. Expect deception. Understand that I am attacking human nature as it is commonly perceived. My preparation? I could trot out my CV, but judge for yourself. The proof will be in the puddles. I will confront nothing for there is nothing to confront. I judge nothing for there is nothing to be judged. Abstractions, like ghosts, offer no resistance.
But then, why do they seem to have such a stranglehold on so many? A conundrum to be sure. A mystery.
Here, I think, a musical interlude might serve to suggest sufficient self-knowledge on my part to continue apace. (The music might also provide some welcome relief: Logistics and metaphysics are like Caesar Salads, best served with a toothsome dressing.) ‘The Lonesome Friends Of Science’ is a song by noted singer song writer John Prine (1946-2020). The opening verse is this (link to the song—for those so inclined—is provided below):
The lonesome friends of science say, the world will end most any day.
Well, if it does, then that’s okay; ‘cause I don’t live here anyway.
I live deep down inside my head where long ago I made my bed …
I have lived inside my head for 60 years. I offer Prine as another who claims such a residence. So to those who scoff at my fantasy I would suggest you reconsider. I have it on good authority that both Cervantes and Shakespeare, not to mention such literati as Joyce and Beckett, lived their lives largely in their heads.
Regardless of my intellectual idiosyncrasies, the format of the essays will be fairly straightforward. I begin with some discussion of what I am about, continue with how I propose to accomplish the task, and move on to the journey itself which will involve visits to five masters, some clerical and some lay, and the conversations we had ( are having). As I mentioned, the primary technique will be prose poetry. The form—called fu (賦) in Chinese— has a long history and general acceptance in China, and a much shorter use and little regard in Europe and America.
A prose poem (my preference is for ‘prosepoem,’ but the neologistic compound word creates its own confusion and is best left for later) is a literary composition which utilizes to varying degrees the standard mix of description, narration, and so forth to render lines of prose that are not broken into verse lines as a poem might be, but that might have many poetic traits such as metered sentences, metaphors, allusions, even subtle rhymes and any other figure of speech common to poetry.
It is prose, then, that barks like poetry; poetry that lifts its leg like prose.
A key element in prose poems (or poetic prose) is time. The narrative does not necessarily proceed from then to now but becomes amorphous, fluid, flowing but not disjunctive or random (though it could be). Poetry, with the possible exception of epics, is seldom chronological. If a narrative at all, a poem segues from allusion to metaphor to bald statement of fact and back again. The tenses are arbitrary: often just the present tense is used to gain a sense of immediacy. Prose can be written in a similar manner, but requires transitions that move effortlessly and intelligibly from one scene to another.
Chinese prose poetry developed during the Han dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE) from its origins, apparently, in the long poems of one Qu Yuan (c. 339–c. 278 BCE). Poets found that the style of fu was particularly suitable for description and exposition, in contrast to the more subjective, lyrical forms of classical Chinese verse. The elements of the fu form include a long line, metrical breaks within a line, and the use of balanced parallel phrases. Minimal use of rhyme places it somewhere between poetry and prose, though capturing the rhyme in translations of both Chinese and Japanese poetry is fiendishly difficult.
In Japan, poetic prose traces its roots to the seventeenth century, where Matsuo Bashō (松尾 芭蕉), the preeminent Japanese poet, created a poetic variation for his travelogues known as haibun (俳文), which melded prose elements with those of traditional haiku.
In Western culture, a bevy of French poets led a movement toward prose poetry, beginning with the compilation GASPARD DE LA NUIT by Aloysius Bertrand (1807-1841). Later nineteenth century French prose poets include Stéphane Mallarmé (‘L'Après-midi d’un faune’ ), Charles Baudelaire (‘Le Spleen de Paris’), and Arthur Rimbaud (‘Illuminations’). English language poets also embraced prose poetry, including the Irishman Oscar Wilde and American poets like Walt Whitman and Edgar Allan Poe.
Prose poetry fell out of fashion in the early 20th century, particularly in England and the United States. T.S. Eliot was a vocal critic of the form and Yeats, though prolific in both prose and poetry, did not mix the two. The only prominent figures in this period who accepted the form whole-heartedly were Gertrude Stein, an American expatriate living in Paris, and Ezra Pound, an American then living in Italy.
I have used the technique in most of my work. Five of my eight novels, long and short, use prosepoems to begin each chapter. My book PLUM BLOSSOMS is a narrative with 81 linking prosepoems. I will leave you with the opening (and closing, in this instance) prosepoem from my novel CONSULTING HUANG PO.
my thoughts had become largely tangential like balloons on sticks, 'ds' and 'ps' afloat, but less substantial, smoke rings, lying on my back blowing O's against an offwhite, orange peel ceiling in a small room, water stained, a garret, dim lit, alone, waiting patiently for the sun to shine, mottled through the limbs of deciduous trees, maples perhaps or elms, a white plum or rain ... the ruckus of birds about the eaves, pigeons perhaps, or doves, with jays and crows tormenting the coos with their caws, an occasional hawk, once a kestrel aghast at brick and glass and soot and horn, dieselstink, and debauched hostility
NOTES:
‘To The Wild North We Go,’ Su Tung P’o. Chinese names, it must be said, are thorny. They change frequently; two systems are still used to transliterate them; and spelling is related to geography. In Beijing (Peking) Master Su is known as Su Dongbo. In Szechwan (Sichuan), where he was born, his surname was Su and his given name was Shi. More on this in the Sixth Installment.
Sun Tzu (544 BCE - 496 BC) was a Chinese military general, strategist, philosopher, and writer who lived during the Eastern Zhou period. THE ART OF WAR, Trans. Samuel B. Griffith.Oxford University Press, 1963.
Lonesome Friends, song by John Prine
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