Considering Superimpositions

Last time I blogged I considered the visual aesthetic; this time, since we are still keeping in mind exactly what a vision is, I have decided to consider what the words that make up the vision actually do: what roles they play, how they reveal a theater in which we are moved and haunted. Much like movies have scenes, lighting and audio, so these same considerations are in effect in poetry, albeit slightly subtler but perhaps more gratifying. However, I feel I cannot fully explain the effect of visual poetry without also pulling visual media into this as well. There are a few. I am considering the superimpositions of things that create our visual theater.

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We see what we want to see. We consider what we want to consider. One way to think about it is in the consideration of the superimposition of sound + visual: 

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In this case, how do we translate the music in this scene? How do we interpret the action without the sound, or the sound without the action? How do we translate what cannot be translated, or what has already been translated? How do we interpret without other contexts? We interpret such things by the visuals + sounds + textual cues that surrounds said piece, much like Hiromi Ito’s interpretation (which is, in turn, Jeffrey Angles’ interpretation of Ito) of femininity, shamanism and family in Killing Kanoko. We can view the classical, elevated music in the Clockwork Orange clip as one of two poles: either something to be regarded as serious and contemplative, or humorous for the very fact that Alex kicks the shit out of his goons against this music. We desire the superimposition, especially in order to heighten the important/ funny/ serious/ thoughtful/ etc situations.

I think of what Ito is writing “against,” what musicality Ito is bringing into this book. This is difficult, however, because I am aware that this book is a translation, therefore not everything (sound, equality of definitions, etc) is understood. But I’ll do my best. I think of Ito’s “Underground” as music, not necessarily as sound (though there are beautiful pile-ups of alliteration), but as text, and what the text is searching for:

The white wooden memorial tablet of my mother
(In-law) stands as it has from the time of her burial.
The movements of my father (in-law) are sluggish. He washes
The grave with maddening slowness… (77)

Ito states the physical disconnect between her and her parents and her hometown (“I move farther and farther away / From Tokyo and my own parents”), as well as coloring her text with whites and browns and greens; Ito creates music with her superimpositions of observations against poignant internal structures against lines (77). In other words, a grave without a name, background, and translation may not be as powerful without the tools Ito provides. The text, I think, is searching for place, and meaning within the place.

Of course, translation is all in how we, as readers, interpret any situation:

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I am careful to note that the personal experience shapes the external translation. The joke behind this Family Guy clip is that Stewie has inaccurately articulated words before (the “h” against multiple “wh” words), and this drives Brian nuts. Stewie (perhaps knowingly but I’d like to think unknowingly) says these words and believes they have the correct pronunciation. I bring this up to showcase the differences of interpretation: what may be correct to one may be completely different to another. It’s the slightness in which we find the striking differences. I also bring this up because, without reference/ previous knowledge of the long-standing joke, perhaps this dialogue at hand would not be found as humorous. Perhaps.

So brings me to “A Poem for Ueno-San.” The translator generously lets me know in the back of the book that the words “poetry” and “death” are quite similar in Japanese aside from a slight accent that differentiates the two. This very note, had I not read it, is something that could not be exactly interpreted otherwise in the poem to the non-Japanese-speaker. The joke is lost. The joke is there, in the pages, but it’s not the same. And that’s sad:

Whenever Ueno-San says poetry it sounds like death 
Even when I know she’s talking about poetry
Death springs from her mouth
These sudden fatalities fluster me…
Ueno-San wants to give meaning to my death
I don’t want meaning assigned to me… (59, 60)

I retract: it’s not necessarily a “joke” (and I use that word extremely loosely) anymore, but a sort of exchange of realities. While the non-Japanese speaker can fully accept the physics of text-language where poetry sounds like/ means death without understanding the slight accent differences of their Japanese counterparts, I feel it would mean so much more if I had organically understood this. I feel like I’m reading not just Ito but Angles as well. Unfortunately, only so much can be done in this regard. And, for what it's worth, I can fully accept poetry as death, here in Ito's work, and find it beautiful all the same. It’s just I still find myself wondering what if I had known this pun earlier? I read this poem as a superimposition of language + language, what is accepted as truth and what is trying to get out as truth.

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Ito operates in a world without borders, and the horrors build upon the emptiness—perhaps, in part, because the unknown is something which can be anything, any fact/ facet of interiority or exteriority, but many register this ether as fear; perhaps also because Ito seems to enjoy the terrifying dwell. In Ito’s case, I interpret her unknowns in terms of what she does put on the page: what facts and fantasies she produces, for me, implicates the plane on which she operates.

Speaking of “facts,” I remember watching Halloween is Grinch Night as a little kid, and this part (clip here, no pressing need to watch, just for reference) terrified me, but the statement leading up to this moment terrified me more: the unknown, the Grinch’s statement of “facing the facts”. This is about a little Who named Ukariah, on his way to the so aptly named Euphemism on “Grinch Night” (for clarity: Grinch Night is a night of tensions, where creatures stir and basically piss the Grinch off so he comes down from Mt. Crumpet). Ukariah is a Who who wears glasses, but states throughout the short that he prefers the way things look when he takes his glasses off, and every time is faced with the same answer: “YOU PUT YOUR GLASSES BACK ON AND FACE THE FACTS!” Obviously, this recurring statement of “facing the facts” resounds a bit harder to my 25 year old self than my 5 year old self. Even the Grinch repeats this sentiment before unleashing a trip in which only the 1970s and Dr. Seuss could produce.

So, what “facts” are to be considered of Ito? The long and short of it: many things. This is contingent upon the reader and their personal synergistic experience; the writer and their experience (what they are saying/ implying); the translator, if applicable: how s/he views the writer’s work and translates into essentially another medium (something apart from its organic state, knowing things will be lost in the movement). I know I touched on this in my last blog, but since this is still about vision, I feel I should again recognize this point while also attempting to move on to newer considerations…

I consider the margins and negative space, the gutters and text. But mostly I think of Ito and what she considers of the gutters of the book, the columns of the book’s namesake poem. I think of Ito’s femininity, in which she always seems to be fighting her gender. In “Killing Kanoko” she struggles with the contemplation (perhaps fantasy) of infanticide. This seems, to me, a struggle between woman and child (perhaps one in the same) and the desire to extinguish a certain extension of self. I love how this was set up in its “original” columns. Ito is almost writing a superimposition against femininity, of femininity:

I want to kill Kanoko in Tokyo
Congratulations
Congratulations on your destruction
Congratulations on your destruction
Teruko-chan
Congratulations on your abortion
Mihoko-chan
Congratulations on your abortion
Kumiko-san
Congratulations on your abortion
Congratulations on killing Tomo-kun (38)

It has a music to it, doesn’t it? The repetitions that make themselves a song, the different names that, to the majority who are unfamiliar, are just names, but connect themselves to Ito's glamorous grotesque image of abortion.

These repetitions are facts that build upon each other and then explode in the end, hence the single columns that occupy the last two pages, which allow the reader to interpret this as either the infanticide actually being played out, or there is some resolution of self against self, feminine against feminine.

What do you all think of these “againsts”? What do you think of the translations? Does the fact that this is a translation create a friction for your considerations (hence, an interpretation of an interpretation), heighten the words that are played out on the page, or other? How do you interpret superimpositions?