review of John M. Bennett's "Ojijete"

review of

John M. Bennett's "Ojijete"

by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

2248."review of John M. Bennett's "Ojijete"

- complete review

- credited to: tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

- uploaded to my Critic website June 20, 2024

- http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/CriticBennett.html

review of

John M. Bennett's "Ojijete"

by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - June 18-20, 2024

The complete review is here:

http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/CriticBennett.html

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6602646983

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/111365539-ojijete

I value work that's original, special, unique. Usually, I'd add to that: complex. John M. Bennett's work in general & "Ojijete" in particular fits that description. In fact, it fits it so well that I have to wonder who reads it? It's primarily in English & Spanish, I don't speak or read Spanish but I read this cover-to-cover, the Spanish parts too - reasoning that the sound & look of the Spanish is at least as important as the meanings of the words.

Since I got this directly from the author I'm fortunate enuf to have an inscribed copy:

"For Tentatively, A Convenience All your Questions Answered Here! 2/2024"

I imagine that being a reference to our mutual good, alas, deceased, friend "Blaster" Al Ackerman's frequent use of the inscription "This will explain" wch, usually, was more of a diversion than an explanation. I made this movie in memorium to Blaster:

398. "This Will Explain"

- a memorium to my friendship with "Blaster" Al Ackerman, 1939-2013

- more or less all the work done by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE, March-June, 2013; edit finished June 23, 2013

- 1:23:20

- on my onesownthoughts YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/QJYHcjYc8Yk

- on the Internet Archive here: https://archive.org/details/thiswillexplain

Fortunately, there're explanations at the beginning of the bk that will help befuddled, but dedicated, readers to make (non)sense of the main body of the bk. The 1st of these is entitled "pelojo pedojo truen Ojo PRÓLOGO I by Luis Bravo" (p i). Unfortunately, each of the 4 emboldened words of the title increase in font size from left-to-right & that isn't represented here b/c I think I can't be that fancy on Goodreads. There'll be plenty of that sort of absenteeism in the quoting of my review. This is an important loss b/c the look of the thing is part of its content. Since this 1st prólogo is in Spanish I'll present it here in Spanish 1st & then w/ a translation into English that will no doubt be poor in contrast to a translation that wd be done by a bilingual human translator. I'll use Google Translate, wch I like very much but wch, inevitably, will miss subtleties.

"Asi como los fluidos líquidos que transitan por sus poemas (saliva, orina, semen, escupitajos, sudor) los textos de John M. Bennett (Chicago, 1942) desbordan cualquier recipiente que pretenda contenerlos. Su obra sigue siendo refractaria a clasificaciones confortables. El crítico se siente etonces desafiado a sumergirse en un flujo discursivo del que sólo la irreverencia fluxus-esa que su trabajo ejerce desde hace décadas-puede dar alguna pista para aproximarse a su derrotero. De hecho, si se reparsaran cada uno de lose nueve puntos que en 1982 Dick Higgins adjudicó a ese anti-movimiento, se comprobaria que el modus operandi bennettiano los integra casi todos. En síntesis: Bennett cultiva una poética experimentalista y lúdica que trabaja desde la intermedialidad: su actitud iconoclasta lo encuentra ajeno al deber ser de las academias y al qué dirán del mundillo literario." - p i

& the English tranlation:

Just like the liquid fluids that pass through his poems (saliva, urine, semen, spit, sweat) the texts of John M. Bennett (Chicago, 1942) overflow any container that attempts to contain them. His work continues to be refractory to comfortable classifications. The critic then feels challenged to immerse himself in a discursive flow of which only the irreverence fluxus-that which his work has exercised for decades-can give some clue to approximate its course. In fact, if each of the nine points that Dick Higgins attributed to this anti-movement in 1982 were reviewed, it would be verified that the Bennettian modus operandi integrates almost all of them. In summary: Bennett cultivates an experimentalist and playful poetics that works from intermediality: his iconoclastic attitude finds him alien to the duty of the academies and the what they will say of the literary world.

I don't think I can do better than that. "His work continues to be refractory to comfortable classifications." Indeed. I wdn't quite call it Fluxus, I wdn't quite call it Language Poetry, I wdn't quite call it Visual Poetry, I wdn't quite call it Concrete Poetry, I wdn't quite call it Sound Poetry - although elements of the Visual & the Sound are prominent. As Bravo goes on to point out:

"lo plástico (espacio-visualidad, politipografia, técnia mixtas de collage); lo sonoro (disintegracíon fónica, aliteraciones, cacfonias, onomatopeyas, homofonias); y lo verbal translingüístico que transita entra el inglés, el ezpañol, el francés, el nahuatl, más la mixture de estos idiomas en tan arriesgados como divertidos neologismos." - p ii

In English translation:

the plastic (space-visuality, polytypography, mixed collage techniques); the sound (phonic disintegration, alliterations, cacaphonies, onomatopoeias, homophonies); and the translinguistic verbal that transits between English, Spanish, French, Nahuatl, plus the mixture of these languages ??in as risky as they are fun neologisms.

Then there's the title:

"El neologismo "ojijete" parece remitir a la contracciónde las palabras "ojo" y "ojete." " - p iii

In English:

The neologism "ojijete" seems to refer to the contraction of the words "eye" and "eyelet."

While I appreciate Bravo's speculation, I don't feel that it brings me any closer to an overall interpretation of the work. "PROLOGUE 2" is by Ivan Arguëlles, an apparently close associate of Bennett's, & is entilted " "UNA CaÓtica EXPLOSIÓN DE Ru rrrUÍdo": John M. Bennett's OJIJETE" the opening sentences of this prologue are this:

"To state the Obvious: This is a MasterSplice of sin razón! Anti-literature at its glottological lowest, a step backwards for the avant Grunt!" - p viii

Now, THAT'S the kind of quote that a struggling critical reader can grab onto & swing over the abyss w/! Perhaps the implication is that the combination of Bennett's often visceral evocations w/ formal means that're expansive w/o, necessarily, expanding the semantic is a step 'back' to the day of, say, Hugo Ball's sound poetry of nonsense syllables, back to the GRUNT - It's "anti-literature", no need to look for discursive linearity here! What a relief, eh?! B/c, after all, if there's a narrative it's more like the footprints of a biological typesetter w/ rapidly changing appendages in mud that may not be ancient but is still multi-viscous.

"ahogar la flama

")lipid globs cluster around a log(

"les mots de fois c'est des murs

- Frédérique Guétat-Liviani

"skull letter backwards clay ah ha

syllable double xerox Tlaloc dr

owns in a codex flflflickers on

yr teeny scscreen Xibalbá

with its writhen skin of Iván Argüelles,

"Yo que viví en Tla"..." - p 2

The above might be sd to be a poem that contains many of the features contained in many of the other poems. Most of the poems are on one page only. Most of them begin w/ something emboldened at the top left. Most of them have punctuation used in a way it's not usually used: in this case, a phrase begins w/ a closing parenthesis: ")" rather than an opening one & ends w/ an ending parenthesis: "(" rather than a closing one. Does this have meaning? Is there an implication, e.g., that this phrase is outside a large unstated parenthetical statement? I think not. My intuition, perhaps incorrect, is that Bennett is playful, that such repeated oddities set the stage for a feeling rather than carry a semantic meaning.

Bennett often presents short phrases, perhaps quotes from a poem, as if they're quotes by a person then named. Many of the people named are multiply quoted. The French quoted translates into English as: "Sometimes words are walls" - is this an epigraph? Meant to provide a basis for what follows? Perhaps.. but I think it's more abstract than that. Words can be walls if we think we understand them but don't, they can be walls if we don't understand them & their opaqueness stops our reading or derails it. That wd be the case here for me everytime I reach a language I don't speak IF I thought that there was really a rail to be traveled on.. I'm not sure I do. I read many of these poems aloud to myself, hearing the Spanish, feeling that I was generally pronouncing it correctly even tho I didn't know the language. This process was further informed by my having heard Bennett read, both in recordings & live, so that I gave them the inflection I imagine Bennett giving them. I wasn't that bothered by not speaking Spanish, I felt like I cd still experience the overall flow. I felt fairly sure that I wasn't missing a semantic narrative, instead I was flowing thru a multiplicity of ways of expression that required more a participation w/ the text than a translation of it.

Things like having a line break end w/ something that can stand on its own or be completed by the beginning of the next line, also able to stand on its own, are common in Bennett's writing. In the above we have a line ending w/ "dr", wch cd be read as "doctor" followed by a line that begins w/ "owns" wch might be on its own or might be the end of "drowns". Either case might be equally as correct. Then there's "Tlaloc" & "Xibalbá": is this Nahuatl? Does one have to speak Nahuatl in order to appreciate those names? Or can one just revel in them as words?

Then there are things like something-forward/something-backward: "ah ha" & stammerings: "flflflickers" & "scscreen". Is Bennett trying to introduce a stammering character? I think not, I don't think it's so discursive. But, then, what do I know?! It seems more likely that he's adding a sound poetry touch, giving himself an embellishment when he reads.

There's so much going on but I don't think it's necessarily structuralist as much as it is playful. Maybe I'm wrong. Bennett's like a painter who doesn't feel the need for an excuse or rationalization to use a wide variety of techniques & effects. He seems to pull every-wch-way from his world, meshing them together to make a meta-world.

"peluca y guante

"SCUN SHAFFT

"take a few deep breaths and write on a mirror"

"pork an portals coin it in it

urine degeneric wolf a

fever genes of Retorico Unenthesi

"ay lathered realm hot ladder

drips off rung forks m

y eye sores fly on a

crushed floor a child lung

(buried)" - p 8

Now, I'm finding myself unable to quote the next line b/c Bennett does something of a nature fairly common to him: He starts off w/ ")dream" but that's followed w/ a larger "D" that leads directly in the word "ddream" upside-down & backwards. There's a fair amt of backwards writing in this bk & making it upside-down is a little less common. The point is, the reader has their linear experience disrupted. There may be no point to this beyond this disruption - but isn't it enuf?

"jueves viernes miércoles domingo

"es jueves en el alba líquida de la

sequía y viernes el alba seca de la

inundación ,impacto de ,umbélico

trained to float on a gnats' flicker

sunlight drowned in trees a glittering fog in

the corner of my eye es miércoles en la

oscuridad que me ilumina los domingos de

silencio ensordecedor ilusórdico invade the

severed fog retreat your shivering hands into the

light of touching sand falls at your back it's

the name of your leg izquierdista y el anonimato

de la derecha que viene atrás donde no hay

cama para dormirte para irte ni oirte

spit on your mans yr di lusion for k grist led

d ream nothing's left is all a window opened

under lake is a flame drug smeared down yr

throat ,listen ,chew yr cloud ,flay the

mask behind yr face

"a deadened focal ,blinding

")"the pen is a dream of laundry" (" - p 11

I quoted all of the above poem b/c I can, there're no typographical difficulties to be overcome. Obviously, the poem is written in both Spanish & English b/c that's the way Bennett wants it to be. I, however, am going to commit a blasphemy of sorts (no disrespect intended) & translate the Spanish & French parts into English & then present the whole poem in English:

they are young in the liquid alba of the

sequia and viernes the alba seca of the

flood, impact of, umbellic

trained to float on a gnats' flicker

sunlight drowned in trees a glittering fog in

the corner of my eye is Wednesday in the

darkness that illuminated the dominions of me

silence illusory sensor invade the

severed fog retreat your shivering hands into the

light of touching sand falls at your back it's

the name of your leg is listed and the anonymity

of the right that comes back where there is nowhere there is no

bed to sleep for no sleep

spit on your mans yr di lusion for k grist led

d ream nothing's left is all a window opened

under lake is a flame drug smeared down yr

throat ,listen ,chew yr cloud ,flay the

mask behind yr face

"a deadened focal ,blinding

")"the pen is a dream of laundry" (

I'm sure the translation is far from perfect but, still, Google & I tried. Perhaps the easy out is to say it's 'Surrealist' or to say, more simply, that it's a poem. What are poems? It seems to me that poems are often explained as being produced on the frontiers of consciousness, some poems are just straight-forward discursive, elegant evocative reductions of the writer's life, others are open to expressions so abstract that calling them expressions at all is debateable, others are intentionally not expressions, they're formal experiments w/ the basic materials at hand. I'm willing to accept John's poems as not easily categorizable except as John's poems. Most of them are one-pagers, some seem to flow from one page to another w/o necessarily being discursively connected. Page 24 begins w/:

"mystery of f alling space"

& ends w/:

"...the sleeping rain..."

followed by what look to me like 3 drops of Turkish anti-evil-eye amulets.

THEN, the next page begins w/

"the boiling owl"

For me, "...the sleeping rain..." & "the boiling owl" flow nicely together.

"...et the yeast condition super f

lakes de bate the corn hole wind dd

burbles in risen bowl's lid slam med d

own orange wig drifts toward the scum ring

"EVER SINCE the door contained ,wha

t or whe n ,floater ticking in your leg ha

lf walked reside in spell yr form in dreaed s

eepseep impale yr meat-stuffed laundry on a

d ripping floor LOUD DECATEGORIED

was whip yr shoe's soft wind huarache o brisa suave

"Bebo mi muerte de I sorbo" - Mario Santiago Papasquiaro" - p 26

This bk is from 2020. John is almost blind. Can any of the irregularities be attributed to this? I don't mean that as snarky, what if John has decided to accept things that might ordinarily be negatively construed? What if "dreaed" was meant to be "dreaded"? What if it was meant to be "dreamed"? What if the letter was left out to create that ambiguity? That double possibility? Other things are most likely intentional b/c of their systematic repetition: the comma immediately before a word instead of after.

"cominos caminos

")culeando culeante culocalorías(((

"weep in a grease jar deter gent tears deter gut

deterrant sticky face deternal gas estropeado" - p 32

There's plenty of word play, of alliteration.

cominos caminos = cumin roads; coleando = fucking, culeante may be Romanian for pickling, culocalorías is Spanish for calories (kilocalories?). They're fun together.

"tar sink

"See my fine gray truss, Blaster Al? is

my pet tank streams gas in a field is a

storm under water ,frame burning on a

black wall mirror I cut my hand snake

flows out a hernia in the clouds

SUNDERED HAIR PHONETICS

un viejo verde que verde fuck you , world

intacto no tacable la nieve de mierda

que me abhre lah bhoca envidia del norte

risible de la nota cacable sin fonética" - p 36

For me, there's almost always a feeling of an endangerment of the body: there's a "gray truss", a very Blaster Al image; a storm underwater; a frame burning; "I cut my hand"; a hernia - but not really results of a specific crisis - more an unstable state of being. The "kcab slriws etad" (p 42): the 'date swirls back' for those of you who're backwards-challenged.

One of the many things lacking from this oh-so-lacking review is a description of a page, of the visual element of the page that I can't reproduce here, on Goodreads. I'll give page 43 a shot:

The top left has an emboldened 1st line en Français, the 2nd line is indented & in italics & is a dedication to someone w/ what seems to be a French name.

The 1st stanza, if it can be called that, starts w/ a sideways left-pointing solid black triangle followed by left-justified words in Spanish & English - this 1st phrase has another solid black triangle, this time right-pointed. The word before it being "the" it's ambiguous if whether that "the" connects to the "aim" that follows this 2nd triangle. There's some italics & a repeated semi-colon. The end of this 'stanza' has 3 circles: the middle one smaller than the same-sized outer ones.

Then there's an all-caps phrase in French in larger font size followed by a stanza entirely en Français. Everything has been left-justified so far. Then there's a 'stanza' that's center-justified w/o the center being the center of the overall text placement on the page. At its top there're 3 solid black dots. Each line begins & ends w/ a same-sized solid black dot & at the bottom of the stanza there're 2 black dots.

The next stanza is right justified & all in italics. Each line begins w/ a tilde. There are large spaces in the inner 4 lines.

The next stanza is back to being centered again, all in French w/ many accent egouts - there're only slight differences between the 5 lines - alliteration & wordplay. At the top are 3 solid black triangles. Each line begins w/ a leftward pointing black triangle & ends w/ a rightward pointing one.

Immediately under this stanza is an all-caps phrase in French w/ more French wordplay underneath not in lower case. Still centered. Under that in a different font: "(;;;faucet growls in the basement;;;)" followed by the last line, also centered: "<i>...sticky floor...</i>"

The layout varies, keeping things lively, w/o, for me, evoking anything other than itself. While the whole bk seems typeset in-computer I don't know whether it is. How does he make the emboldened capital "O" that begins the next stanza slant to the left? [not shown here] or that first comma(?) slant to the right? [not shown here]

"On the roller deck a,cheese your sandwich wor

ds ho se out left drain behind Mr. Drai n tab

le out to indecrease dereflate uh coffee in yr sto

rm sewer abla ascua numen nocivo en tu

bolsillo de candormisa los pan talones hervi

dos como lengua sopa de lengüita ente r is

sue )dented flashlight in the gut ter(((" - p 44

"indecrease"? "dereflate"? Bennett's poetry sidesteps normality left, right, & center. In that sense it's related to L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Poetry: reading takes you for a ride on a conceptual roller coaster that defies gravity. Perhaps it even defies levity.

"soak the poeT

ash heel

nut berm

clod bunk

slab coff

shut gore

sir glob

hinge gland

lung door

meat mist

blur form

"hog drenching (thank you Buz Blurr)" - p 46

The word pairs that're right-justified (will they appear that way on Goodreads?) remind me of an old collaboration of Bennett's w/ Bruce Andrews: cards w/ word pairs, one word provided by each. Buz Blurr is a Mail Artist in Arkansas - we say "Ar-Can-Saw" but we say "Can-Sus" - what about "Can-Saw"? How are ya Buz?

"va va vaso voom - )after Nilson de Souza(

...snap-beak bag... - )Olchar E. Lindsann(

grey bars surround gray bars surround

mot door mot door mot

door mot door mot door

sot sore sot sore sot

snore blot snore blot snore

clod throat clot wind blad ~" - p 77

Another page ripe w/ justification changes & font changes & capitalization changes & symbols other than letters & spaces & anagrammatic variations & PLACEMENT. These are all parts of the poem. These ARE the poem. The way to be a lazy reader here is to not read at all.

We reach a 2pp poem on pp 80-81: "los ojos son pelos". The world falls apart! "SIN PLUMAS!" NO FEATHER!

Broken, a title seems like another language: "no stril sh ore"; backwards, same deal: ",nruter eht revire denrub"""". (p 85)

Starting on p 88 there're 4 numbered one page poems: "1 Ship of Feces", "2 half brain" (p 89), "3 fork reversal" (p 90), & "4 johnm.bennett" (p 91). In "3 fork reversal" it's written:

"fork reversal

secef fo pihs" - note that that 2nd line is "ship of feces" backwards. Eureka! That changes everything!.. Well, not exactly, but if "held under water or the speech of a fish telling you a nn name", right?!

In conclusion, from pp 100-102, there's a 3 pp poem called "ojijete OJIJETE OJIJETE". Do I have any words of wisdom after passing thru this whole experience?!: My reviewer note to self is: "I can understand this locally without understanding it globally". Really, I wonder who's read this other than myself. It's a special bk, a bk to read while stranded in a tree-top during a flood - if you time it right you'll reach the last poem just as the helicopter comes to rescue you. Perhaps the sound of the helicopter blades will seem like ojijete, ojijete, ojijete to you. Only thwn will Blaster's gray truss appear as a vision before you.

tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

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