Re: Introduction for poetry book / Stephan Pickering

[Will Dockery]

> Will & George...this is my introduction...
>
> Mikra / Scripture's Hebrew/Armaic is never to be read, but chanted, a
> collaborative performing. The kabbalists found the music in the Letters,
> the DNA of quantum music, extracting Light from sound. 'Poetry' reflects
> the same processes, demanding oral vocalisations, cantillation (Joshua
> Jacobson 2017). Each Letter, in the Kabbalah of Chassidus, is looked upon
> as a receptable of the Shekhinah/Presence, the 'Johanna' of 'Bob Dylan'.
> When the letters are combined, the zohar/radiance of 'Ayin sof/infinite
> no-thing-ness is revealed. The kabbalist 'poets' knew/know Absence and
> Presence are pivotal to the be-ing of consciousness. Yehu'dit ('Jewish')
> history is defined by the synaesthesia of Sinai: the revelation / gilui
> entailed the words being seen. One recent translator has termed 'poetry'
> to have similar verbal Spirit traps. Reb Gershom Scholem spent a lifetime
> exploring Kabbalah's linguistic frameworks, that haShem, the Name, is what
> he described as 'the metaphysical origin of all language' (1972A-B).
>
> R. Yitzhak the Blind in the 13th century said 'The [Hebrew] letter is the
> the element of cosmic writing'. This idea appears like a spectrum, a
> barcode-like sequentiality in the random matrixes of all 'poetry' since
> the earliest Kabbalists. In the decades after the Sho'ah, 'poets' grasp
> (as did Mina Loy and William Carlos Williams and Yiddish poets, earlier in
> the 1920s) that reality is what Harold Bloom calls 'relational events'
> (1975:25). To perceive be-ing, the 'poet' translates it, chants it,
> balances order and chaos. The 16th century kabbalist R. Moshe Cordovero
> (1994) taught language is the creator of 'the secret and foundation of all
> existence'.
>
> What does this have to do with Will Dockery, the non-Yehu'di who is my
> chaver / friend?
>
> The Bavli (Talmud) teaches 'There is no earlier and later in the Torah
> (Pesachim 6b). There is no 'time' in Will's words.
> Over the years, I know Will has witnessed the unfolding midrash of Shabtai
> Zisel / 'Bob Dylan', and the exploratory music of Levon and the Hawks
> which is immersed in the worlds Will lives in. In reciting aloud Will's
> 'To the sea angel', I hear in my soul Richard Manuel's voice reaching out
> to her.
> I also hear/see the synaesthesia of kabbalists who, like Will, yearned to
> walk in 'the field of holy apples', as they described it. This is the
> dialectics of Will's 'Frayed page soaked in rain'. He wisely avoids the
> word 'mystical', just as I never describe him as a 'southern writer'. In
> Greek myeo is 'I conceal' (by closing one's eyes or mouth), and mysteon is
> 'anything hidden'.
>
> Thus, 'mysticism' is just as meaningless as 'poetry'. In Hebrew, there is
> no word for 'religion' or 'mysticism', and tellingly Will does not define
> his 'spirituality' with this collection of his explorations. He is
> mirroring, as it were, Gershom Scholem who attempted once, in 1941, a
> definition of 'mysticism', and never did so again.
>
> Will Dockery is not a kabbalist -- although he has tangential familiarity
> with their ideas. Like them, he has no ideology, no mantras of
> fragmentation. He is very much in the same 'school' with my friends David
> Meltzer z"l and Joel Rosenberg. Will uses words, his 'poetry' to be
> spiritual machines, ecstatic, vatic, elegiac.
> *********************************
> Harold Bloom, 1975. Kabbalah & criticism (Seabury Press), 1-126
>
> R. Moshe benYa'akov Cordovero, 1994. Moses Cordovero's introduction to
> Kabbalah: an annotated translation of his Or ne'erav [trans. Ira Robinson]
> (KTAV Publishing House), 1-238
>
> 'Bob Dylan'/Shabtai Zisel benAvraham v'Rachel Riva, 2014. The lyrics since
> 1962 [eds. Christopher Ricks, Lisa Nemrow, Julie Nemrow] (Simon &
> Schuster), 1-960
>
> Joshua R. Jacobson, 2017. Chanting the Hebrew Bible: the art of
> cantillation. Second, expanded edition (Jewish Publication Society, 1-845
>
> David Meltzer, 2005. David's copy: the selected poems of
> David Meltzer [ed. Michael Rothenberg] (Penguin Poets), 1-263
>
> David Meltzer, 2015. Two-way mirror: a poetry notebook (City Lights [gift
> edition reprint]), 1-213
>
> 'Stephan Pickering'/Chafetz Chayim benAvraham IN PROGRESS. Shabtai Zisel
> benAvraham v'Rachel Riva: davening in the musematic dark
>
> Joel W. Rosenberg, 2008. Alone with God: Elie Wiesel's writings on the
> Bible. Seminar Paper, A Celebration of Elie Wiesel in Honor of his 80th
> Birthday, Boston University, 26 Octobetr, 24pp
>
> Gershom Scholem, 1958A Zehn unhistorische Saetze ueber Kabbala. Geist und
> Werk. Zum 75. Geburtstag von Dr. Daniel Brody (Rhein Verlag), 209-215
>
> Gershom Scholem, 1972A The name of God and the linguistic theory of the
> Kabbala [trans. Simon Pleasance]. Diogenes 20(79):59-80
>
> Gershom Scholem, 1972B. The name of God and the linguistic theory of the
> Kabbala (Part 2) [trans. Simon Pleasance]. Diogenes 20(80):164-194
>
> Gershom Scholem, 1973B Zehn unhistorische Saetze ueber Kabbala, pp.
> 264-271 [reprint of 1958A, with 10th aphorism expanded]. IN: Gershom
> Scholem, 1973A. Judaica III. Studien zur juedischen Mystick (Suhrkamp
> Verlag), 1-272
>
> Gershom Scholem, 1974A Kabbalah (Keter/Quadrangle/The New York Times Book
> Co.), 1-492
>
> Gershom Scholem, 1987A Origins of the Kabbalah [ed. R.J. Zwi Werblowsky,
> trans. Allan Arkush] (Jewish Publication Society/Princeton University
> Press), 1-487
>
> 26 August 2018 / 15 Elul 5778
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> STEPHAN PICKERING / חפץ ח"ם בן אברהם
> Torah אלילה Yehu'di Apikores / Philologia Kabbalistica Speculativa
> Researcher
> לחיות זמן רב ולשגשג...לעולם לא עוד
> THE KABBALAH FRACTALS PROJECT
> לעולם לא אשכח

The Selected Poems book is nearing completion... make your final changes, if
any that George Dance has requested?