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Recommended reading / shows from the group

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Recommended reading / shows from the group

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Girl, Woman, Other: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl,_Woman,_Other

Amazon Prime/Hotstar: This Is Us

Netflix: Nannette by Hannah Gadsby

The Sound and The fury, William Faulkner: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sound_and_the_Fury

'The Queer Art of failure" by Jack Halberstam. It is a very witty, full-bodied and coherent example of research and theory that goes with small story narratives.

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Day 2
Key questions:
What is the narrative voice of the piece?
What was most resonant piece of writing in what was shared?

Day 3

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https://feministkilljoys.com/2014/08/25/selfcare-as-warfare/

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Words as building blocks, sentences
Structures of language- if you're within the same frame, the dialogue doesn't change. The victory of majoritarian govt- they narrow the debate- the shrinking of inner life. example of the aquatic animal- shrinking of an inner life

Writing long form for self as a way if moving beyond, we will not be able to simplify if we do not fully understand

tips on blocks of writing for non fiction

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Writing about and for yourself, pouring creative energy and time into your own story is a form of justice, justice at a small scale. When you write your story in your own words, when you recount and create evidence of your being, even if it's just for yourself, you do right by your experience.
Writing is a practice suspended in time- there is nothing in it that stops you from going backwards or forwards. A memory or an imagined possibility can spring from the present as easily as the next sentence comes. It allows you to relive, revive, but also imagine and create a future.

Your activist diary then becomes a place of private empowerment. Your narrative, your story- what moves you? it articulates an experience which when shared, adds to the vocabulary of what it has been like to be alive so far, lending new words, deeper meanings to the movement. Activism is communicated in language and/or creativity. Energy is a more subtle part of it, which can be shared by those who make the effort to be present, but to MAKE present, you must communicate.

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- Quite simply: writing about your experience is a form of self expression. It's the fulfilment of a human tendency to communicate, resolve, witness. Embodied writing in particular sets in motion a deliberate process of paying closer attention. It is a technique within the bigger umbrella of writing one's own experience onto paper. It is simply a tool which asks you to delve slightly deeper into how something makes YOU feel. Not the general experience of public spaces, not the common idea of family, home, children. What is it like for you?
- Creates distance: any form of writing is a form of translation. By the effort of articulation, we make the experience or the thoughts real, visible, but also outside of ourself. The distance that we achieve by doing this helps us to be keen observers, which is a step ahead from being caught in the thick of it. By being on paper, the experience is outside of you, it's available for observation. Even if the process stops here for a bit, even if you are not sure what to do with this articulation, at least it now defined and caught in language. It is legible, and it can be seen.

-  The body of work is the work of the body. I think of my writing, especially the one I do at the end of the day about the body as its evidence. It is evidence that I have existed, and that this body of work my mark on the world. It is my very own cultural artefact, a living testimony to how this world has made me feel. What it has been like?

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If writing is simply a form of communication and if we should be able to do it instinctively, then the question remains- why is it so freaking hard to do it?

Creativity is the homestead of change. If you were not creative, you wouldn't be here. It takes creativity to imagine that thing could/should be otherwise. If you are an activist for change, you are always already  oriented on the possibility of it. It takes energy to sustain the rebellion, so it's important to nurture it from within. Resistance from within, not the same as plundering the self for a story.
whatever you value of yourself can shine through, mirrored and magnified.

In the interest of complete disclosure and vulnerability, I myself have been struggling with keeping a writing routine, and have not written a short story since December 2020. But I have become much more forgiving towards myself through the process of writing. It doesn't mean I have stopped trying to put pen to paper until the muse descends, but it does mean that I am no longer my biggest critic. Which brings me to the next question- who are you when you are writing? Are the writer or the reader, or worse still, are you the critic?

Exercise: Think to the last time you were writing something for yourself, or trying to journal, or your last attempt at whatever it is that you are wanting to take away from this workshop. Who were you when you were doing this? writer? reader? Critic? or something else?

Sometimes the issue is not that we do not know what to write, or that we can't. It's just that we are not writing in our own skin- we are refusing to be the writer as we are, and trying to pre judge the quality of the writing as a reader, or a critic. Going back to my example of not having written a short story, I do try to be a kind friend to myself by still jotting down the ideas I do get, and writing my daily journal. As a writer I still measure my output as the number of short stories I am able to complete, while trying to remember everyday that I can in fact, write and closely observe my own story.
Not inhabiting your own truth- That might sound like a serious issue, but fortunately or unfortunately, it's a common one. That's where embodied writing or even art can come handy.

It might be hard on some days, but think of it like this- It's a pause button, it allows you to Look closer, delve deeper, rewind, proceed all at will. It feeds into itself. The more you write, the more you observe. And the more you do this, you build your own narrative- your own version of the world, which you have closely experienced and therefore can't be convinced out of.

Thoughts?

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- Writing with an acute sense of the time and space it stems from.
- This sense of time and space can be physically rooted in your body, or the space it occupies, but it ideally will have your body's experience featured.
- The writing that emerges from this technique will most commonly be relational to an external stimuli/incident/ person and its interaction with your body or your space.

Two levels of embodied writing- Tasting and digestion- tasting is when you recognise the experience- what happened? Where did you feel it in your body? What was the particular quality of it? The colour? Texture?

Digestion is what helps integrate the experience with the rest of you. How the experience becomes a part of the rest of your body, your fabric.

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A room of one's own
The next task is to recognise your audience. It is you. And therefore, it is not your job is not make the story feel safe- it might not not be the most closeted, well boundaried story with a definitive beginning, middle and end.. That's okay. The experience doesn't have to be linear or binary, it doesn't have to be correct in the eyes of someone else. Sometimes this can be tough. It can expose the distance between who you think you are, what you want to be, and how you feel bout yourself in that moment on paper. That's okay- that's the whole idea.

- The good news is that if you do it regularly enough- the parts of your reality which are not working well, or are in conflict with the rest of you will slowly become visible. The places where your various identities come into friction will reveal itself.

Example of This Is us

Example- religion, feminism, womanhood- term paper on Sikh masculinities.

The interaction of anything with you is specific to you. People remember and think of things differently. The same incident is completely different for two people- writing helps you record your experience of it- it allows you to see yourself change over time like no other form of communication does.

This doesn't mean embodied writing is always non fictional and completely true. Change some details, widen the lens.

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"In this more detailed portrait of their shared situation, members begin to understand in
what ways their personal problems reflect larger sociocultural arrangements,
such as the devaluing and exclusion of women and the poor. Once this
process is set in motion, Belenky (1996) says people begin to move from a
“paralysis that arose from thinking their difficulties were due to personal
inadequacies” (p. 396)."

Why share- dreams can becomes visions when many people come together from them.

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In the quest of trying to change the world, I know
that I tend to leave myself behind. I forget how I appear to the world around me: the colour of
my skin, the protrusion of my chest. My verse, prose, thoughts, and humour reek of this
forgetfulness even as I declare a feminist verdict on a patriarchal illusion.

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Windowpane showcases the writing of the Clear Writing Community. Click here to learn more.
by Manmeet Kaur

It has become easier to talk about death. Badi Mummy was working through the details today. She has never become too aware of Gurgaon. In her mind, home continues to be people, places shifting only as far as the background of the walls is concerned. Home is not a place; the neighbourhood is not a familiar collection of houses. I am not sure how much of the house she sees anymore. The walks she takes in the house are limited - navigating the little corridor between her room and the kitchen, her room and the bathroom, her room and Babaji's room. I don't think she has seen my room in days. We live in a three-bedroom house, all on the same floor.

She has been struggling with sleep for some days now. Old age, she says. But she never stops stressing about it. Old age is not a passive fact, it's a condition she negotiates everyday. She seems torn between her desire at complete austerity complying with the colour of her hair, and her desire to be able to move in the house as before. Not beyond, just within. But with a little more ease, and some sleep at the end of the day.

I have been having trouble sleeping for a few months now. I try to blame it on my age but at 24, I am not sure which bracket I fit anymore. Badi mumma says it is my bad habits. Sleep early, get up early, wear longer pants. You shouldn't be sleepless at your age! I try to articulate the effort it takes to stay awake through the day and asleep through the night. I stay quiet through the effort. Yesterday, she mentioned she couldn't sleep, planning through the process. It has become easier to talk about death.

She was shivering on the dining table last evening, just before tea. The fan was off, the monsoon had touched and left the room. She was shivering, and a fever had made it to her forehead. In COVID times, that was enough. She spent the day in her room, watching the new mythological show on DD. She ate there. By morning, the fever hadn't returned, and we were free to freeze the fear for now. But she hadn't slept the night, trying to figure out the logistics. She was unsure of where we will get the stuff needed for death rituals. She hadn't been out shopping for many years even when we were in Delhi, but she had known. The memory of where 'essentials' could be bought had sustained. She has never become too familiar with Gurgaon. We have lived here for five years.

As COVID updates from news channels, old neighbours and oldest relatives flowed through the house, I was asked not to go to her room too often, and keep some distance. It wasn't difficult, but it did tell me how I hadn't been to her room in days. I hadn't seen her bathroom in months. I had bathed there when my shower broke almost a year ago. I had slept with her night after night once she came back from her longish trip to the hospital just before my sister's wedding. I hadn't slept in her bed all this time, and now I couldn't. Isolation was a necessity, but it had long become a way of being.

I walked through the house today, a three-bedroom in Gurgaon, all on the same floor. I touched corners, and felt for switches I had had nothing to do with for many days. I relished the touch of walls not yet out of bounds. I traversed through my isolation to really look at the rooms I had marvelled at five years ago, when we moved in. I looked long and hard at the veranda, stared at the bay window, disbelieving we had it, all on the same floor. A veranda, like the ones I used to memorise from the interior-design magazines to draw for art class. A bay window just like the one I fixed in my head to dream of a house I wanted. A house I now had.

It has been five years of being in this house, five months of the lockdown. The forced period of isolation is a mere ornament: I had retreated into myself long ago. We all had, I think - in our three-bedroom house for four people, picking fragments of drawing-room conversations and restaurant allusions for our own one bedroom, mincing words in our heads, turning them around, lazying through the effort of articulation. The grief of difficult dialogues, and the reference to death stayed inside the room. With mild fevers ebbing and flowing through the dining table, it became easier to talk about death.

***
Manmeet Kaur is an English literature graduate from LSR, with a Masters degree in Gender and Development from the Institute of Development Studies, UK. She writes short stories and personal narratives driven by real or imagined women. She is based out of Gurgaon. Subscribe to Windowpane - it's free! And do check out Amit Varma's online course, The Art of Clear Writing.

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Windowpane showcases the writing of the Clear Writing Community. Click here to learn more. by Manmeet Kaur It has become easier to talk about death. Badi Mummy was working through the details today. She has never become too aware of Gurgaon.

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He replaced his freshly washed cup on drying rings of water from the last cycle of tea making. The living room airspace carried the smell of tea leaves. I asked him, once again today in vain, to keep the cup upside down. He winked and smiled at me or the cup, I am not sure.

He was stirring the red puree in the pan, starting a fresh cycle of a morning. A new can of beans was ready to be to splashed. The puree was meant for pasta last night. It was left to wait in the fridge, because none of us left the sofa. The puree stared as it stirred, and its fall from grace had a tinge of anger towards me. Sloth.

It was 10am and I wasn't feeling breakfast, more like evening tea. I could have it if I could lower the blinds at an angle for me to see half of the bulb of the street lamp, stopping right before it touched the window of the house in front. I managed it. And I brewed myself some tea. He was on his second cycle of washing and placing the cup when I winced at the thought of a mosquito slipping into the cup and getting stuck in the wetness below the rim for his lack of foresight. He saw me and made a face. He would have patted my back if he was standing here. I wondered how I knew. But I guess I did. It had been three years of watching and knowing. The sound of time: a pat on the back and a peck on the cheek. It was routine when it happened, painful when it didn't.

He came with the camera. I stood still, having lost the point. Why did we have to take a picture? It's our Memoir, he said. After three years of being under a Covid imposed lockdown, it made me laugh how we took pictures everyday. To know what? Maybe because it would make us cry to talk about it. We put faces to feelings, these pictures were our full stops to endless lines. All 1096 of them. So this is how it will be. Smile, even if you're sweating. Because that's what will remain in the picture: that smile, not the sweat.

We even had a new system to measure time. We tore strips of paper each time we felt something done. The passing of day measured in hanging strips of paper against the living room curtains. Sometimes I tore many at once, and sometimes, a long time passed. I had 84 in all. He had 667.

I hovered over the living room for a little bit more before taking the stairs back to the bedroom, hoping to catch a nap before he noticed the blinds and disturbed their angle once again. I sat near the window and looked at the pavement for a little bit, before shutting the blinds and finding my posture under the duvet.

Falling asleep baffled me. The best alignment of my legs with my back and a bend of the shoulders was hard to come by. I wondered how and why I lost myself enough to forget how to sleep. I had subscribed to the 'Memoir' channel early on. They had promised to help retain the connection with before. The patterns varied but the idea was simple: stay with the image of what was, and breathe in the belief that it will be once more. Their YouTube business was thriving. There was some talk of counting people alive by likes and dislikes on the channel. But I digress. A redness moving in between the chest and stomach, not knowing where to settle in the battle of self loathing and self care. Breathe in. Breathe out. Focus on your breath. Focus on the centre of your forehead, right where the tweezers snapped the union of brows just this morning. The itch of that uprooting haunts the breath. Is it okay to focus sideways? The memoir of my plucked feminist body is chiding the centre of my forehead. May I focus maybe on the migraine which pays a visit every now and then, checking in? Pain. A repeat of bodily functions which sometimes talk. But I digress. Let's try again. Breathe in. Breathe out. I felt betrayed. He could recall his childhood, he could recite poems not online, he could fall asleep. And here I was, trying a task of the night in the afternoon. I slipped into my nap.

I woke up with a thud. There was something different. I released my shoulder from under my head and cursed my decision making once again before slipping into the carpet slippers and taking a turn towards the stairs. There was something different. I could feel it. There was a noise I didn't quite understand. Something that had woken me up. I think I muttered with each step. I think I took a few steps backwards. Once, to arrange my duvet for when I wanted to nap again. Once, to put the pillow back on the bed now that my shoulders were with me. I didn't want to go down at once. There was something different. I knew.

I reached the end of the stairs and entered the living room. He was sitting by the blinds, and he hadn't opened them up. He sat reading. Nothing new. He looked the same. Smiling.

There was something different.

I looked around. I saw nothing out of place. I sat by his side and stroked the thumb of his right foot. He bent and kissed my arm. Tea? He whispered. I nodded with a smile. The blinds helped. He chose one of my hairs from the blanket and put it in the book to mark the page. No time wasted to look for a bookmark now that I had taken his offer for tea. He filled the air once again with the fragrant tea leaves, picking up the white cup with a new thud. He had put the cup upside down the last time around. Just like I had asked him to for three years now. I looked at him and smiled, maybe laughed a little. He didn't wink this time, but he definitely smiled at me. And he kept smiling until he came with the tea. I tore five strips of paper that night.

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He replaced his freshly washed cup on drying rings of water from the last cycle of tea making. The living room airspace carried the smell of tea leaves. I asked him, once again today in vain, to keep the cup upside down. He winked and smiled at me or the cup, I am not sure.

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A helpful poem for when you contradict you.

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1 To think of time-of all that retrospection! To think of to-day, and the ages continued henceforward! Have you guess'd you yourself would not continue? Have you dreaded these earth-beetles? Have you fear'd the future would be nothing to you? Is to-day nothing? Is the beginningless past nothing? If the future is nothing, they are just as surely nothing. To think that the sun rose in the east! that men and women    were flexible, real, alive! that everything was alive! To think that you and I did not see, feel, think, nor bear our    part! To think that we are now here, and bear our part!2 Not a day passes-not a minute or second, without an    accouchement! Not a day passes-not a minute or second, without a corpse! The dull nights go over, and the dull days also, The soreness of lying so much in bed goes over, The physician, after long putting off, gives the silent and terrible    look for an answer, The children come hurried and weeping, and the brothers and sisters    are sent for, Medicines stand unused on the shelf-(the camphor-smell has    long pervaded the rooms,) The faithful hand of the living does not desert the hand of the dying, The twitching lips press lightly on the forehead of the dying, The breath ceases, and the pulse of the heart ceases, The corpse stretches on the bed, and the living look upon it, It is palpable as the living are palpable. The living look upon the corpse with their eye-sight, But without eye-sight lingers a different living, and looks curiously    on the corpse.3 To think the thought of Death, merged in the thought of materials! To think that the rivers will flow, and the snow fall, and fruits ripen,    and act upon others as upon us now-yet not act upon us! To think of all these wonders of city and country, and others taking    great interest in them-and we taking no interest in them! To think how eager we are in building our houses! To think others shall be just as eager, and we quite indifferent! (I see one building the house that serves him a few years, or seventy    or eighty years at most, I see one building the house that serves him longer than that.) Slow-moving and black lines creep over the whole earth-they never    cease-they are the burial lines, He that was President was buried, and he that is now President shall    surely be buried.4 A reminiscence of the vulgar fate, A frequent sample of the life and death of workmen, Each after his kind: Cold dash of waves at the ferry-wharf-posh and ice in the river,    half-frozen mud in the streets, a gray, discouraged sky overhead,    the short, last daylight of Twelfth-month, A hearse and stages-other vehicles give place-the funeral    of an old Broadway stage-driver, the cortege mostly drivers. Steady the trot to the cemetery, duly rattles the death-bell, the gate    is pass'd, the new-dug grave is halted at, the living alight, the    hearse uncloses, The coffin is pass'd out, lower'd and settled, the whip is laid on the    coffin, the earth is swiftly shovel'd in, The mound above is flatted with the spades-silence, A minute-no one moves or speaks-it is done, He is decently put away-is there anything more? He was a good fellow, free-mouth'd, quick-temper'd, not bad-looking,    able to take his own part, witty, sensitive to a slight, ready with    life or death for a friend, fond of women, gambled, ate hearty,    drank hearty, had known what it was to be flush, grew low-spirited    toward the last, sicken'd, was help'd by a contribution, died, aged    forty-one years-and that was his funeral. Thumb extended, finger uplifted, apron, cape, gloves, strap, wet-weather    clothes, whip carefully chosen, boss, spotter, starter, hostler,    somebody loafing on you, you loafing on somebody, headway, man before    and man behind, good day's work, bad day's work, pet stock, mean    stock, first out, last out, turning-in at night; To think that these are so much and so nigh to other drivers-and    he there takes no interest in them!5 The markets, the government, the working-man's wages-to think what    account they are through our nights and days! To think that other working-men will make just as great account of    them-yet we make little or no account! The vulgar and the refined-what you call sin, and what you call    goodness-to think how wide a difference! To think the difference will still continue to others, yet we lie beyond    the difference. To think how much pleasure there is! Have you pleasure from looking at the sky? have you pleasure from poems? Do you enjoy yourself in the city? or engaged in business? or planning a    nomination and election? or with your wife and family? Or with your mother and sisters? or in womanly housework? or the beautiful    maternal cares? -These also flow onward to others-you and I flow onward, But in due time, you and I shall take less interest in them. Your farm, profits, crops,-to think how engross'd you are! To think there will still be farms, profits, crops-yet for you, of    what avail?6 What will be, will be well-for what is, is well, To take interest is well, and not to take interest shall be well. The sky continues beautiful, The pleasure of men with women shall never be sated, nor the pleasure of    women with men, nor the pleasure from poems, The domestic joys, the daily housework or business, the building of    houses-these are not phantasms-they have weight, form,    location; Farms, profits, crops, markets, wages, government, are none of them    phantasms, The difference between sin and goodness is no delusion, The earth is not an echo-man and his life, and all the things of    his life, are well-consider'd. You are not thrown to the winds-you gather certainly and safely    around yourself; Yourself! Yourself! Yourself, forever and ever!7 It is not to diffuse you that you were born of your mother and    father-it is to identify you; It is not that you should be undecided, but that you should be decided; Something long preparing and formless is arrived and form'd in you, You are henceforth secure, whatever comes or goes. The threads that were spun are gather'd, the weft crosses the warp,    the pattern is systematic. The preparations have every one been justified, The orchestra have sufficiently tuned their instruments-the    baton has given the signal. The guest that was coming-he waited long, for reasons-he    is now housed, He is one of those who are beautiful and happy-he is one of    those that to look upon and be with is enough. The law of the past cannot be eluded, The law of the present and future cannot be eluded, The law of the living cannot be eluded-it is eternal, The law of promotion and transformation cannot be eluded, The law of heroes and good-doers cannot be eluded, The law of drunkards, informers, mean persons-not one iota thereof    can be eluded.8 Slow moving and black lines go ceaselessly over the earth, Northerner goes carried, and Southerner goes carried, and they on the    Atlantic side, and they on the Pacific, and they between, and all    through the Mississippi country, and all over the earth. The great masters and kosmos are well as they go-the heroes and    good-doers are well, The known leaders and inventors, and the rich owners and pious and    distinguish'd, may be well, But there is more account than that-there is strict account    of all. The interminable hordes of the ignorant and wicked are not nothing, The barbarians of Africa and Asia are not nothing, The common people of Europe are not nothing-the American    aborigines are not nothing, The infected in the immigrant hospital are not nothing-the    murderer or mean person is not nothing, The perpetual successions of shallow people are not nothing as    they go, The lowest prostitute is not nothing-the mocker of religion    is not nothing as he goes.9 Of and in all these things, I have dream'd that we are not to be changed so much, nor the law    of us changed, I have dream'd that heroes and good-doers shall be under the present    and past law, And that murderers, drunkards, liars, shall be under the present    and past law, For I have dream'd that the law they are under now is enough. If otherwise, all came but to ashes of dung, If maggots and rats ended us, then Alarum! for we are betray'd! Then indeed suspicion of death. Do you suspect death? If I were to suspect death, I should die    now, Do you think I could walk pleasantly and well-suited toward    annihilation?10 Pleasantly and well-suited I walk, Whither I walk I cannot define, but I know it is good, The whole universe indicates that it is good, The past and the present indicate that it is good. How beautiful and perfect are the animals! How perfect the earth, and the minutest thing upon it! What is called good is perfect, and what is called bad is just    as perfect, The vegetables and minerals are all perfect, and the imponderable    fluids are perfect; Slowly and surely they have pass'd on to this, and slowly and surely    they yet pass on.11 I swear I think now that everything without exception has an    eternal Soul! The trees have, rooted in the ground! the weeds of the sea have!    the animals! I swear I think there is nothing but immortality! That the exquisite scheme is for it, and the nebulous float is    for it, and the cohering is for it; And all preparation is for it! and identity is for it! and life    and materials are altogether for it!

1

Something startles me where I thought I was safest,
I withdraw from the still woods I loved,
I will not go now on the pastures to walk,
I will not strip the clothes from my body to meet my lover the sea,
I will not touch my flesh to the earth as to other flesh to renew me.

O how can it be that the ground itself does not sicken?
How can you be alive you growths of spring?
How can you furnish health you blood of herbs, roots, orchards, grain?
Are they not continually putting distemper'd corpses within you?
Is not every continent work'd over and over with sour dead?

Where have you disposed of their carcasses?
Those drunkards and gluttons of so many generations?
Where have you drawn off all the foul liquid and meat?
I do not see any of it upon you to-day, or perhaps I am deceiv'd,
I will run a furrow with my plough, I will press my spade through the sod and turn it up underneath,
I am sure I shall expose some of the foul meat.

2

Behold this compost! behold it well!
Perhaps every mite has once form'd part of a sick person-yet behold!
The grass of spring covers the prairies,
The bean bursts noiselessly through the mould in the garden,
The delicate spear of the onion pierces upward,
The apple-buds cluster together on the apple-branches,
The resurrection of the wheat appears with pale visage out of its graves,
The tinge awakes over the willow-tree and the mulberry-tree,
The he-birds carol mornings and evenings while the she-birds sit on their nests,
The young of poultry break through the hatch'd eggs,
The new-born of animals appear, the calf is dropt from the cow, the colt from the mare,
Out of its little hill faithfully rise the potato's dark green leaves,
Out of its hill rises the yellow maize-stalk, the lilacs bloom in the dooryards,
The summer growth is innocent and disdainful above all those strata of sour dead.

What chemistry!
That the winds are really not infectious,
That this is no cheat, this transparent green-wash of the sea which is so amorous after me,
That it is safe to allow it to lick my naked body all over with its tongues,
That it will not endanger me with the fevers that have deposited themselves in it,
That all is clean forever and forever,
That the cool drink from the well tastes so good,
That blackberries are so flavorous and juicy,
That the fruits of the apple-orchard and the orange-orchard, that melons, grapes, peaches, plums, will
none of them poison me,
That when I recline on the grass I do not catch any disease,
Though probably every spear of grass rises out of what was once a catching disease.

Now I am terrified at the Earth, it is that calm and patient,
It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions,
It turns harmless and stainless on its axis, with such endless successions of diseas'd corpses,
It distills such exquisite winds out of such infused fetor,
It renews with such unwitting looks its prodigal, annual, sumptuous crops,
It gives such divine materials to men, and accepts such leavings from them at last.

1.
OF the visages of things-And of piercing through
to the accepted hells beneath;
Of ugliness-To me there is just as much in it as
there is in beauty-And now the ugliness of
human beings is acceptable to me;
Of detected persons-To me, detected persons are
not, in any respect, worse than undetected per-
sons-and are not in any respect worse than I
am myself;
Of criminals-To me, any judge, or any juror, is
equally criminal-and any reputable person is
also-and the President is also.

2.
OF waters, forests, hills;
Of the earth at large, whispering through medium of
me;
Of vista-Suppose some sight in arriere, through the
formative chaos, presuming the growth, fulness,
life, now attain'd on the journey;
(But I see the road continued, and the journey ever
continued;)
Of what was once lacking on earth, and in due time
has become supplied-And of what will yet be
supplied,
Because all I see and know, I believe to have purport
in what will yet be supplied.

3.
OF persons arrived at high positions, ceremonies,
wealth, scholarships, and the like;
To me, all that those persons have arrived at, sinks
away from them, except as it results to their
Bodies and Souls,
So that often to me they appear gaunt and naked;
And often, to me, each one mocks the others, and
mocks himself or herself,
And of each one, the core of life, namely happiness,
is full of the rotten excrement of maggots,
And often, to me, those men and women pass unwit-
tingly the true realities of life, and go toward
false realities,
And often, to me, they are alive after what custom has
served them, but nothing more,
And often, to me, they are sad, hasty, unwaked son-
nambules, walking the dusk.

4.
OF ownership-As if one fit to own things could not
at pleasure enter upon all, and incorporate
them into himself or herself;
Of Equality-As if it harm'd me, giving others the
same chances and rights as myself-As if it
were not indispensable to my own rights that
others possess the same;
Of Justice-As if Justice could be anything but the
same ample law, expounded by natural judges
and saviors,
As if it might be this thing or that thing, according
to decisions.

5.
As I sit with others, at a great feast, suddenly, while
the music is playing,
To my mind, (whence it comes I know not,) spectral,
in mist, of a wreck at sea,
Of the flower of the marine science of fifty generations,
founder'd off the Northeast coast, and going
down-Of the steamship Arctic going down,
Of the veil'd tableau-Women gather'd together on
deck, pale, heroic, waiting the moment that
draws so close-O the moment!
O the huge sob-A few bubbles-the white foam
spirting up-And then the women gone,
Sinking there, while the passionless wet flows on-
And I now pondering, Are those women indeed
gone?
Are Souls drown'd and destroy'd so?
Is only matter triumphant?

6.
OF what I write from myself-As if that were not the
resumé;
Of Histories-As if such, however complete, were not
less complete than my poems;
As if the shreds, the records of nations, could possibly
be as lasting as my poems;
As if here were not the amount of all nations, and of
all the lives of heroes.

7.
OF obedience, faith, adhesiveness;
As I stand aloof and look, there is to me something
profoundly affecting in large masses of men,
following the lead of those who do not believe
in men.

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1 To think of time-of all that retrospection! To think of to-day, and the ages continued henceforward! Have you guess'd you yourself would not continue? Have you dreaded these earth-beetles? Have you fear'd the future would be nothing to you? Is to-day nothing? Is the beginningless past nothing?