Works on Paper, 1980-1986During the past several years, Eliot Weinberger's inventive prose has earned him a reputation as a candid social observer and penetrating essayist. Works on Paper is the first collection of his writings, twenty-one pieces that juxtapose the world as it is and the world as it is imagined-by artists, poets, historical figures, and ordinary people. "Inventions of Asia," the first section, deals primarily with how the West reinvents the East (and how the East invents itself): images of India circa 1492 (where Columbus thought he was going); Christian missionaries in sixteenth-century China; Bombay prostitutes as seen by a New York photojournalist; Tibetan theocracy transplanted to the Rockies; a Confucian bureaucrat's address to crocodiles; the shifting iconography of the "tyger"; looking for an answer to an ancient Chinese poem of questions; how the children of Mao have reinvented Imagism; Kampuchea Under Pol Pot. "Extensions of Poetry" explores the ways in which the world affects the imaginations of individual poets (George Oppen, Langston Hughes, Charles Reznikoff, Octavio Paz, Clayton Eshleman) and indeed entire movements, leading at times to unexpected incarnations and transformations. Weinberger ponders such strange conjunctions as Whittaker Chambers and Objectivism, anti-Semitism among American Modernists, bourgeois poets--present-day wards of the academy and the state--confronting the issues of peace, American foreign policy, and The Bomb. |
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American poetry animals anthology anticommunism antiwar beautiful become Bomb Buddhist called Cantos century China Chinese Chu ci Clayton Eshleman crocodiles culture dead death delight friends disciples dream earth El Salvador enemy English Eshleman Ezra Pound Falkland Road fascism fire flowering Forché George Oppen Ginsberg Heaven Hughes human imagine India invented Kampuchea Khmer Rouge killed Lama language later letter literary live magazine Merwin metaphor modern murder Naone napalm To delight Naropa nation never nuclear Objectivists Octavio Paz one's Oppen Party passion photographs poet poet's Pol Pot political Pound Qu Yuan question revolution Rexroth Reznikoff Ricci Salvador Selected Poems Shi jing songs speech story thing Tian Tian wen Tibetan tiger tion Tipu tradition translation Trungpa Vajradhatu Vietnam Vietnam War Wang Williams woman women word writing written wrote Yuan Zukofsky
Popular passages
Page 51 - Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more : Or close the wall up with our English dead. In peace there's nothing- so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility: But when the blast of war blows in our ears. Then imitate the action of the tiger...
Page 100 - ONE OF the most promising of the young Negro poets said to me once, "I want to be a poet — not a Negro poet," meaning, I believe, "I want to write like a white poet"; meaning subconsciously, "I would like to be a white poet"; meaning behind that, "I would like to be white.
Page 125 - The Colonel What you have heard is true. I was in his house. His wife carried a tray of coffee and sugar. His daughter filed her nails, his son went out for the night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol on the cushion beside him. The moon swung bare on its black cord over the house. On the television was a cop show. It was in English. Broken bottles were embedded in the walls around the house to scoop the kneecaps from a man's legs or cut his hands to lace.
Page 45 - But if the accused person opened the other door, there came forth from it a lady, the most suitable to his years and station that his Majesty could select among his fair subjects; and to this lady he was immediately married, as a reward of his innocence. It mattered not that he might already possess a wife and family or that his affections might be engaged upon an object of his own selection. The king allowed no such subordinate arrangements to interfere with his great scheme of retribution and reward....
Page 100 - I ain't happy no mo' And I wish that I had died." And far into the night he crooned that tune. The stars went out and so did the moon. The singer stopped playing and went to bed While the Weary Blues echoed through his head, He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.
Page 55 - His head appeared as large as an ox's, his eyes darting fire, and his roar, when he first seized his prey, will never be out of my recollection. We had scarcely pushed our boats from the shore when the tigress made her appearance, raging mad almost, and remained on the sand as long as the distance would allow me to see her.
Page 92 - the surest way to raise oneself above prejudices and to order one's judgment on the real relationship between things, is to put oneself in the place of an isolated man, and to judge of everything as that man would judge of them, according to their actual usefulness.
Page 38 - This document had asserted that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...
Page 54 - Downey then fired two shots, and I one more. We retired from the jungle, and a few minutes after Mr. Munro came up to us, all over blood, and fell. We took him on our backs to the boat, and got every medical assistance for him from the Valentine Indiaman, which lay at anchor near the island, but in vain.
Page 125 - ... English. Broken bottles were embedded in the walls around the house to scoop the kneecaps from a man's legs or cut his hands to lace. On the windows there were gratings like those in liquor stores. We had dinner, rack of lamb, good wine, a gold bell was on the table for calling the maid. The maid brought green mangoes, salt, a type of bread. I was asked how I enjoyed the country. There was a brief commercial in Spanish. His wife took everything away. There was some talk then about how difficult...