Break Every Rule Read online

By and one and so forth.

  Grammar will. Grammar. Obliged.

  Grammar is not grown.

  Grammar means that it has to be prepared and cooked. Forget about grammar and think about potatoes.

  Or gnocchi. We are touring Italy. Tuscany and Umbria a little.

  Cypress cypress cypress cypress cypress pine.

  Grammar is not grown.

  Susan Howe, My Emily Dickinson: To restore the original clarity of each word-skeleton both women [Gertrude Stein and Emily Dickinson] lifted the load of European literary custom. Adopting old strategies, they revived and reinvented them…

  Emily Dickinson and Gertrude Stein also conducted a skillful and ironic investigation of patriarchal authority over literary history. Who polices questions of grammar, parts of speech, connection and connotation? Whose order is shut inside the structure of their sentence? What inner articulation releases the coils and complications of Saying’s assertion? In very different ways the counter-movement of these two women’s work penetrates to the indefinite limits of written communication.

  No one can know the difference between why I did and why I did not.

  Not that kind of novel then.

  And in my own very gradual real move toward a more abstract fiction who have been the models? Woolf, Woolf, Beckett, Beckett, Woolf, Woolf, Woolf, then Stein, Stein, now Stein. Stein now for some time very much. I’ve been loving you following you Chapter Gratitude. Yes for some time, time now so what about it say for example John Reed?

  John Reed: She (Stein) lives and dies alone, a unique example of a strange art.

  And where have you gotten your chronology from for your master narratives? And what has it cost you?

  And what have you taken for legibility? And what has it cost finally?

  Be nice. Try to be.

  Thank you for the strangeness and the beauty. Reality is remote say it.

  Imagine a door a room plenty of ice and snow also as often as they came in they went out.

  And so forth…

  They finally did not continue to interest themselves in description.

  Chapter Derision just the other day one of The Famous Postmodern Novelists says when asked about The Great American Writers: Oh not Gertrude Stein, no, no not Stein.

  Joyce

  Picasso on Joyce: He is an obscure writer all the world can understand.

  Stein drains the text of psychological and mythical overtones thank you very much. She cannot be solved and thank you.

  Leave me leave something to confusion.

  And I thank you.

  The central theme of the novel is that they were glad to see each other.

  Susan Howe: In the college library I use there are two writers whose work refuses to conform to the Anglo-American literary traditions these institutions perpetuate. Emily Dickinson and Gertrude Stein are clearly among the most innovative precursors of modernist poetry and prose, yet to this day canonical criticism from Harold Bloom to Hugh Kenner persists in dropping their names and ignoring their work. Why these two pathfinders were women, why American—are questions too often lost in the penchant for biographical detail that “lovingly” muffles their voices.

  A novel of thank you and not about it.

  It is a much more impressive thing to anyone to anyone standing, that is not in action than acting or doing anything doing anything being a successive thing but being something existing. That is then the difference between narrative as it has been and narrative as it is now. And this has come to be a natural thing in a perfectly natural way that the narrative of today is not a narrative of succession as all writing for a good many hundreds of years has been.

  A space of time filled with moving.

  To want everything at once. To write everything at once.

  Susan Howe: Writing was the world of each woman. In a world of exaltation of his imagination, feminine inscription seems single and sudden.

  Chapter Alice, Chapter Jane, Chapter Karen, Chapter Gina. Chapters in the middle

  Notes to myself: The plays conceived as painting. To be apprehended all at once. Meditations inviting dreaming, dalliance. Yet filled with internal movement. Living in itself. Intensity and calm. Mystery and joy. Surprise, delight. Robert Wilson’s Four Saints last summer. Bliss. Joyous. Well fish.

  A novel is a continual surprise.

  Chapters as literary device rather than the natural division of novelistic time.

  Listening to the Baltimore aunts telling the same stories over and over but each time a little differently.

  Ricotta with a pear. This is a story of that in part. Don’t forget the pecorino. In part.

  A novel of thank you in chapters and saints. Children and fish.

  Thank you for desire. Reverence and Irreverence. Repeating.

  Saints I have definitely seen so far.

  Saint Catherine

  Saint Francis

  Saint Clare definitely

  I am calling from Italy to say that there is smoke coming out of my computer and she says is there still a picture when you use the battery and I say yes and she says don’t worry it will all be OK wait until I get there. And I tell her I will meet her in the fortezza and I do, and it is.

  The central theme of the novel is that they were glad to see each other.

  A very valentine.

  An arrangement of their being there and never having been more glad than before…

  I will wait for you in the fortezza for as long as it takes.

  Chapter written in the very hot sun while waiting.

  Seeing Saint Catherine’s Head. (Siena)

  Loving repeating is one way of being. This is now a description of such being. Loving repeating is always in children. Loving repeating is in a way earth feeling. Some children have loving repeating for little things and storytelling, some have it as a more bottom being. Slowly this comes out in them in all their children being, in their eating, playing, crying and laughing. Loving repeating is then in a way earth feeling. This is very strong in many, in children and in old age being. This is very strong in many in all ways of humorous being, this is very strong in some from their beginning to their ending.

  Chapter Emily Rose and Katie Grosvenor

  Again and again and again

  A very valentine

  How are the cats?

  Thank you

  Go red go red, laugh white.

  Suppose a collapse in rubbed purr, in rubbed purr get.

  Little sales ladies little sales ladies

  Little saddles of mutton.

  Little sales of leather and such

  beautiful beautiful, beautiful beautiful.

  Most tender buttons.

  Trembling was all living, living was all loving, someone was then the other one.

  Please may I have a piece of your Pecorino di Pienza thank you very much.

  We have been planning a little trip to Italy in June.

  Any time is the time to make a poem. The snow and sun below.

  A short novel in cats

  She loved her little black and white.

  She loved her orange very much.

  She loved her gray.

  She loved her brown stripes.

  But she loved her gray the most. Fauve.

  It is because of this element of civilization that Paris has always been the home of all foreign artists, they are friendly the French, they surround you with a civilized atmosphere and they leave you inside of you completely to yourself.

  An inner language

  Merci beaucoup.

  How many more than two are there. (I miss gossiping with you)

  And I was once or twice in Vence and loving you very much. Chapter J and Z.

  And on the rue de Fleurus.

  The Germans were getting nearer and nearer Paris and the last day Gertrude Stein could not leave her room, she sat and mourned. She loved Paris, she thought neither of manuscripts nor of pictures, she thought only of Paris and she was desolate. I came up to her room, I called
out, it is all right Paris is saved, the Germans are in retreat. She turned away and said, don’t tell me these things. But it’s true, I said, it is true. And then we wept together.

  And then we wept.

  How muffled the world suddenly—as if walking through snow

  to the last village of Zenka, perched on a hill

  where forever resides, and hasn’t it been nice?

  Having gone to London in the month of May and roses to say good-bye.

  Already I miss you very much.

  Chapter 5

  And how to thank you.

  It was very nearly carefully in plenty of time.

  Could if a light gray and heart rending be softer could it and light gray be paler could it and light gray be paler. Not the least resemblance between that and that.

  Once more. Thank you very much. Once more. Once. Twice.

  Once more. I shall miss you. The things we used to do and say.

  And how we will not get to the Lago Giacomo Puccini this time.

  The patience of a saint.

  Not this time.

  It takes a lot of time to be a genius, you have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing. If a bird or birds fly into the room is it good luck or bad luck we will say it is good luck.

  A novel of thank you and a travel diary. With and without birds. Looking for an Agritourismo late at night. How many saints have we seen so far?

  Saint Francis definitely all over the place, and Saint Clare and

  Saint Catherine from before.

  And how many parts of saints?

  Pray to the rib of the saint for strength. The leg of the saint.

  It was not a mistake.

  Allowed to watch composition. Witness creation. Thank you thank you.

  Written in Venice on “honeymoon”: A sonatina. Pussy said that I should wake her in an hour and a half if it didn’t rain. It is still raining what should I do.

  Secrets, gossips, hopes, disappointments, household life, erotic life, artistic doubts, apologies, jokes, intimacies.

  And if not the real story, then what the story was for me.

  Chapter Ava.

  Don’t leave anything out.

  To accomplish wishes one needs one’s lover.

  —for Helen P

  Can we stay in Pienza one more day?

  Don’t leave anything out.

  This must not be put in a book.

  Why not.

  Because it mustn’t.

  Yes sir.

  Chapter

  I know at least four or five Amys now.

  To begin to allow. To allow it.

  She was not to come again. She came and she asked and she was answered and she was not to come again not to come she was asked and she was answered and she was answered and she was asked and she was not to come again well she was not to come again. This is the first time she came she was not to come again. To reason with Bertha and Josephine and Sarah and Susan and Adela and never Anns. What is the difference between chocolate and brown and sugar and blue and cream and yellow and eggs and white. What is the difference between addition and edges and adding and baskets and needing and pleasure. It was not a mistake.

  When she was and help me when she was what was she to me.

  …generosity depends upon what is and what is not held out and held up and held in that way.

  Allow flowers.

  A basket—for Gertrude Stein. And for Alice add flowers. And some eggs.

  Explain looking. Explain looking again. Alice

  explain looking again.

  The sound of thinking and the sound of thought. A piece of thinking. Don’t forget to add flowers. First poppies and broom and then after awhile sunflowers come out. The yellow hovering.

  Every color of saint.

  Blue saints green saints yellow saints black saints and red angels.

  A back and forth. A basket.

  We need transference of letters and parcels and doubts and dates and easier.

  A novel is useful in more ways than one.

  Someday we will be rich. You’ll see and then we will spend money and buy everything a dog a Ford letter paper, furs, a hat, kinds of purse.

  For Helen, touring Italy. And we will buy a villa someday or a farm if that is what you really want I love you. A Florentine chandelier and a Venetian one. Two more Maine coons perhaps (another gray, another one with stripes) and time to write and all the time in the world to write. Maybe another orange one.

  What would you buy?

  I would buy all the time in the world to write. I’d quit my job.

  Because it takes all the time.

  One wish: 1) time to write.

  2) time to write.

  And after that.

  time to write.

  Stretches and stretches of happiness.

  More time.

  Left.

  Left.

  Pretty.

  I

  had

  pretty

  a

  good

  pretty.

  I often think about another.

  Who need never be mentioned.

  Lifting belly high.

  That is what I adore always more and more.

  Some Amys in that way and some not.

  A basket and so forth and what got lost.

  Delirious and looking up from lip and clitoris and mound she sees the city of Paris lit up. Trembling was all living, living was all loving, someone was then the other one. The women walk the streets syntactic. Sing Paris Paris Paris Paris. A large white poodle dog and walking down the boulevard.

  Chapter Pussycat

  Touring through that part of Italy. Her meals: written in a notebook—penne with funghi, game hen with Norcia sauce, tiramisu.

  She came to be happier than anyone else who was living then.

  She came to be happier… In the gorgeous city of Paris. Poodle dog. Yellow flowered hat. Alice Babette.

  10,000 paradises

  Everyone dies. Say it enough times. Everyone dies everyone dies everyone even you everyone

  with and without cats

  with and without baskets

  dies 10,000 kinds of thank you and paradise

  First religion

  She saw me and she said two

  will stay and two will go away, two will go away and two

  will stay and two will stay and two will go away. Can you go

  away so soon.

  First religion

  First religion here.

  Second religion

  Second religion here.

  Third religion

  Third religion here.

  Fourth religion

  Fourth religion being here and having

  her and she having been and she is perfection.

  Third religion

  Third religion being here or is she perfection

  third religion is here and she is perfection.

  Third religion or is she perfection.

  We have left the cathedral behind us. Saints seen so far:

  How many saints are there in it?

  Beginning again and again is a natural thing… Beginning again and again and again explaining composition and time is a natural thing

  A Little Novel

  Any and everyone is an authority.

  Welcome.

  Does it make any difference who comes first.

  What Does She See When She Shuts her Eyes, a novel So the characters in this novel are the ones who walk in the fields and lose their dog and the ones who do not walk in the fields because they have no cows.

  When she shuts her eyes she sees the green things among which she has been working and then as she falls asleep she sees them a little differently.

  When she shuts her eyes… Everyone dies. I can’t cope. A gun would be nice. What’s wrong with me? Please say it soon.

  Everyone dies.

  You have cancer.

  Why do you lie?

  Everyone.
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  A Short Novel

  I feel useless

  Is it in any particular corner?

  What does she see when she shuts her eyes a novel.

  Paradise. What does she see?

  And how to thank you.

  You changed my life.

  And how to thank you.

  It was nearly very carefully in plenty of time.

  This is the time to do or say so.

  Chapter

  Not useless. Not a bird. Not a cherry. Not a third. Not useless.

  Not at all. Not elite. Not small.

  It’s useless.

  So the characters in this novel are looking out the window of a green Fiat touring Italy and one of them is thinking about Gertrude Stein and reading her out loud in between cypress cypress cypress and the map and the guidebook and I feel useless.

  Zenka.

  The month of June and Defiance due and The Bay of Angels excerpt due and The novel of thank you due for Martine. And that perfectly awful woman Mattie Garrett at the Tuscany Writing Workshop and the computer up in smoke.

  Oh that perfectly awful Mattie Garrett, she thought turning toward the dark window, has spoiled all of our fun!

  The fax this afternoon. Useless.

  Blue birds on a black hat. And as it happens. Black birds on a blue hat. And as it happens. Blue birds on a blue hat. And not next to as it happens. Black bird and a black hat.

  Chapters 84 and almost 85, but not quite

  People die in and out of order

  in easy and hard ways people die

  people die out of—

  The things we used to do

  sweetness of the yellow broom.

  even though you are 84

  even though everyone must

  everyone has got to

  in or out of order

  drinking vieux marc, a trip to the sea

  as if love could send you back there again

  swept up, side swept, wind

  like magic as if love

  your beloved Dylan Thomas and Eliot your friend,

  he was always kind, he lent me money, not anti-Semitic, he

  lent me money, nonsense, oh such nonsense.

  And your Gertrude Stein

  People die in 5, 6, 7 and

  7, 6, 5

  in the day and the night.

  Afraid and not.

  Happy and sad times.

  And that fall how I just thought if I could make a pot-au-feu I might survive—and you looked on sadly. And you took my hand after awhile. That fall you saved my life. For the first time. Thank you.