[REVIEW] Operating Manuals in the Dark by O.B. Bassler

(Gauss PDF, 2019)

REVIEW BY CLARA B. JONES

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Speaker 1 : Taylor, hi! I haven’t seen you in ages! What are you up to?

Speaker 2: Dylan! What a surprise! I’m off to a new bookstore on 57^th Street. I’ve heard they have a great selection of Postmodern poetry. How about you?

Speaker 1: I’m going to a poetry reading by the philosopher, O.B. Bassler—a new discovery. His debut collection is a hybrid book—poems in a variety of forms on recto pages only. I am writing a paper about the relationship between poetry and philosophy for my Innovative Literature class. Do you have a minute to talk?

Speaker 2: Ummm, sure, I’m curious! I’d like to know more about Bassler. Maybe I could borrow his book when you’re done with it? I am reading the Romantics, now, but am almost ready for something different.

Speaker 1: Bassler’s favorite poet is a German Romantic, Friedrich Hoelderlin; but, he progresses from beautiful lyric poetry to experimental writing—all displayed on recto pages. I think you would find his work interesting. Here’s another passage:

 

“one life is enough

and sometimes it is more than enough

sometimes it is more than enough

to make it through the day or hour or minute

and that is why what is painful

demanding excruciating even torturous

is so close to what is beautiful

that I can easily mistake the intensity of flight

for the intensity of any pleasure real or unreal

and hang onto it for dear life

unto the cleaving from life itself

if such is necessary”

 

Speaker 2: Definitely, lyrical, but with Modernist overtones, too—especially, repetition, like Stein.

Speaker 1: Yes, and Bassler uses other Modernist techniques—no titles, no punctuation, no capital letters. But, experimental methods, also—lots of white spaces define those particular poems. But, more than that. Some of his devices remind me of the ones often used by James Joyce—flow of thought and feeling, metaphor, symbolism, ambiguity, subtle overtones evoking history, myth, and the complexities of life. These conventions, appearing throughout the collection, bind the book together, as they do in Ulysses.

Speaker 2: I am curious to take a look at the book! My boyfriend is studying concrete poetry and visual experimentation this semester. He read an essay by Joe Bray who said that white space can be sites of humor, gravity, play, and reflection. I think of white spaces as erasures or ways to disrupt reading. Does Bassler use white space in those ways?

Speaker 1: Well, yes, in some ways, but there is not much humor or play—much reflection, though. The poems have lots of “interpretive power,” as Helen Vendler would say. Bassler is writing about the human condition over time—Time in the sense of Physics…

Speaker 2: …what does he mean by that?

Speaker 1: I can’t say, exactly, what Bassler intends to say, but I conducted a bit of research when I was reading, Operating Manuals in the Dark, and I learned that, just as Time is an indefinite process of events as a whole, Reality can be viewed in a holistic way. Listen to this:

 

“…the ultimate coincidence of the metaphysical and the physical is the greatest madness of all

now that the metaphysical clock keeps perfect time I should go back and read a number of books

starting with the ones that move forward and returning to the ones that move back

I’ll make a list of one hundred metaphysical books and one hundred physical books

and the two lists will be the same list”

 

Speaker 2: I never studied Physics. Do you think I’ll understand Bassler’s work?

Speaker 1: Oh, definitely! Music, image, rhythm, form, and language outweigh any particular message; and, you will see that Bassler’s poems include many iambs and that they become increasingly minimalist. In fact, if I have an opportunity to ask him a question tonight, I want to know whether his black cover and blank verso pages are references to Kazimir Malevich’s paintings and to his theory, Suprematism—Bassler may be trying to move as far as possible from objects—maybe, even, from objective reality and reductionism! Analyzing metaphysics seems to be his ultimate concern. Let me read one more quote: “the metaphysical clock/the metaphysical clock is not dead it is dying one second at a time/the metaphysical clock runs fast it must be corrected to match real time/not the same backwards and forwards and not the same as metaphysical time.”

Speaker 2: Ummm, I’ll have to think about that when I have the text in front of me. It’s 4 o’clock, and the bookstore closes at 6. I need to catch a bus. I’m so glad that I ran into you! When can we get together for lunch?

Speaker 1: I’ll e-mail you. You can borrow Bassler’s book, and we can discuss his reading. I hope he publishes another collection!

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Clara B. Jones is a Knowledge Worker practicing in Silver Spring, MD, USA. Among other works, she is author of Poems for Rachel Dolezal, published by Gauss PDF in 2019