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: States of Transformation

Maggie O’Sullivan’s ‘Busk, Pierce’ from States of Emergency (1987) is a remarkable poem which is exemplary of the sheer energy and exuberance of her output. It is also especially interesting by virtue of its inclusion of a diagram taken from Claude Lévi-Strauss’ book Structural Anthropology (1968). In this essay I offer a detailed reading of the poem, and explore it through the link with Lévi-Strauss, developing an awareness of the metaphor of shamanism in relation to O’Sullivan’s poetics. I then trace this poetics in the different context of O’Sullivan’s collaboration with the North American Language Poet Bruce Andrews, entitled EXCLA (1993), drawing comparisons between their approaches and recognising how the shared technique of the book enables both Andrews’ socio-linguistic critique and O’Sullivan’s ‘shamanic’ approach. O’Sullivan’s poetry strikes the eye and ear first before specific meanings begin to establish themselves. Short lines, often reminiscent of Anglo Saxon alliterative verse: ‘gutteral gardenias | screed | sneak’, ‘leaden | belenders | lie & blister’, and multiple margins skew across the page instilling the poem’s figure with kinetic energy. Instead of syntactically normative sentences, the main unit is the phrase, poised and juxtaposed in space and given extra energy by the high frequency of neologisms. Constructing a meaning-paraphrase of the poem necessitates a focus on local intensities – as the poem is structured in an accretive, musical way, rather than by narrative or lyric argument. The poem opens with the italicised phrase ‘Injure Tinglit’ which acts almost as a sub-title. ‘Tinglit’ contains within it an unavoidable echo of the Tlingit: the Native American tribe of peoples who inhabit parts of Alaska. To ‘Injure Tinglit’ might be an imperative from another voice being confronted in the poem – as if to announce the concerns of the poem as a possible protest against the persecution of indigenous peoples. The second line ‘fusen deam stroboscope deam skidder’ appears linked to the first in that both are separated from the main body of the text by a long dash. The line illustrates O’Sullivan’s juxtaposing approach to syntax and can be read as enacting an exchange of semantic energy from one end to the other. This arises from the two end words ‘fusen’ and ‘skidder’: ‘fusen’ suggesting a state of fusedness, perhaps coherency or burnt-outness, and ‘skidder’ suggesting one who habitually skids, careers, perhaps out of control. Between these two words and the central word ‘stroboscope’ – an instrument for determining speeds of rotation by flashing intermittently – the repetition of the neologism ‘deam’ is suggestive. One can imagine the line as a small machine with the stroboscope in the centre sending out light flashes (or ‘d-r-eams’) which illuminate the words ‘fusen’ and ‘skidder’ at the ends, both of which may be outcomes of some kind of process – ‘fusen’ denoting the receipt of the charge and ‘skidder’ the physical use of that energy. Placed near the beginning of the poem, and in proximity to ‘Injure Tinglit’ this line may be read as enacting the means by which this issue will be explored – through an exploration of the materiality of language, rather than through didactic, rhetorical means. The neologism ‘TLOKETS’ stands at the opening of the poem proper: a suggestive agglomerate of tokens, lockets, tickets. If these are what the reader needs to gain entry to the poem then it seems we are immediately within a register of mourning and death: TLOKETS mourn, leaden