Maps and Transcripts of the Ordinary World
Maps and Transcripts of the Ordinary World
Poems
Kathryn Cowles
MILKWEED EDITIONS
© 2020, Text by Kathryn Cowles
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher: Milkweed Editions, 1011 Washington Avenue South, Suite 300, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55415. (800)520-6455
milkweed.org
Published 2020 by Milkweed Editions
Printed in the United States of America
Cover design by Mary Austin Speaker
Cover art by Kathryn Cowles
20 21 22 23 24 5 4 3 2 1
First Edition
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Cowles, Kathryn, author.
Title: Maps and transcripts of the ordinary world : poems / Kathryn Cowles.
Description: Minneapolis : Milkweed Editions, 2020. | Summary: “Maps and Transcripts of the Ordinary World is a collection of poems about memory, place, and distance between reality and its transcriptions”-- Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019041953 (print) | LCCN 2019041954 (ebook) | ISBN 9781571315021 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781571319791 (ebook)
Subjects: LCGFT: Poetry.
Classification: LCC PS3603.O8894 M37 2020 (print) | LCC PS3603.O8894 (ebook) | DDC 811/.6--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019041953
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019041954
Milkweed Editions is committed to ecological stewardship. We strive to align our book production practices with this principle, and to reduce the impact of our operations in the environment. We are a member of the Green Press Initiative, a nonprofit coalition of publishers, manufacturers, and authors working to protect the world’s endangered forests and conserve natural resources. Maps and Transcripts of the Ordinary World was printed on acid-free 100% postconsumer-waste paper by Sheridan.
[ For Sue ]
CONTENTS
Origin Story
Island
Map [water boat water]
Hymn [all is well]
A completely different alphabet
Map [Two-dimensional circles]
Postcard [Dear Brenda]
Map [the way to the ladder]
Transcript of birds
The map keeps things put
This donkey path
Tide
[the shadow maps]
Lesson
List
Recipe [Goat cheese]
Three hours at the blue table on the terrace in the shade of the rock wall
Recipe [A set of instructions]
[the still tree holds its wind]
Sea change
Transcript of birds, continued
The day before the day before we have to leave
Unmoor
Plain
I am on a plane
Paper with tape
Farm plot
Interview
Lay of the land
[silo shade]
Poem for the putting in of the new carpet
[take your]
[can’t you see darling]
Ohio
Shower water
[a picture holds]
Port
Boat tour
[wave not wave]
Fieldguide
Fieldguide marginalia
Three poems called “The basil”
Keeping track
[a whole page]
Proof
Photograph of a friend taken after he has disappeared
I am wearing a pinkish shirt
Hymn [A song]
Three hours in a rocking chair outside the blue-roofed bunkhouse in the wind
A record of water you can’t see
Metaphor: Description, uses thereof, side effects, interactions, etc.
Map legend
Postcard [A picture]
Directions [seems fairly clear]
Directions [Start here]
[can’t catch]
Acknowledgments
The waters change all the while and stay the same only on the map.
—JOHN BERGER, To the Wedding
Maps and Transcripts of the Ordinary World
ORIGIN STORY
I stepped out of the blue paper
of map water
onto an island in Greece
corrugated ground
world was all around me little blue skirt
and I wanted it down
in paper
sun rose and I wrote
sun rose
and then I wrote that I wrote it,
scratch
never in my life
wrapped in paper
have I ever so much
wanted it down
Island
HYMN
with 8 birds on a wire
or rather on 3 wires …
4 birds on 3 wires, one bird on one …
5 of ’em now on 2;
on 3; 7 on 4
—EZRA POUND, THE PISAN CANTOS
1
all is well, I sang, little
learning how to do the harmony parts,
Saturday church choir, all is well
the blue sparrow babies have hatched
and we have kept the cats
away thus far
and one day everyone decides
to bale their hay
every single field down
all at once everyone
all at once
my friend is sick
sick and far away and I hear
will die and I
can’t get my head
to think it through
all is well, I sang, all is well
tho hard to you
2
so I wrote another friend
a goat on a spit for you, Brenda
we took a photo, I said, transcribed,
put it down, list, list,
sent a postcard
is it getting hot in here
3
I am cycling in the mountains
here is what I see
my arms stretched out in my shadow
three horses facing away
the cows have got out, one white
excuse me while I take this hill
4
don’t you call coward on me
I put the knife through the fish’s skull
once caught, all alone,
into its hot, hot brain, again, again
to be sure it’s just
here lies / the Idaho kid
the only time /he ever did
he transcribed bird bird bird bird in Pisa
counted them for comfort
because everyone needs a latch
comfort, comfort
knif
e caught hold
in a cliff
and if I die, I sang, and if I die
5
the spit is picking up, Brenda
I have a bug in my eye
I can ride a hill down w/ no breaks now
my one eye is streaming from the bug
the spit is turning fast, Brenda
a knife to the brain is quicker
than a whack, whack, more humane
I cannot get it in my head
I see a blue bird, a bale,
a white cow
every single field down
happy day, I sang, all is well
every single thing down, picking up
A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT ALPHABET
Transcript. A printed version of a recorded version of a sound. A written version of an audio version of a person talking. A mountain taken down. A printed version of a mountain, printing pressed. A copy. A copy of a copy. The letters pressed into paper resemble the tree’s branches. From the Chinese character. A tree. From which issues a bird sound. A printed version of the bird sound, representing the sound a mama bird makes as it feeds its baby birds. A black bird with orange parts. A chicken and an egg. Transliteration. Using the closest corresponding letters or sounds of a completely different alphabet. Shorthand into full sentences. A new arrangement with an entirely other instrument. Transcribed for cello. For piano. For a choir. A bird sound rendered in hyphenated lettering. A mountain. A mountain.
MAP
Two-dimensional circles stand
for three-dimensional hills,
so Profitis Elias (one so called
on every Greek island, the highest point
on which to build a church)
I can tell in advance to be, well,
very tall, but the hewn
marble stairs on the donkey path
are a complete surprise,
and their riders with Yassas, Yassas,
(one hello for each of us)
also the view looking down from the top.
I take seven photographs turning
in a circle, a panorama,
but how will I place them hanging
on a wall back home? Something already slipping.
And a world-sized map takes a beating
when it’s all spread out,
covers ground but does not match.
And my rugged circles are conceptual, darling.
All they do
is point fingers at loosened hills.
POSTCARD
Dear Brenda, We saw
a lamb on a spit
and took pictures
of it for you,
its bared teeth
and arms tied
and a battery-powered turner,
saw it turn
oh and loved its half-bakedness
for you O Brenda.
And our kitty Artemis
sits on one particular rock
on our rock staircase today,
sits for no reason
and is lovely
and teeming with bugs
though Geoff bathed her in the sink
entirely against her will
though we picked off
two ticks stuck
in her hard
and ugly.
And a ship pulls into the harbor,
pulls in its sails,
wraps them like arms around themselves O
if you could see it.
TRANSCRIPT OF BIRDS
The two birds on the left
sit and the third bird says
[third bird:] ---------
---------
---------
[shakes its wings]
---------
---------
[second bird flies off, back again, off]
---------
---------
[---------is the bird sound]
[second bird:] [makes the bird sound]
[second bird opens its mouth, shakes
its wings:]---------
[bug falls on page]
[dead bug]
[from above]
[tree]
THE MAP KEEPS THINGS PUT
1
Every morning we open the curtains.
Every evening we sit on the porch.
We have a topographical map
that names the highest peak
we see out the window.
Two mountain ranges tell us where we are:
We are between two ranges.
Mapped but minus paper.
2
The sea is such today that I can see
on its surface almost the map’s white
dot dot dot, the border conceptual.
The map keeps things put.
The islands float above it.
I can see four islands from my perch.
I can be on just one.
3
Enter through the magnetic gate.
Requires pushing.
Path lined with stones
upside-down trees
called umbrella pines
on the left.
There is a door here there is
always a door.
THIS DONKEY PATH
The map is a two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional swath of land. As I have said. A diagrammatic rendering. For use with a compass. For use with stars. A printed version of the live line between the island and the sea. The island is an island in Greece. The live line is a concept taken down on the page. The line on the page resembles the line between island and sea. Corresponding parts. A record. A miniature. A paper representation of the mountain. A plan. When taken, this donkey path is likely to lead to such and such a village. The village is a pin point. With an invisible edge. Follow the arrow. Follow the red line.
Tide
LESSON
1
balloons at the kittens
from the roof.
This is very funny.
Akis is a young boy.
The kittens are young
and have not learned
their lesson.
2
Akis’s father shows him
the insides of a motorbike.
This part causes this belt to go,
this belt causes this wheel to turn,
this fan, this timer, this button.
A word that means arrow, means order.
This, that then, then this.
LIST
Table salt.
Chickpea soup
served Sundays.
Rhododendron-
like oleander
comes in pink,
comes in
white.
Green-blue water
peaks with foam
shifting, shifting.
Someone tied a goat
with roped feet
to a bush on the rock.
So it is dead.
We can see
through its body
and smell the inside
of its head.
1. salt
2. goat
3. white
4. cat
5. brine
6. red clay bowl
RECIPE
Goat cheese does not taste like goat smell
does not taste like goat
In short we ate a kid
that had a name but was destined
for slaughter its name was I think Bob
maybe not I made
a goat cheese ball for the occasion
-2 cloves garlic, hand-cut—use a paring knife
what you want are tiny squares
-handful kalamata olives—a big handful, pitted,
squares again
-an amount of goat cheese
Use a big bowl mix it w/ your bare hands
shape into a ball
The garlic is strong
give it s
ome bread baked w/ olive oil
to hold onto we all need something
THREE HOURS AT THE BLUE TABLE ON THE TERRACE IN THE SHADE OF THE ROCK WALL
Geoff in the olive tree and
Akis the upstairs boy, a cat called Baseball,
I see cow and whitewashed garage
lines of terrace holding in olives, figs.
A city with a single wall turns
all houses into neighbors, each to each, touching,
bus goes by
quick write bus chair table boy boat sun down,
down, blue slip of sea.
*
Little girl in the red shirt
sings in the whitewashed garage that catches
even the mean black birds in singing.
La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
la as in hat
her dad puts her in the back of the
truck still singing.
*
A tree making pomegranates
and one making figs
some citrus
these are tomatoes, those
big purple poofs of onion.
RECIPE
A set of instructions. A list. When taken together, and in this order, and in this way, these things are likely to lead to such and such desired outcome. A loaf of bread. A meat pie. As distinguished from recipient or reciprocity. You give the loaf away to—. You give the loaf and get a meat pie in return. You give the loaf and get a good feeling about. Praise be. A copy of a recipe. Transcribed on a new 3 by 5. For use. Grandma Elizabeth’s chickpeas. Traced back to Grandma Lotta’s chickpeas. Back to an island in Greece. Sifnos revithada. Stoneware pea pots all dropped to the baker’s of a Sunday morning before church. Grandma Appolonia’s chickpeas. Pick the pot up after. Some substitutions must be made. ------ for disaster. A copy of a copy. A poor transcription. In shorthand. A completely different alphabet. The original unclear to begin with.
SEA CHANGE
As birds fall
from great heights right
outside our window, drop down
but fly back up easy