Each Peach

About a year ago, I wrote a poem. Unlike most poems, it had consequences in the real world that changed much of the way my life is organized. In hindsight, I like that. I like poems that are social and engaged. In that spirit, I'd like to engage with you. I'll let you in on all the stuff I was thinking about at that time in my life on the condition that you use all those things to write your own poem for me. Situate yourself in my frame of mind and bring in some stuff of your own. Let's start with [[a season|rules]]. Or, [[why did I make this?|why I think this is important]]

But first, there are a couple rules: 1. When you listen to a song, don't do anything else. Don't look at your phone or some other page. Also, play it loud. 2. When you read a poem or a quote, read it aloud. It's important to know what the words feel like in your mouth. 3. Open all <u>underlined</u> links in a new tab. 4. Note things down as you go on a piece of paper. 5. Don't worry too much about all of this, [[enjoy yourself.|a season]]

I would like to present an idea of writing and reading as social and engaged, like a personal relationship between two people. I think an author isn’t necessarily determined by the text they write, but they themselves are one. The building up of a self happens in relation to others and through whatever type of art, writing, music etc. that the given writer has come into contact with. The creation of who we are is a literary act. We are made up of tastes and affiliations, which can themselves be related to a community of actual people. Creating anything is a product of all that which we’ve known. Knowledge, too, isn’t something to possess, but something to pass on, to share and to build on. In fact, that is how it’s created and everyone has their own trail of knowledge extending out behind them— how this trail is built can be tracked as a jumping of association from one thing to another. In this way, influences and tastes are constitutive of a person and the sharing of these—however one chooses to do so—is a pretty personal thing. This goes for readers too who, in bringing themselves to whatever they read, are the ones who really make the work. The original writer is a guide and the more responsibility this guide gives to me as a reader to infer and to bring my own take to the work, the more engaged I feel and the more I remember the book, poem, song, photo, or whatever. Why not, then, just give the bare minimum and let the reader actually just write the thing? I would like to chart the artistic and personal trail of reference and affiliation that led me to write a poem about a year ago. The poem, after I had written it, boomeranged back at me with unforeseen and very real consequences in my life. This is not to say that art and life are in some imitative back and forth, but rather they are not separate. The poem itself anticipated how I was feeling in a way that I wasn’t aware of at the time, it just came out as these things often do. So, I will also include some personal documentation and influence from after the writing of it, which informed its creation in a way that I can’t even pretend to understand.

The season: I began to call it 'peach season' because it's when Ontario peaches are ripe. From late July to early September but mostly, August. It's hot out, but not too hot. The heat of the summer is fading and you're comfortable, sort of like being in the shade on a hot day. This reprieve from the heat allows you to be more aware of everything around you. The surroundings themselves seem confident in their place. Buildings sit exactly where they should be and you're able to notice the light as it hits them, clearly marking their corners. You can notice the light too, especially at sunset, this being the sunset of the year. So relax and situate yourself in August. Enjoy the scenery and look back on your year. Get excited and nervous for the [[next one.|Solo]]

An album came out in August 2016 that embodies the spirit of this season and the reflection it occasions, ending with the line: "How far is a light-year?" repeated over and over. Listen to this<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_SEwgDl02E"> song </a>from the album. It describes a pleasure of being alone, one specific to this time of year that has [[something warm bubbling underneath it.|Emily Dickinson grass]]

On my [[volcano]] grows the Grass A meditative spot - An acre for a Bird to choose Would be the General thought - How red the Fire rocks below - How insecure the sod Did I disclose Would populate with awe my solitude. Emily Dickinson, "127"

A healthy volcano is an exercise in the use of [[pressure.]] Anne Carson, //Autobiography of Red//

But, solitude is only pleasant if it's in relation to [[other people.|Emily Dickinson Peach]]

As he read [[Geryon|solitude.]] could feel something like tons of black magma boiling up from the deeper regions of him. Anne Carson, //Autobiography of Red//

I never have taken [[a Peach in my Hand]], so late in the Year. My Lips, also, are guiltless of that pink experience - Emily Dickinson (Letter To Alice Tuckerman, autumn 1885)

//I like that poem, I like they way she// [[//refuses to rhyme//|grass 2]] sod //with// God. Anne Carson, //Autobiography of Red//

At the end of this season is the real new-year. All the same things hold for this one as for the so-called new-year of January 31st, but instead of making resolutions and trying to shape your coming year, this season acts on you, and makes you act in [[unexpected ways.]]

//This is How You Lose Her// is a book about infidelity. Even though it describes the consequences, it makes cheating sound attractive. It's written with "an idiom so electrifying and distinct it’s practically an act of aggression, at once alarming and enthralling, even erotic in its assertion of sudden intimacy," sort of like the season itself. Consider what it might be like to read this book across from someone who would later write you [[this letter|What other people may want]], both of you eating ripe peaches, with the juices dribbling down your wrists so that you have to lick them up, trying not to look at each other.

<a href="https://imgur.com/50hk7V9"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/50hk7V9.jpg" title="source: imgur.com" /></a> [[next page|what other people may want 2]]

<a href="https://imgur.com/p8LCGGM"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/p8LCGGM.jpg" title="source: imgur.com" /></a> [[Take a break|Andre]]

Sometimes it's good to take a break from your own life and immerse yourself in someone else's. This <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjjHtSwFPnU">song</a> helped me calm down and gave me some perspective. Consider how it looks back on a life, but doesn't come to any conclusions about what it all means. André himself says it best: "that's as far as I got." Try and do this with your own year. When you do, address your thoughts to someone. It's nice to feel addressed. André addresses a "you" in the song that is at once you, the listener, and the you who he meets "in a club in Atlanta, Georgia." Just like André is in Atlanta, you should also imagine yourself in a specific [[place.]]

For me it's a rocky place, but the landscape is also dotted with lakes. The lakes are often calm and because of the reflections, the rocks look like they're part of the lakes. The trees are mostly evergreens–pine or spruce–although because it's August, they look greener than usual, [[all sorts of green rolled into one.]] Situate yourself in this place, or your own equivalent of it. Everyone has one.

A green world, a scene of green, deep with light blues, the greens made deep by those blues. One thinks how in certain pictures, envied landscapes are seen (through a window, maybe) for behind the serene sitter’s face, the serene pose, as though in some impossible mirror, face to back, human serenity gazed at a green world which gazed at [[this face.]] And see now, here is that place, those greens are here, deep with those blues. The air we breathe is freshly sweet, and warm, as though with berries. We are here. We are here. Set this down too, as much as if an atrocity had happened and been seen. The earth is beautiful beyond all change. William Bronk, "Midsummer"

You're the "serene sitter." Although none of this is all that serene, tell yourself that it is. Ignore everything you've begun to consider and tell yourself that this all exists for you, even though, as Bronk says, [["we don't matter."]]

From far down the freeway came a sound of fishhooks scraping the bottom of the [[world.]] Anne Carson, //Autobiography of Red//

Ignore the freeway. Ignore whatever sound you're hearing right now. Focus on the rocks. They're not volcanic, but they feel like it, like there's lava underneath them. This may be from the heat of the sun, or maybe there really is something about those rocks that you [[//can't// ignore.|Emily Dickinson pink]]

The reticent volcano keeps His never slumbering plan — Confided are his projects pink To no precarious man. If nature will not tell the tale Jehovah told to her Can human nature not survive Without a listener? Admonished by her buckled lips Let every babbler be [[The only secret people keep|at this point]] Is Immortality. Emily Dickinson "1748"

At this point, I should say that none of this is separate. It's not that all the things I've shown you are related, it's that they are all one thing. Or rather, they are contained in one thing. You may have guessed, but that thing is the [[peach.]]

A peach is not neutral. Like the season, it acts on you and addresses you, asking //you// to address //it//. Let it act on you. A peach knows what you want. It is who you want and it is also the who that wants you. It knows this very well. It is delicious and it is juicy. Its skin is fuzzy like a person's arm and just firm enough to burst when you bite it. And when it does burst–its been under pressure–its flesh is red and orange and molten. Perhaps most importantly, it has a pit. Everything stops at the pit, which you cannot eat, which you have to throw away, which is a reminder. But then, you can just [[eat another peach.]]

I never have taken a Peach in my Hand, so late in the Year. My Lips, also, are guiltless of [[that pink experience]] - Emily Dickinson (Letter To Alice Tuckerman, autumn 1885)

The reticent volcano keeps His never slumbering plan — Confided are his projects pink To no precarious man. If nature will not tell the tale Jehovah told to her Can human nature not survive Without a listener? Admonished by her buckled lips Let every babbler be The only secret people keep Is [[Immortality.|sportscenter]] Emily Dickinson "1748"

Now, it's time for you to immortalize all that you've been writing down in a poem. <a href="https://docs.google.com/">Start a fresh document</a> and do your thing. Also, one last thing. Listen to this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MnmtldXGns">song</a> and take a line or two that you like and appropriate it a little to your own ends, but leave a trace of the original hiding there in whatever you choose to write. When you're finished, email your poem to [email protected] [[Why was this made again?|why I think this is important]] <a href="https://www.each-peach.com/poems"> Read other peoples' poems</a> [[Read the original poem]]

[[Each Peach is Especially for You]]

''Ontario Peach Season'' ''how to enjoy'' do not eat a peach across from someone with whom you have an unclear history will take slurping and licking errant drip trails down your wrists and make it seem like— there is nothing sexual about a peach do not be confused. they’re not messy (you are) just juicy, precision is the thing you have to learn how to eat them: pluck one straight from the cardboard basket each peach especially for you respect the peach, just let the peach do unto you preferably in Ontario on the Shield where the esh of the peach lives under the crust of rocks as in a volcano as in a molten peach. look out at the lake at the rocks on the other side tell yourself that the peach was grown right here. yes, lie to yourself, in order to get things straight you will feel— after discarding the pit whipping it hearing a dull leafy thud— the peach radiating out from inside you among volcanos and lakes. this will only last as long as the season when the air is so clear that you can pick out corners of docks, trees, of buildings from miles away and the peach is telling you pluck another, two, you will not get full.

On my volcano grows the Grass A meditative spot - An acre for a Bird to choose Would be the General thought - How red the Fire rocks below - How insecure the sod Did I disclose Would populate with awe my [[solitude.|Other people]] Emily Dickinson, "127"