Otherness (Def.)

“The highest form of prose is discourse, in the literal sense of the word.”

“The word is man himself.”

“We are made of words.”

“Words are born and die like men.”

(All above quotes from Octavio Paz in “The Bow and the Lyre” University of Texas Press, 1973)

The following conversation is a real conversation based on the prose piece by Harryette Mullen entitled, Sleeping with the Dictionary.

"What a funny title! What does that suggest to you-even if you hadn't read anything? If someone said to you-Oh, I have a book, it's called Sleeping with the Dictionary-what do you think?"

“Um, I think of someone cuddled up in their bed with a dictionary…um, that’s usually-that’s the first thought…do you want to hear my second thought?”

giggling

“Cuddled with the-cuddled sounds a little innocent-”

“Well. Well, I literally-that’s what I first thought of. I literally thought of someone just like, falling asleep with a book…”

“……….falling asleep with the dictionary.”

“Yeah-”

“Yeah-we do that a lot…”

“Do you want to say your second thought?”

                                 “My second thought-

having sex with the dictionary.”

“So what does that-”

all together             “Making Love.”

“F***ing the dictionary…what does it mean to “F” the dictionary?”

“Well, I mean. I think it means that…you-if you-so if you just translate the things that we mean when we say that about like, sleeping with another person. So it means, like, you know the dictionary really intimately. You feel almost, sort of, like you have the same access to the dictionary as you do to your own body. Um, so, like you just…and, and there’s an erotic dimension to all of that so…”

“Let me get back to the erotics of language and words. But let’s-What kind of person has a special relationship with the dictionary?”

unanimously             “A writer.”

“A writer-why? I mean, what is the real-the writer is to the dictionary as a dictionary is…what?”

“A construction worker to bricks. A plumber to pipes-”

“Let’s stick to bricks. Let’s say a mason and bricks. So, the writer is to the dictionary as the mason is to bricks. So what does that mean for the dictionary-

pause

It’s the things…that you put…to build with…poiesis, poiesis, you make with bricks. 

Words of bricks.”

“A writer as a sculptor to clay...”

“The spoken language is closer to poetry than to prose; 

it is less reflective and more natural, 

and that is why it is easier to be a poet without knowing it than a prose writer.”

-Octavio Paz

Image By Tomasz Krzykała (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

1st image By Andrews, William [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.