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    Geoffrey Gatza
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    Tiny stories, or large poems, Susan Lewis’s writing features exacting, figurative frames, windows in which glimpses of oneself are prismy, apposed by some other real—allegory—sounded in language’s slanted order (ardor?—(yes)). —Dale Smith The compressed cognitive fields of Heisenberg’s Salon enact paradoxes of nearness: the fundamental limits to the precision with which pairs—lovers, familiars, bodies, properties—can be known. Lewis’s poems explore the uncertainty principles that govern attempts to know the position and momentum of human couplings, inextricably caught in the flux of thought and circumstance: “But if she didn’t marry her current husband, who would her children be? & how would she know how to better raise those hypothetical strangers? His sleep disrupted by his wife’s agitation, her flawed but compatible spouse mumbled something indecipherable.” Language itself subsumes that flux—Lewis is keenly aware that her medium predetermines and enmeshes her speakers’ thoughts before they have the chance to clear their throats. Her measured sentences present gravitational fields of idiomatic speech—“crossed wires,” “at cross purposes,” “too much of a good thing,” “hatchet jobs,” “too little, too late,” “turning a deaf ear,” “face the consequences, which were all over the literal and figurative map”—a process that torques and exposes the oddities of the vernaculars that surround us. In its final section, the idioms of the media ever at hand, the book moves into fables of post-paper and post-meat dystopias, and bears witness to the cataclysmic resurrection of the pathetic fallacy in an emotive boulder. Wry, bemused, cool to the touch, these poems know that language forms can never approximate “her equivocal heart,” yet they manage to find meaning and pathos even in its evacuation: “Many were the days she had nothing to say, or less.” —BK Fischer Susan Lewis’s Heisenberg’s Salon is a treat to read. These prose poems carry a tension between surprise and predictability, an exquisite balance which opens new inroads into both form and meaning. In prose poems which waste not a word, Lewis is extremely adept at creating expectations that she gently, consistently, benevolently machinates against—in the process delivering suggestions of definitions which might be indelicate if attempted directly. Like the misleadingly conventional newsreel opening of Citizen Kane, the first section of this book strings us along with expert decodings of relationships, or relationships gone wrong, delivering the straitened independence that often ensues from such disasters. However, Lewis does not speak in the voice of grief, or disaster, or even regret. Although the title of the book might suggest relativity, adaptability seems more Lewis’s game here, an adaptability that should not be mistaken for moral relativity. After setting out personal parameters to measure desire versus conformity in the first section, ending with a minimalist descent into the lower orders of the Maslowian hierarchy, the remaining sections take us into increasingly fine explorations of metaphysical tensions, as if clearing away the debris of ordinary friendship and intimacy to make more rarefied excursions possible. There is an effective internal rhythm within and between the sections; Lewis knows exactly when to use a very short poem for maximum impact, or to extend one just as an “epiphany” has been reached and needs to be drawn out, to make the point that epiphanies are not momentary, but strung out along entire lifetimes. Form perfectly fits content as these subtle poems explore subjectivity versus empirical reality, spirituality versus material commitment, time and mortality versus eternal life, the animate versus the inanimate (boulders, trees), and finally individual creativity and dreamfulness versus the constitution of god or utopia as our collective projections. Reading Heisenberg’s Salon makes us aware of a poet whose moral calm we need in an era w

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    Tiny stories, or large poems, Susan Lewis’s writing features exacting, figurative frames, windows in which glimpses of oneself are prismy, apposed by some other real—allegory—sounded in language’s slanted order (ardor?—(yes)). —Dale Smith The compressed cognitive fields of Heisenberg’s Salon enact paradoxes of nearness: the fundamental limits to the precision with which pairs—lovers, familiars, bodies, properties—can be known. Lewis’s poems explore the uncertainty principles that govern attempts to know the position and momentum of human couplings, inextricably caught in the flux of thought and circumstance: “But if she didn’t marry her current husband, who would her children be? & how would she know how to better raise those hypothetical strangers? His sleep disrupted by his wife’s agitation, her flawed but compatible spouse mumbled something indecipherable.” Language itself subsumes that flux—Lewis is keenly aware that her medium predetermines and enmeshes her speakers’ thoughts before they have the chance to clear their throats. Her measured sentences present gravitational fields of idiomatic speech—“crossed wires,” “at cross purposes,” “too much of a good thing,” “hatchet jobs,” “too little, too late,” “turning a deaf ear,” “face the consequences, which were all over the literal and figurative map”—a process that torques and exposes the oddities of the vernaculars that surround us. In its final section, the idioms of the media ever at hand, the book moves into fables of post-paper and post-meat dystopias, and bears witness to the cataclysmic resurrection of the pathetic fallacy in an emotive boulder. Wry, bemused, cool to the touch, these poems know that language forms can never approximate “her equivocal heart,” yet they manage to find meaning and pathos even in its evacuation: “Many were the days she had nothing to say, or less.” —BK Fischer Susan Lewis’s Heisenberg’s Salon is a treat to read. These prose poems carry a tension between surprise and predictability, an exquisite balance which opens new inroads into both form and meaning. In prose poems which waste not a word, Lewis is extremely adept at creating expectations that she gently, consistently, benevolently machinates against—in the process delivering suggestions of definitions which might be indelicate if attempted directly. Like the misleadingly conventional newsreel opening of Citizen Kane, the first section of this book strings us along with expert decodings of relationships, or relationships gone wrong, delivering the straitened independence that often ensues from such disasters. However, Lewis does not speak in the voice of grief, or disaster, or even regret. Although the title of the book might suggest relativity, adaptability seems more Lewis’s game here, an adaptability that should not be mistaken for moral relativity. After setting out personal parameters to measure desire versus conformity in the first section, ending with a minimalist descent into the lower orders of the Maslowian hierarchy, the remaining sections take us into increasingly fine explorations of metaphysical tensions, as if clearing away the debris of ordinary friendship and intimacy to make more rarefied excursions possible. There is an effective internal rhythm within and between the sections; Lewis knows exactly when to use a very short poem for maximum impact, or to extend one just as an “epiphany” has been reached and needs to be drawn out, to make the point that epiphanies are not momentary, but strung out along entire lifetimes. Form perfectly fits content as these subtle poems explore subjectivity versus empirical reality, spirituality versus material commitment, time and mortality versus eternal life, the animate versus the inanimate (boulders, trees), and finally individual creativity and dreamfulness versus the constitution of god or utopia as our collective projections. Reading Heisenberg’s Salon makes us aware of a poet whose moral calm we need in an era w

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    529 views14 pages

    Heisenberg's Salon by Susan Lewis Book Preview

    Uploaded by

    Geoffrey Gatza
    Tiny stories, or large poems, Susan Lewis’s writing features exacting, figurative frames, windows in which glimpses of oneself are prismy, apposed by some other real—allegory—sounded in language’s slanted order (ardor?—(yes)). —Dale Smith The compressed cognitive fields of Heisenberg’s Salon enact paradoxes of nearness: the fundamental limits to the precision with which pairs—lovers, familiars, bodies, properties—can be known. Lewis’s poems explore the uncertainty principles that govern attempts to know the position and momentum of human couplings, inextricably caught in the flux of thought and circumstance: “But if she didn’t marry her current husband, who would her children be? & how would she know how to better raise those hypothetical strangers? His sleep disrupted by his wife’s agitation, her flawed but compatible spouse mumbled something indecipherable.” Language itself subsumes that flux—Lewis is keenly aware that her medium predetermines and enmeshes her speakers’ thoughts before they have the chance to clear their throats. Her measured sentences present gravitational fields of idiomatic speech—“crossed wires,” “at cross purposes,” “too much of a good thing,” “hatchet jobs,” “too little, too late,” “turning a deaf ear,” “face the consequences, which were all over the literal and figurative map”—a process that torques and exposes the oddities of the vernaculars that surround us. In its final section, the idioms of the media ever at hand, the book moves into fables of post-paper and post-meat dystopias, and bears witness to the cataclysmic resurrection of the pathetic fallacy in an emotive boulder. Wry, bemused, cool to the touch, these poems know that language forms can never approximate “her equivocal heart,” yet they manage to find meaning and pathos even in its evacuation: “Many were the days she had nothing to say, or less.” —BK Fischer Susan Lewis’s Heisenberg’s Salon is a treat to read. These prose poems carry a tension between surprise and predictability, an exquisite balance which opens new inroads into both form and meaning. In prose poems which waste not a word, Lewis is extremely adept at creating expectations that she gently, consistently, benevolently machinates against—in the process delivering suggestions of definitions which might be indelicate if attempted directly. Like the misleadingly conventional newsreel opening of Citizen Kane, the first section of this book strings us along with expert decodings of relationships, or relationships gone wrong, delivering the straitened independence that often ensues from such disasters. However, Lewis does not speak in the voice of grief, or disaster, or even regret. Although the title of the book might suggest relativity, adaptability seems more Lewis’s game here, an adaptability that should not be mistaken for moral relativity. After setting out personal parameters to measure desire versus conformity in the first section, ending with a minimalist descent into the lower orders of the Maslowian hierarchy, the remaining sections take us into increasingly fine explorations of metaphysical tensions, as if clearing away the debris of ordinary friendship and intimacy to make more rarefied excursions possible. There is an effective internal rhythm within and between the sections; Lewis knows exactly when to use a very short poem for maximum impact, or to extend one just as an “epiphany” has been reached and needs to be drawn out, to make the point that epiphanies are not momentary, but strung out along entire lifetimes. Form perfectly fits content as these subtle poems explore subjectivity versus empirical reality, spirituality versus material commitment, time and mortality versus eternal life, the animate versus the inanimate (boulders, trees), and finally individual creativity and dreamfulness versus the constitution of god or utopia as our collective projections. Reading Heisenberg’s Salon makes us aware of a poet whose moral calm we need in an era w

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 14

    HEISENBERGS SALON

    SUSAN LEWIS

    BLAZEVOX[BOOKS]
    Buffalo, New York

    Heisenbergs Salon
    by Susan Lewis
    Copyright 2017
    Published by BlazeVOX [books]
    All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without
    the publishers written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews.
    Printed in the United States of America
    Interior design and typesetting by Geoffrey Gatza
    Cover Artwork: Michael Janis; photo: Pete Duvall
    First Edition
    ISBN: 978-1-60964-269-3
    Library of Congress Control Number: 2016954406
    BlazeVOX [books]
    131 Euclid Ave
    Kenmore, NY 14217
    Editor@blazevox.org

    publisher of weird little books

    BlazeVOX [ books ]
    blazevox.org
    21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10

    Reckoning
    Once again his dinner escaped its plate, stranding him at the table,
    as diminished as he was exposed. It wasnt long before his fiance
    rejected the fundamental implications of his DNA. He might have
    forgotten this new insult to his emotional infrastructure if the dog
    hadnt gone ahead & left him in favor of a perfect stranger with
    no sign of interest in non-conversational mammals. You shouldnt
    have assimilated his backstory, said his former sister from the safety of
    her adoptive frame of reference. It depends what is meant by should, he
    wanted to say. But if he couldnt swallow his own intentions, who
    would? Unable to bear the prospect of another botched attempt at
    consummation, he tied a scarf over his most intimate details,
    grabbed something versatile, & began the hunt for someone who
    might hold him accountable.

    17

    Friendship
    Stop rushing me, he said, nervously twisting his wrists into thickets,
    which grew in the way of meaningful progress. So she set out to
    streamline their puzzle with a tool not intended for use on the
    living. You think this will make it easier to choose? he groaned,
    launching a probe as dull as his despair. Would that you could, she
    said, watching him flay his hesitation from its hotbed of affection.
    At some point, he wailed, good intentions wont cut it anymore! Not when
    the pros & cons have swallowed everything. Youre right, she said, tipping
    her reservoir of hope into his well of nostalgia. But Im sure youll
    land a beauty, she added, commencing to swallow his sharpest
    objections.

    18

    Indeterminacy
    It was time for something, although she could not for the life of
    her imagine what. So she assumed her post on the stoop & waited
    for the future to declare itself. A tattered bird of dubious
    provenance landed on the bannister & inspected her with his
    ancient gaze. She exhaled with emphasis, but otherwise managed
    to keep her preconceptions to herself. The old fellow cocked his
    head & screeched. Terrific, she said. How am I supposed to know if
    youre the one Im waiting for? Terrific, he squawked. How am I supposed
    to know if youre the one Im waiting for? I get it, she said, bravely
    extending her arm. I get it, he echoed, latching on with admirable
    decision. It was the last conversation they ever had.

    19

    Disillusionment
    That morning she packed a picnic without knowing what could
    happen next. She ended up under an improbably fine oak: old, but
    not ancient; gnarled, but not contorted. She was beginning to
    wonder how long she should wait when a unicorn showed up with
    an undeniable air of stealth. I hadnt realized, she said, gesturing
    apologetically towards the basket of bread & cheese & other
    artifacts of her infelicitous preparation. Dont worry about it, he said
    in a voice which shriveled all hope. After all, who had ever seen a
    unicorn & lived to tell the tale? She took one final sip of wine,
    which, sadly, fell short of the sommeliers rhapsodic description.
    But then, she thought, what didnt? Try as she might to come up
    with a single inviolate article of faith, all she could think of was the
    tender vigor of the weeds poised to cradle her encounter with the
    impossible radiance heading for her equivocal heart.

    20

    Although She Preferred


    to be ridden bare-back, he was nostalgic for their first saddle. She
    struggled not to buck, although its chafe on her latest shape
    flecked her temper with pebbles of edge. By this time, flight was
    all-but impossible. No doubt he was less than proud of his own
    attenuation, like the thinning of his magnificent tail, which had
    once draped their privacy so lavishly. A pall of sorrow shadowed
    their path, including the synchronized dive they hoped to master
    with only their shared straw & his mouthful of beating hearts.
    There was nothing for it but to hold her breath & recall the first
    time she had softened to the heat of his attention through the firm
    but supple, virgin leather.

    21

    After So Many Years,


    it was time for a change. She took the initiative, offering him a
    nibble of her ear in exchange for one of his. After a brief healing
    period, he offered her a nascent armadillo. She fashioned chairs
    from naked dancers, as beautiful as they were disciplined. He
    wrote a book on liquid pages. Although the lovers boredom had,
    by this time, vanished, they persevered. She installed plaster casts
    of his damage in the stodgiest of neighborhoods. Most popular
    was his notched ear. He taught her how to use ingredients dreamt
    in an invented language. She fed him the idea of armadillo from
    the hollow of the gentlest dancers back. He engineered a silken
    tunnel through the thorniest of doubts to the wellspring of desire.
    Eventually she enticed him with daunting rewards & irresistible
    punishments to bypass their ponderous heritage & storm the edge
    of repetition in order to launch the living map of their evolving
    courage.

    22

    One Day the Girl


    gave up eyeing the woods beyond her deck to step off. With this
    change in perspective came a broader view of her own existence.
    The sheer expanse of her new horizon dwarfed the kinesis of all
    that had once oppressed her. Surrounded by the obscure chatter
    of creatures avian & entomological, she became increasingly
    remote from her species & its previously pressing concerns. In
    time, her leafy carpet morphed from a cool green mosaic to a
    tapestry of flame. Her winged neighbors fluttered off. The
    monotony of such radical serenity was draining her vitality. But try
    as she might, she could no more penetrate the shimmering
    fundament of her new reality than she could have once imagined
    living in this state of beauteous & desolate calm until the first
    hard frost brought the leaves to the rocks below, & with them, her
    infelicitous bulk.

    23

    Cognizant
    of his own inconsequence, he was surprised to find himself
    showered with inexplicable rewards. For instance, the kiss of a
    nubile runner, dropped one morning on his unremarkable lips. Or
    the anonymous donut waiting for him, days later, on his desk.
    Soon, the gifts became more personal: a dreaded task retracted; a
    complementary clam pizza at his door. When an improbably
    lovely waitress proposed a post-shift nightcap, he knew something
    odd was afoot. The next day, in his favorite magazine: an essay he
    had penned, but not submitted. Soon the supervisor most fond of
    exploiting his aversion to conflict disappeared altogether, & he
    experienced a deep unease. If only my wishes would not come
    true, he thought suspecting, somehow, that this one would not.
    Apparently, there was nothing for it but to shoulder the burden of
    this unwarranted attention & manage the consequences as best he
    could. Over time, the memory of his former anonymity became
    elusive as a phantom, a dream state, or his vanished childhood
    a life he knew hed lived, but could no longer corroborate, let
    alone desire.

    24

    She Hated
    feeling left out while her body carried on so busily. So she trained
    herself to register the presumptively imperceptible. She began with
    something easy: ovulation. Moving on to the blooming of her ova,
    the journey along those stethoscopic tubes. To the exchange of
    oxygen in her alveoli. To the hiccups of her thymus, pumping
    hormones. But what she most wanted to experience were the
    moments of loss. The border between pain & relief. The transition
    from waking to sleep from any consciousness to its absence.
    She practiced with naps, plus assailing her skin with edges,
    carefully attending the apparently seamless process of restoration.
    She slammed her hands in car doors until the shock was dulled by
    repetition. This stage of her study was tantalizing. There was the
    problem of accountability. The problem of retrieval. The
    impossibility of the task, which, eventually, ceased to matter.
    When they found her battered body, it wore an unambiguous
    smile.

    25

    The Complexity
    of most things overwhelmed him. No matter where he looked,
    distinction swamped similarity. Where others saw crowds, he saw
    one-offs, amassed. His idiosyncrasy made communication a trial.
    He could no more comprehend the broad-brush assumptions
    behind simple expressions than he could make his codifications of
    uniqueness comprehensible to anyone else. He could conceive of
    no two entities encompassed by a single noun, no two acts
    captured by a common verb. No more able to achieve accuracy
    than to eschew it, he could neither listen nor speak, read nor write.
    Unfortunately, renouncing the society of other humans did little
    to alleviate the intolerable crush of inescapable details, so he set
    about removing the flow of information at its source. Each sense
    he eliminated left the others working harder. Nonetheless, he
    persevered, until finally the outside world was silenced. Only then
    was he defeated by the avalanche of data coming from his no-lessconvoluted interior.

    26

    A Sense of Community
    The changes were too subtle to alarm. Windows went dark.
    Neighbors spoke less. Sentences shortened. Digressions dropped
    off, like branches from a dying tree. At first, she welcomed these
    developments: less time wasted on idle chatter. One day she
    realized she knew nothing new about anyone. Soon she noticed
    how little need there was for names. She began forgetting the ones
    she knew: the long-legged widow in the tall house next door, the
    young bookseller with the Adams apple bobbing like a stone in
    his throat. There was an unseasonable proliferation of hats &
    scarves. Before long, every face was covered. Then the features
    began to blur. There was almost no way to distinguish one person
    from the next, & less reason to try.

    27

    Deus Ex Machina
    She was given a second chance. A brand-new responsibility,
    weighing on her & no one else. Whats more, she had only to
    make the right choices, & everyone on the planet would get
    another chance as well. The burden was hers, deposited in her lap
    like an orphan on a doorstep. Only moments before, she had been
    dreaming something vaguely sexual. Now she struggled to fathom
    the implications of this terrifying privilege. Passing over her
    childhood decisions as insufficiently autonomous & causally
    speculative, she reconsidered her choice of spouse; her career
    path; her approach to child-rearing; her underwhelming
    involvement in the social issues of the day. What she found was a
    case for total overhaul. But if she didnt marry her current
    husband, who would her children be? & how would she know
    how to better raise those hypothetical strangers? His sleep
    disrupted by his wifes agitation, her flawed but compatible spouse
    mumbled something indecipherable. Of course, she thought,
    snuggling up to his pleasantly odorous chest. Its a trick question! So
    she closed her eyes & waited for god to tire of his joke & leave her
    alone.

    28

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