Poem as Table: Notes
The charm of the table is to find yourself at it.
—Francis Ponge[1]
I bought my table from a second-hand furniture store in West Philadelphia, a week after I had arrived into the country. I liked that the store supported APEDF—the African Peoples Education and Defense Fund—the staff were friendly, and they had a range of tables from which to buy. in the end, I picked a monstrously heavy table because it was ambiguous. even anachronistic. the rim looked hand carved (it wasn’t) and the bronze drawer handles were scuffed and tarnished. two large cupboards on either side, which served as its supports, gave the table an antiquated roller desk vibe. at the same time, the polished surface of the table was clearly wood veneer. it was enormous, which meant I needed at least three people to help me move it. the staff were happy to deliver the table to my new flat but less than thrilled about bringing it inside. between us, we were able to navigate the table up the stoop, through the narrow doorframe, and into the studio (by hoisting it upright and waddling it like a penguin). two years later, I repeated the process, although this time I had to rope in fellow grad students to heave the table up a flight of stairs into my new flat. the table lacked large edgings, so it was nearly impossible to find a firm grip. three years later (again!) I paid two incredulous movers to carry it down the stairs (scraping the walls in the process) and into a U-Haul truck, where a friend and I transported the table to my new rental unit in Gambier, Ohio. I would move this beast one last time (to date), when I—along with other colleagues—were evicted from our faculty housing during the pandemic. the college movers rightly grumbled about the table, but they agreed (reluctantly?) to transport it to my new house. after several years, I have now composed a lengthy list of adjectives to describe this piece of furniture: counter-lyrical and unrepentant. stubborn. untraditional. non-conformist. resistant in minor acts. formless with an appreciation for form. fond for precise argumentation. historical. theoretical. site-specific. artificial in the service of refusal. if I have to move this table again, I will probably set it on fire. in a way, I love it.
T
Francis Ponge loved his table. or maybe he didn’t. everything about The Table (the book) reveals his disavowal of any settled concept. he repeats phrases, brackets thoughts, scribbles adjacent ideas and floating explanations in the margins of the page, which are reinvented as footnotes in the translation. The Table is as much a journey to explore the word, its shape, and sounds, as it is to experience its materiality, its potentiality to enact the surfaces of writing. the table, Ponge suggests, is “soil for the pen.”[2] it’s also a slow study into the durational effects of meaning.
T
it’s not just a table, but the table. it’s a word, a concept, the surface on which both thought and language are inscribed.
T
I can’t keep my table clean. it accumulates books from different projects, coffee cups, papers, cat fur, dishes, notebooks, medication bottles, post-it-notes, empty roller-lint cartridges, cables. I am guilty of eating at my table, because it is the only one I have. I need to be more respectful. I need more artifice. less shine. less polish. I worry this table is overtaking my identity, because its sheer size suffocates my office space. it’s a ridiculous construction and a densely protracted thought. I lived near a busy cross street in Philadelphia, and thick black dust would blow into my open windows, dulling the table’s shiny brown surface. in Ohio, it still gathers dust of a different sort: compliance, structure of gloss, tenure-track anxieties. ideological violence. I am compelled to write my rage onto its surface. my table is a minor act of resistance.
T
we should set some tables, but never eat.
T
a partial list of objects on my table: Francis Ponge, The Table Jerry C. Zee, Continent in Dust an empty red mug (all I want for christmas is a nap) an HP printer (no paper, no cables. working?) Phil Cordelli, Manual of Woody Plants Matthew Hall, Plants as Persons Brenda Hillman, Pieces of Air in the Epic Lola Ridge, Verses an external drive (black) Victor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning Will Alexander, The Contortionist Whispers Jackie Wang, Carceral Capitalism an adaptor a plastic bag with one black pen (working, I think) Joanna Zylinska, The End of Man Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Modernity a map of Nebraska City Yuriko Furuhata, Climate Media Carl Sandburg, Smoke and Steel Allison Cobb, Plastic: An Autobiography Allen Curnow, Collected Poems a green notebook (blank) a blue and yellow notebook (poets have all the feels) Renee Gladman, Houses of Ravicka Francis Ponge, Soap Petra Kuppers, Gut Botany a blue expo whiteboard pen (working?) Jesse Oak Taylor, The Sky of our Manufacture a black pen (empty)
T
Ponge’s table also includes his characteristic attentiveness to the word’s literal and lateral networks. he relishes in its spreading. one can’t write table without able, he notes, which leads him to stare at adjacent rhymes: cable, fable, establishment, sable, and stable. table, he writes, tableau, tabula rasa, tablet. a table is a surface for writing and elbows. I lean my wrists against its edges. I’m pedantic: my table is a desk, a word directly derived from the Middle English, deske, itself borrowed from Medieval Latin, desca and discus. discum—a word that might also suggest its command to a writer: sit down.[3]
T
I don’t follow many rules except one: don’t sit on your table.
T
some people call the table academic as if to disparage the kinds of discourse it narrates. as if a table has to be anti-intellectual. to be enjoyable. my students often tell me they find a table relatable. they like it, because they are drawn to its absorbed lyricism and it ‘speaks to them,’ a charge I find most troubling when it creates barriers to different modes of thought and experiences that might that shock us into understanding.[4] into seeing with clarity a violent reality. or a tragically optimistic one (Frankl). some tables should be uncomfortable. to sit down at. don’t leave. stay here. we don’t always need to clear them.
T
sometimes a table is just a table.
notes
[1] Francis Ponge, The Table, trans. Colombina Zamponi (Cambridge, MA: Wakefield Press, 2017), 50.
[2] Ponge, 30.
[3] “desk, n.” OED Online. June 2022. Oxford University Press. (Accessed July 10, 2022).
[4] July 13, to add: as a professor, I hope I successively intervene in their thought processes. my job is to question the lyric, the relatable, and their social constructions.