NOTES on ‘Notes on “A Line from Taika Waititi”‘

In a paper presented at a conference at Deakin University, Melbourne, in 2011, I noted that "The search engine is a powerful tool for finding news or flights or hotel rooms, for doing research or seeing how your house is presented to the world. It runs the gamut from gene banks to genealogy & definitions of genuflection. It's also a powerful tool for generating poetry."

Later: "The simplest form of Google poem is the list poem, the output of a search for a single word or phrase…… The next progression again makes use of a single search term, but this time the poem is shaped rather than being left as a list, even though that's what its component parts started out as…… Let's move on, to talk about multiple search strings & a method of handling them, of turning them into poetry. It's what I describe as a stochastic process.

"In poetry, the output of the initial search string should be treated as the entrance to a garden of forking paths. Take a couple of words, Google them, search the initial page for a sentence, a phrase, a few words, even a single word, that catches the eye. Pick a couple of words from the results. Google them & repeat the procedure. Repeat until there's most of a page of extracts to build (a poem) from. In Genji Monogatari, each poem contains a sliver of text from . . .the corresponding chapter. 

"The sliver of text is a technique I'm also using in the series of 'A line from . . .' poems I've been working on for the last few years, but in these poems there is no attempt to remain true to the source or nature of the original quote." (1)

In an recent email to someone asking about the provenance of these "A line from . . ." poems, I noted that "A line from is something of a misnomer. More correctly a sentence from or a phrase from or a few words from..... However, all the "lines" are real. 

"I think the initial idea came from Robert Duncan's 'A poem beginning with a line from Pindar.' There are a couple of poems in my 2008 selected Pelican Dreaming, one 'A poem beginning with a line from Foucault' & another 'A poem ending with a line from Pablo Neruda,' but the first poem of the trope dates back to 2010 as best as I can tell, & that first one is titled 'A line from Ron Silliman.' There are three separate books published - Ley Lines, Hotus Potus, The Waitstaff of Mar-a-Largo - plus 140 pages in my 2013 600-page collection The Codicils. Since then they've just been part of collections. Subjects vary considerably." (2)

I felt that a line beginning from a well-known New Zealander would be an appropriate contribution to Poetry Remake. I went looking first at quotes from Sam Neill, but they were a bit pedestrian & nothing jumped out. However, a reference to his working with Taika Waititi offered an alternative source. That search revealed a large number of quotes, from which I selected "I've become more like water…" (3)

A line from Taika Waititi 

Hers was a common health issue. 
Not everyone can see pictures in
their minds. Such complicated 
patterns of neural activity gene-

rated their share of incredulity —
many countries urged their pop-
ulations to stay at home — but 
she gave her baby girl up for 

adoption. Even though it meant 
living in Miami, a place nobody in 
their right mind would move to, it
caused a number of poets to apply

for the position. Now the original 
Fisk Jubilee Singers have disbanded.
I've become more like water. Pine 
trees are now darker than grass.

Notes on 'A Line from...'

The first, list, searches using that phrase gave me this as a starting point. The separate search terms are in bold.

I've become more like water

It's a common health issue.
As many countries urge populations to stay at home
I knew if I waded out there,

I knew if I waded out there,

the original Fisk Jubilee Singers had disbanded
A return to Miami, a place nobody in their right mind thought he would
She gave her baby girl up for adoption
in American jurisprudence
a number of poets have accepted the position
We need to see a visual image

We need to see a visual image

pine trees are darker than grass
the phenomenon has generated its share of incredulity.
Not everyone can see pictures in their minds
complicated patterns of neural activity
right eye opened and left eye closed

The first repositioning as a poem was this:

Not everyone can see pictures 
in their minds. It's a common 
health issue. As many countries 
urge populations to stay at home

she gave her baby girl up for ad-
option. A number of poets have 
accepted the position, a return to 
Miami, a place nobody in their 

right mind thought he would 

the original Fisk Jubilee Singers 
disbanded. 

The second iteration:

It's a common health issue. Not
everyone can see pictures in
their minds. The phenomenon 
generated its share of incredulity:-

many countries urged their pop-
ulations to stay at home; she gave 
her baby girl up for adoption. &
even though it meant living in

Miami, a place nobody in their 
right mind would move to, it
caused a number of poets to apply
for the position. Such complicated 

patterns of neural activity—

& the final [shown in column at left, ed.]: