We have Lorine Niedecker's short poem "Foreclosure". What's the scene? What's going on? Max, tell the story, briefly. What happens? Her house has been foreclosed on and she doesn't care. She's telling them just to take it down. She's over it. Molly who's "em", "tell em", I didn't say that right. "Tell em to take my bare walls down", who's "em"? Presumably the people who are taking the house. The bank perhaps. And she obviously doesn't like them but what's the, what sign do you have that she doesn't like them. It may be grammatical terms, or diction, or rhetoric, or language choice. Well, the "em" is sort of dismissive. Anything else on the grammar? Their parties thereof sounds like legalese almost. Does she like the legalese? I don't think so. What's a sign that she doesn't. That's a tough question. "Clause of claws". It seems like... "Clause of claws", Molly, explain that. Well, the clauses in the contracts are sort of, you know, aggressive. There's the image of claws, and being sort of predatory. Predatory. Excellent. Yeah. So, she's mocking the rhetoric of foreclosure. Okay. Then she decides, then there's a term, Dave, and she, it's all in commands. She's imperative. "Leave me", what does she want them to leave. Just the land. The natural, existing land of the house. What are they taking? They're taking the house, they're taking the structure. And she wants what was under it. Is it a beautiful, lavish McMansion? I doubt it. But how do we know in the poem? We know that about Lorine Niedecker's life but how do we know in the poem that it's modest? The bare walls, the cement abutments. "Cement abutments" is a phrase that sings. Yeah? Do you think so? Well, not really. Forget about the singing then. You're hard to please. So, what about, how does it sound, cement abutments? It's harsh, lots of Ts and lots of harsh consonants. Okay, so she says "leave me the land", Ana, and then she says "scratch out", colon, "the land." What's she doing there? She's saying just leave me. She doesn't even want the land that the house is on anymore. "Scratch out: the land", meaning not even that never mind. Lilly, any thoughts on this? Well, I think like a common sort of like saying is to scratch out of living, or like "eke out a living" on a piece of land. So, I think she's kind of like, before she was mocking the rhetoric of foreclosure and the rhetoric of what she wants is just that one, like, scratch-out. Like scratch-out a living on this sort of barren, maybe, piece of land. So, Ally, Lilly has pointed us toward a pun. Scratch out, eke out, barely subsist. But there's something involved in the legal, the story about the legal document that suggests scratch out. Can you think of that? Or do you want to pass, that's a hard question? I mean, I don't think this is the right terminology, but it kind of just reminds me of amendments to legal documents. Yes, scratch out meaning... Edit. Edit, delete that. She's pretending that she's part of the negotiation. Max, you have a thought on that? You look like you have something to say. Oh, yeah, yeah, no, she seems to, well like, of course, "scratch" resonates with "claws", right? But also she seems to be over this, what I just said earlier, twice, she seems - she seems to want to do away with this idea of the land as it's, like, constructed legally, right, so she wants land that's not, that doesn't have a property attached to it. She lived on Black Hawk Island. Yeah. And if she's imagining a foreclosure of her own place, or one of her neighbors', she's in touch with rhetoric of Black Hawk of Native Americans who would say you can't - you could take my house, but you can't take the land because you don't own the land in the first place. The land is the land. The land is the land. Okay, so let's get to the end then. So, Molly, Anna, what's the diction here? I'll read it: "May prose and property both die out and leave me peace." What's the diction, or where is this rhetoric coming from? I don't know about the diction or the rhetoric, but it reminds me of "I dwell in Possibility." It really does. Can we come back to that. That's so smart. Molly, if I say, "may California be the fulfillment of all your dreams." I mean, it sounds like, sort of anthemic. Sort of a national anthem or a founding fathers' speech. Or maybe, more specifically... Like a benediction. A benediction, yeah. So, she's giving a benediction on what would we say? Anybody? Armores? Well, the fact that prose and poetry are put in the same association, there seems like she's doing a meta-commentary on her work as a poet. And once prose and poetry, constraints and clauses, and contracts associated with it just leaves her the freedom of generalist division [inaudible]. It reminds me, and here's an external reference, it reminds me a tiny bit of the epigraph to Primo Levi's survival in Auschwitz. Where he says, "if you don't do some things... ", Lilly, you're thinking the same thing, if you don't do some things may you - may your children reject you, and may you not be able to go home ever again. You know what I mean? In the sense of that, what - she seems to be negative here. Right? Well, right. It's not entirely positive, because what she wants isn't, she doesn't want something specific. She wants just peace. Which is kind of like the absence of anything. It's like rather than, I want health for my children or something which would be, I don't know, something, a benediction that would give you or something - it's just like peace, like the absence of anything. Dave, if you had to summarize this paraphrase, the last two lines, what would you say? I think it's interesting she's equating prose and property. Because now she's saying that prose is as artificial and contrived as the property she was describing. She wants to get rid of all the artifice and just be left with what was there. So, that's cool. And we're going end by turning to Anna, and have us remember Dickinson. But just paraphrase it. What is she saying? May what? May, artifact may, may everything man made disappear, and leave me with... Leave me in peace. When somebody says, leave me in peace, what do they mean? Leave me alone. Leave me alone. This is a real mediocre sentiment. Yeah. She's very independent, we know this from the other Niedecker's poems that we've talked about. So, she says, you know, while we're getting rid of property, let's get rid of prose, and let it all go away and leave me alone. Okay, so now, Anna, what were you thinking of? What's Dickinsonian about this? I guess I was thinking of in "I dwell in Possibility." "Possibility" being the "fairer House than Prose". Right? So, she's kind of equating prose with a less fair kind of sphere of existence. So, if she's getting rid of the prose and the property. So, if she's getting rid of... Okay, so in "I dwell in Possibility", the ratio was, this is hard, right? Possibility is... Is the poetry. Is the poetry as, and then there's an X. It's the opposite of possibility meaning something you can know for sure is to prose. Here the ratio is? Prose is to property... Yes. As poetry is to peace. And the poetry that we have in front of us is this poem itself. This.
