Backwards into E-evidence

The poet brings us through manipulation of the stuff of language to consider our investments. In particular, to meditate upon the meaning of evidence. Suffice it to say that his discourse on e-gap turns towards the end on agape …

Agape — as if the mouth were wide open — as if the page wide open — were ready for anything we might say or do to it — for it

Including the reverse reading we have encountered on preceding pages …

Page backwards spells a new word — egap — & we half-understand such e-words now

There is an egap in our relation to writing on paper this day — perhaps it has always been there

Example — what of the strangeness of electronic signatures — the hand has not been a shadow or weight on that page — the written has been photographed & clipped & pasted

There is an egap between the legend of John Hancock & the legend of rag-paper

Or what of the persisting cult of the signed copy — what is treasured is the evidence of the maker's body having been a shadow over that copy of that book — she wrote it & was here & left a tracing

Phil Hall Notes From Gethsemani: Inaugural Page Lecture - in Honour of Joanne Page Queen's University - November 14, 2012 Vancouver: Nomados, 2014. [The Gethsemani in question is the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky where Thomas Merton, worked, studied and prayed. And, of course, wrote.]

And so for day 1563
25.03.2011