« Pictures of Illuminations | Main | "The Hours" as a Poam »
December 10, 2007
Uncovering Synesthesia
Somewhere i have never traveled
somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands
-- e. e. cummings
I have added this poem to my collection of illuminations and have found within it a reason why synesthesia is unlike any other literary device. It gives a voice to the unseen and unheard. For instance, meanings we cannot readily infer are brought to light. Synesthesia allows things that are seemingly impossible to become possible. For instance, in this poem, eyes can speak, and when they do, they sound deeper than all roses. In an attempt to portray the visual imagery of someone’s eyes, we also learn what they sound like. This cross-sensory device allows multiple meanings to be found. The comparison of a rose to an actual person also allows for multiple meanings. A double meaning, a sort of symbolism, is created with the aspect of the rose. Thus, every reading has the possibility of being different. For instance, the opening and closing throughout the poem can be that of the blossoming and withering of the rose as well as the opening and closing in a more abstract, emotional sense between two people. Even in the frailty of the rose, and perhaps a woman, which cummings seems to be referring to, there is a certain depth and boldness to the weaknesses. This makes the poem absolutely beautiful on so many levels.
Another way of looking at synesthesia can be found in this youtube video. Sounds give rise to different colors and shapes. Or, perhaps it is the color/shapes which are producing the sound. Both are so intimately woven together it’s hard to see which comes first.
Posted by pbali at December 10, 2007 02:51 AM
Comments
Using synesthesia as a system of aesthetic enclosure in consideration of work by ee cummings makes so much sense; his is a world within a world --the eyes physically enclose (so great that he uses this word in line 3); I do believe that the visual takes on tactile perception so that visual is experienced as direct contact with the textures of surfaces, and not just the appearance. But not only are textures felt through sight, these are the textures that sight extracts from visual references, and as such, these textures are not identical to the textures experienced when parts of the body that usually interpret direct contact interact via direct contact.
What I find so extraordinary in cummings is this sculpting of a world concealed to most yet this "world" should be accessible given its proximity, a coexistence with the version of experience usually detected and interpreted within typical sensory processing, the processing that, via consensus, becomes standard models of experience --the easy acceptance of this consensus can help to put most who are accepting of it into a mode of being in which receptivity to (validity) of departures from consensus are easily questioned or even dismissed.
In this poem documenting travel within invalid perceptual zones (from the perspective of prevailing systems of sensory processing enclosure), the senses, so vulnerable without the support of consensus, must take care of/with its privileged access --for the voice of the eyes is real within this system of enclosure, and that voice, without benefit of the amplification of consensus (which can drown out other meanings which could be the source of various profundities with the ability to illuminate or extend humanity's accomplishments and discoveries.
Cummings' work forces those of us without privileged perception to experience a fracturing of the prevailing way of seeing and interpreting; that way is inadequate here, and within the cracks, within the negative spaces of fracture, other possibilities begin to emerge, an emergence which can help the unprivileged seers remember to look more closely, to not be so quick to think that complex and insightful "seeing" has occurred.
There is engagement in this forked print work; this is not the casual passing through, but actual interactions and their consequences and implications.
Posted by: thyliasm at December 10, 2007 02:33 PM
Login to leave a comment. Create a new account.