Anne Boyer

When I am not writing I am not writing a novel called 1994 about a young woman  in  an  office park  in a  provincial town who has a job  cutting  and pasting time. I am not writing a novel called Nero about the world's richest art star in space.  I am not writing  a book  called Kansas City Spleen.  I am not writing a sequel to Kansas City Spleen called Bitch's Maldoror. I am not writing  a  book of  political  philosophy called Questions for Poets. I am not writing a scandalous memoir.  I am not writing a pathetic memoir. I am not writing  a  memoir  about  poetry  or  love.  I am not writing a memoir about poverty,  debt  collection,  or  bankruptcy.  I   am  not  writing   about family court.  I am not writing a memoir because memoirs are for property owners and not  writing a memoir about  prohibitions of memoirs. When  I am not writing a memoir  I am also not writing any kind of  poetry, not  prose  poems  contemporary   or  otherwise,  not  poems made  of frag- ments,  not tightened and  compressed poems, not loosened and  conversa- tional poems, not conceptual  poems, not virtuosic poems employing many different  types of  euphonious devices, not poems with epiphanies and not poems  without,  not  documentary  poems about recent political moments, not  poems  heavy with allusions to critical theory and popular song. I am not writing "Leaving the Atocha Station" by Anne Boyer and certain- ly  not  writing  "Nadja"  by  Anne Boyer though would like to write "Debt" by  Anne Boyer  though  am  not  writing  also  "The  German Ideology" by Anne  Boyer  and not writing a screenplay called "Sparticists." I am not writing an account of myself more miserable than Rousseau. I am not writing an account of myself more innocent than Blake. I am not writing epic poetry although I like what Milton said about lyric poets drinking wine while epic poets should drink water from a  wooden bowl. I would like to drink wine from a wooden  bowl  or to drink  water from an emptied bottle of wine. I am not writing a book about shopping, which is a woman shopping. I am not  writing  accounts  of  dreams,  not  my own or anyone else's. I am not writing historical re-enactments of any durational literature. I am not writing anything that anyone  has requested of me or is  waiting on,  not  a  poetics  essay  or any other sort of essay, not a  roundtable re- sponse, not interview responses, not writing prompts for younger writers, not my thoughts about critical theory or popular songs. I am not writing a new constitution for the republic of no history. I am not writing a will or a medical report. I am  not  writing  Facebook status updates. I am not writing thank-you notes or apologies. I am not writing conference papers. I am not writing book reviews. I am not writing blurbs. I  am not writing  about contemporary  art. I am  not writing  accounts of my travels.  I am  not writing  reviews for The New Inquiry and not writ- ing pieces for Triple Canopy and not writing anything for Fence. I am not writing a  daily  accounting  of my reading, activities, and ideas.   I am not writing  science  fiction  novels  about  the  problem  of  the idea of the au- tonomy  of  art  and  science  fiction  novels about the problem of a society with  only  one  law  which  is  consent.  I am  not  writing stories based on Nathaniel Hawthorne's unwritten story ideas. I am not writing online dat- ing profiles.  I am not writing anonymous communiqués.  I am not writing textbooks. I am not writing a history of these times or of past times or of any future times and not even the history of these visions which are with me all day and all of the night.

There are  at  least two  types of people,  the  first for  whom the  ordinary worldliness is easy.  The  regular  social routines  and  material  cares  are nothing too external to them and easily absorbed. They are not alien from the  creation  and  maintenance of the world, and the world does not treat them  as  alien. And also, from  them, the efforts  toward the world, and to them,  the  fulfillment  of the  world's  moderate desires, flow. They are ef- fortless at eating, moving, arranging their arms as they sit or stand,  being hired, being paid, cleaning up,  spending, playing, mating.  They are in an ease and comfort. The world is for the world and for them. Then there are those over whom the events and opportunities of the every- day  world wash  over.  There  is  rarely,  in this  second type, any easy kind of absorption.  There  is only  a  visible  evidence  of having  been made of a different  substance,  one that  repels.  Also, from them,  it is almost impos- sible  to  give  to  the  world  what  it will  welcome or reward. For how does this  second  type  hold  their arms?  Across their chest? Behind their back? And  how  do  they  find  food  to eat  and  then prepare this food? And how do  they  receive  a  check or endorse it? And what also of the difficulties of love  or  being loved, its  expansiveness,  the way it is used for markets and indentured moods? And what is this  second  substance?  And how does it come  to have as one of  its  qualities  the  resistance of the world  as it is?  And also,  what is  the person  made  of  the  second  substance?   Is this a  human or more or  less than one? Where is the true impermeable community of the second human whose  arms  do  not  easily  arrange  themselves and for whom the salaries and  weddings  and  garages do not come? These are, perhaps, not two sorts of persons, but two kinds of fortune. The first is soft and regular. The second is a baffled kind, and magnetic only  to the second substance, and made itself out of a different, second, substance, and having, at its end, a second, and almost blank-faced, reward.