“There is, in prayer, a magical operation. Prayer is one of the great forces behind the dynamics of the intellect. It works something like an electrical current” (Baudelaire, trans. Richard Sieburth).
To the Beat poet Diane di Prima, Romanticism is “a kind of steady esoteric current.” Esoteric: deep within. Like many of the Beats, she channels this Romanticism—for her in long, defiant lines of “revolutionary letters.” Others find the current in the cosmos, in constellations.
Deep within, behind. Writing the current may reveal a subtext that moves somewhat beyond the poet’s control but brings with it realization.
A current of creative mind (Ann Batten Cristall, ca. 1769-??): for her, affect and energy of the “mind in creation” (Shelley) collapses mind and erotic sensation leading to divinity and transgressive expansion. Electricity excites simultaneous circularities, the “fancy” leaping beyond the linear with love channeling into the passions of hair:
A current of creative mind,
Wild as the wandering gusts of wind,
Mid fertile fancy’s visions trained,
Unzoned, I shot, and o’er each limit strained,
Around in airy circles whirled
By a genius infinite;
While Love in wanton ringlets curled
My tresses, passion to excite.
Erica Baum writes:
The current is a channel to the subtext. A dynamic energy whereby the viewer is conducted past the boundaries of the ostensible subject towards an interior transgressive lode of content. The works in the Patterns series nod at an intersection between Gertrude Stein’s continuous present and the point of electrification (current) wherein the modes of industry transformed household economies. The availability of mass produced patterns allowed access to fashions once unattainable for the masses. At the time, this was understood to be largely the province of the female homemaker and in the post-World War 2 environment women were exhorted to return to the home after time spent in the factories during the war effort and to make that home the entirety of all their aspirations.
Isolated words reverberate in a dance with lines of instruction severed from usefulness, turning a domestic task into a liberating force.
Currents of compressed subversive meanings unshackle any circumscribed boundaries.
“What is the current that makes machinery, that makes it crackle, what is the current that presents a long line and a necessary waist. What is this current.” Gerturde Stein A Long Dress, Tender Buttons
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