Outsider Poems, a Mini-Anthology in Progress (34): Hannah Weiner as an Outsider Poet

[In constructing an assemblage of “outsider” poetry there is a point finally at which the work of contemporaries has also to be considered. I have felt constrained here by a determination not to confuse “outsider” with some sense of the “marginal” or “alternative” as defined in contrast, say, to another assumption of “mainstream” or “normative” or even (god help us) “canonical.” Here, it seems to me, one principal characteristic (but only one) of outsiderness, as I’ve come to understand it, is a difference of mind or body that results in a range of differences in language & poetic forms that might otherwise be hard or impossible to come by. It is in this sense too that “outsider art” and by extension “outsider poetry” has had as one of its anchors what Dubuffet & others defined as art brut & brought into prominence the work of artist/poets such as Adolf Wölfli & Aloise Corbaz. In line with that I can imagine the place among outsiders of “canonical” or near-“canonical” figures such as Blake & Smart, Hölderlin & Artaud, whose skewered view of language & poetic form was both a cause & consequence of their historical isolation. Coming closer to the present, however, I have hesitated to bring the work of my contemporaries & acquaintances into play. With Hannah Weiner (1928-1997), as a key instance, the turning in her work followed an extreme perceptual shift in which words & letters appeared to her in air & on the surfaces of objects & people, to be incorporated into the written works she was then composing. In her own well known accounting: “I SEE words on my forehead    IN THE AIR    on other people    on the typewriter   on the page   These appear in the text as CAPITALS or in italics”  The results of that, through her own efforts, were nothing short of extraordinary.

[The following poem & many others, some still more radical, can be found at Weiner’s web site: http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/weiner/]

LITTLE BOOK 125
OCT POWER DAY Oct 12 78

OCT POWER DAY

11 SHEETS 3

correctly

ohs hannah SPEL

b

  e

    s

      m

        o 

          r

            e

               p

                 r

                   a

                     c

                       tical

Jimmie cant spell

        corrected

        date

                       12

JIMMIE          STANDS

            BIS PRINT

I HAVE POETS

HIS MIND IN

MY             POEMS

Hannah

       I CANS WRITE

I correct

BIS PRINT 

MYSELF          CORRECT 

S  P  E  L  L  I  N  G 

I JUST HAVE ONE

MIND

c            j              e

  o            I        I 

    u             m m

      n                      t

         t                 o

            s            l

                       a

To      OFFER       MY 

               OTHER

M I N D

please  Jimmy prints 

                  HIS LETTERS

HIS SECRETS

                        HIDES

R U S S              spell

Jimmy is spelled

correctly

                      HOME

ON 9th STREET 

of

COURSE

I just couldn't write 

it about myself 

BIG P about it

I     JUST     RUSSEL

I canst spell

                MEANS

walks with him

              INS NOV

FEBR complete

I JUST DONT WANT

          signed date 12 

ohs    hannah     spelled

   a               y

      w         l

         kward

        SILENCE

THISBOOKCOMPLETED

    SAY TONIGHT

          JIM spell

          ERROR

I just want to  write

about

     WHATS A NAME

standing up

all

   THE STEPS

SHEETS

ha SKIP TOP LINE

hannah forgot

          STRUCTURE

ins my SILENCE

S  E  N  T  E  N  C  E

I may just become

  Jimmie scribbles

a

   RUSSELL MEANS

writer soon

             TWO PAGES

hannah this is our

          forehead

secret

                SILENT

3 people split

before forgets

message

PAGE               ONE

you feel PRINT

WONDERFUL AFTER

THIS      BOOK       IS

          SOLDS

I meant a message

silent messenger

secret

          two pages lost

              INS SHEETS

E  X  P  E  N  S  I  V  E

and I

BIS                 PRINT

forgot

BRUCE

W

  H

    A

      S

            A

                S

                  E 

                    N

                      TBRUCE

what writers

remember I am me

     ALWAYS

     M E A N S 

I always forget to 

spell his name

b  a  c  k  w  a  r  d  s

      SPEAK

      STONED

correctly   Jimmie     call

please f

        o

         r

          g

           e

            t

             s

              e

               n

                t

                 e

                  n

                   c  SILENCE

                      e HANNAH

                      THATS OCT 12

Jimmie thinks

SECOND PAGE

I'm a fool not

to

      MISS A PAGE

write a second book

Bernadette closes

about him

          explain

suspended

sentence

please be silent

                      structure

I ams giving away

all my secrets

                        darling

B  E  R  N  A  D  E  T  T  E

I am also a writer 

                  Jimmie signed

[The preceding is from Weiner’s Little Books/Indians, Roof Books, 1980.]