{"id":15869,"date":"2018-02-12T13:39:35","date_gmt":"2018-02-12T17:39:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=15869"},"modified":"2018-02-12T13:39:35","modified_gmt":"2018-02-12T17:39:35","slug":"gerrit-lansing-february-25-1928-february-11-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/gerrit-lansing-february-25-1928-february-11-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Gerrit Lansing (February 25, 1928-February 11, 2018)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Portrait of Gerrit Lansing by Jane Freilicher<\/p><\/div>\n


\n<\/a>Gerrit Lansing, poet, scholar, friend, passed away peacefully this past night. A man of wider & deeper knowledge than almost anyone I have known, Gerrit was as familiar with, and brought as much care to contemporary poetry & poetics than to older literatures, to the traditionary sciences than to modern science, to the making of music than to the preparing of food. A conversationalist sans pareil<\/em>,\u00a0he moved with grace, enthusiasm & profound savoir<\/em> & savoir-faire<\/em> from, say, a poet such as Henry Vaughn to his friend Charles Olson, or from the likes of John Dee to the likes of Harry Smith, or from Roland Barthes to Stephen Jonas \u2014 and knew the traceries that connected all of them.<\/p>\n

\u201ca writ is a route\u201d he wrote in his great alchemical sequence \u201cThe Soluble Forest,\u201d and he traced his route in one book, one gathering of poems, added to over time, re-published in time, and that started out in 1966 with the first immanentisation of The Heavenly Tree Grows Downward<\/em> by Robert & Joby Kelly\u2019s matter books. Jane Freilicher\u2019s portrait of Lansing reproduced above was the frontispiece of that book. Here, two poems of Gerrit\u2019s:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

THE HEAVENLY TREE GROWS DOWNWARD<\/p>\n

Who bury the dead<\/p>\n

must from the grave<\/p>\n

establish a habit<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Who bury the dead<\/p>\n

lead forth the bride<\/p>\n

stainless in dress<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

the morning-<\/p>\n

glory creeps<\/p>\n

stone<\/p>\n

lizard<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Who bury the dead<\/p>\n

in fetal position<\/p>\n

knees pulled up to chin<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Who bury the dead<\/p>\n

to rise again<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

from THE SOLUBLE FOREST:<\/p>\n

IV.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 A WRIT is a route, a way and the map of a way. It figures and we make it our figure, you make of it your figure, I make it of mine. It is mind, and no mind, inner and dinner and outer and doubter.<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Doubtless these figures are crystal.<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0From the center something spreads out, that then there now. From zero jumps two, two being how something is apprehended. Only a stone\u2019s throw from writing to root. The rite of winter is the root of spring.<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0The house stands on its cellar and grows up: Also grows down from its garrett invisibly, as the crown of a tree flourishes the idea of its root.<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Shine, heaven, darken and shine, that the process may stir as things emerge from the void of no-thing. It is plenty. All around us the letters are cast, to be spelt, to be sown like spelt, grain of the garment unseen as green as it makes it.<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Do you, do I?<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Time now to go read Gerrit again. For those new to his work, here is a link to the poetry gathered in Heavenly Tree, Northern Earth<\/em><\/a>, & here a link to A February Sheaf<\/em><\/a>, essays, reviews, proses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gerrit Lansing, poet, scholar, friend, passed away peacefully this past night. A man of wider & deeper knowledge than almost anyone I have known, Gerrit was as familiar with, and brought as much care...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1114,76,91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-homage","category-obituaries","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15869"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15880,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15869\/revisions\/15880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}