excerpt from upcoming print issue 36.5
excerpt:
Doug —April 21, 2000
April of 2000, the first thing that quote happened
in this time period I'm reflecting . . . upon? or as
the poet says, being reflected upon.
The agency for thought requires does it inter-
action with the unseen is think-
ing taught does it start and stop Do I think a dream?
One thing we did while he was so ill
was trance work together, lying in bed when
he wasn't in hospital — I was using trance to
write Benediction And we would say what the vision
was together each contributing its details a dwelling
at night with a lamp e.g. Or there was a field of folk he said
And would see it, both of us, as real. As:
“these were people in a field. there was a rose petal on
each's forehead but it was later a ruby towards the
end of the vision. first we'd entered and stood in a cave . . .”
And I saw the parts he put in and he saw what I put —
we were treating his pain and trying to — be
together in experience which became as real as
a dream dreamed is, dream as real as life with-
out time. Where does thought come from in you?
Alice Notley is a celebrated poet and the author of over 40 books of poetry. She lives in Paris.