It was their intention to present things in their thinginess….
—J.C. Ransom, on the Imagists
But if you could isolate
the thinginess
from its thing
the distillate
would be as abstract
as the slapback echo
of just-plucked strings
in the King’s Ur-recordings
for Sun Studios,
or the pushback
of a Coke can
before it gives
way to your compacting grip.
Thinginess is the width
times length times height
that boosts babies up
to the eye-lines
of grownups at dinner.
It’s the doorstopper-
ability of phonebooks,
the necessary tubing
that defines
the nothing blowing
thru ducts.
It’s the word “through”
spelled with “u.”
It’s all such
pure products.
Jason Guriel (Canada, 1978 -), from Pure Product. Montréal, Québec: Véhicule Press, 2009
To buy the book: http://www.vehiculepress.com/q.php?EAN=9781550652543
Source: http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poems/thinginess
RPO (Representative Poetry Online) is a project and archive by University of Toronto Libraries – you can browse poets and poems with multiple search criteria, including map.
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Cover image: Douglas Coupland, Tsunami Chest, 2013 (Plywood, steel, Japanese tsunami debris harvested from the north coast beaches of Haida Gwaii – 110.5 x 197.5 x 62.9 cm), courtesy Daniel Faria Art Gallery.
To discover more artworks of this writer: http://danielfariagallery.com/artists/douglas-coupland
To learn about Douglas Coupland: https://www.coupland.com/about