A Tale of Tube-Tailed Thrips

Ever since my early acquaintance with French poet Francis Ponge's object poems, initially throught the work of Robert Bly who translated and interpreted some of these poems, subsequently through the work of poets like Thomas R. Smith who took up the form in English and through the work of other translators (especially those with less poetic agenda than Bly who tends to bend the poems and interpretations—somewhat—to his own purpose, stressing a Jungian connection between poet and object).

The following passage from the poem 'Banks of the Loire,' the opening poem of Ponge's Mute Objects of Expression (Archipelago Press, 2012). As the lead off poem in this collection, it takes on the role of poetic manifesto. A manifesto not only for this kind of Pongian text, but for the objects of natural history.

The object is always more important, more interesting, more capable (full of rights): it has no duty what so ever toward me, it is I who am obliged to it.
– Francis Ponge (translated by Lee Fahnestock)

The Scottish philosopher David Hume, writing upon a different topic, that of pride and humility, discusses objects from a different, yet I think relevant, angle, that of joy and pleasure. But also the fickleness of our valuation of objects, and the often mistaken evaluation of an object's true merit.

’Tis a quality observable in human nature, and which we shall endeavour to explain afterwards, that every thing, which is often presented, and to which we have been long accustom’d, loses its value in our eyes, and is in a little time despis’d and neglected. We likewise judge of objects more from comparison than from their real and intrinsic merit; and where we cannot by some contrast enhance their value, we are apt to overlook even what is essentially good in them. These qualities of the mind have an effect upon joy as well as pride; and ’tis remarkable, that goods, which are common to all mankind, and have become familiar to us by custom, give us little satisfaction; tho’ perhaps of a more excellent kind, than those on which, for their singularity, we set a much higher value. But tho’ this circumstance operates on both these passions, it has a much greater influence on vanity. We are rejoic’d for many goods, which, on account of their frequency, give us no pride. Health, when it returns after a long absence, affords us a very sensible satisfaction; but is seldom regarded as a subject of vanity, because ’tis shar’d with such vast numbers.
– David Hume, from A Treatise of Human Nature

I prefer to consider natural history observations and the objects of those observations, the plants and animals, whether written out or recorded by camera, to agree in broad ways with these two viewpoints of David Hume and Francis Ponge. While I try, like Ponge, to put the object first, to subtract the self from the equation and avoid issues of pride, I also go all in for the sensory experience, the joy of close observation and the satisfaction of learning.

Even though it is little valued, possibly even "despis'd and neglected," Common Mullein has to be one of our fanciest weeds, and certainly our softest. Some of its many common names are tiny object poems, the likes of which Francis Ponge might approve: Wooly Mullein, Poor Man's Blanket, Feltwort, Flannel Plant, and Fleece Weed ( I just made this one up). The basal rosettes of the Common Mullein I found this afternoon were warm to the touch, sun-drenched. I fingered the fuzzy petals, pulling back the messy outer ones to reveal the protected, lotus like inner petals. Tiny, black specks moved slowly across the soft, fibrous leaves. Tube-tailed Thrips, dozens of them. The largest of these miniscule insects had to stretch to measure two millimeters. We don't "overlook even what is essentially good in them" but mostly overlook them entirely due to their small size.

Posted on February 14, 2017 05:22 AM by scottking