[O'Hara translation 7]

These expressions amuse
me. Tremulous, and graced. They

do things to things' others. As:
to fall a saying, to slump

an ogle, to groan an
only, to if a whether. Did

every plummet sound? Direr
and dearer than that, even. I

should have studied
each tiniest word — cast-

off and cut-out. "How simply
it sounds as it sounds," and easy.

Some suddenly, it hooted,
and suddenly, it parted.

Suddenly, it startles.






[Material in quotes comes from Gertrude Stein's "What is English Literature," the first text in Lectures in America.]