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the syllable that opened an eye

$10.50

by Micah Cavaleri

the syllable that opened an eye quickly passes through the history of Western Philosophy, disposing of its empty claims to insight or intelligent reflection on the world. By turning us back to look at language and its very earthy roots as a tool for communication between hungry animals, syllable makes clear that our words may often be nothing more than the grunts of puzzled gorillas. Certainly, our language is not the precision instrument unerringly obeying the laws of logic that philosophers need in order for their problems and conceptual analyses to get off the ground. And so, we are left back at home in the world with a familiar language and a lack of philosophical confusion/insight.

The poetry of the second half takes us into the bird-twitter language that the book insists unravels the most difficult philosophical knots. As readers pass through Mexico, Nicaragua, Greece, somewhere in Africa, China, we feel through the words and spacing and punctuation on the page what is immediately, clearly communicated, rather than working to decode and understand the book’s meaning. The poems demonstrate the anti-philosophy of the opening essay in a way revealing what can be called a mystical atheism, void of metaphysics, soaked in language and the very real world. (Poetry/Philosophy, 58 pages)