DAVID HERD
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| Kevin Townsend |
‘The question is how does one hold an apple
Who likes apples’
—George Oppen, ‘The Gesture’
‘The way the combination is made is an example
of what Deleuze and Guattari call consistency—
not in the sense of a homogeneity, but as a holding
together of disparate elements (also known as a “style”).’
—Brian Massumi
1
We might want to think about this question of holding. Maybe we want to notice that it goes
to the limit. This is true: that what we hold, and how we hold it, is a limit on us. It is an
ethical question, this question of style.
2
It is complicated in the case of apples. If one does like apples, how does one hold an apple in
such a way that the apple, not the holding, is what gets shown? For Oppen it is a question for
poetry. ‘The question is,’ as he puts it, ‘when will there not be a hundred/ Poets who mistake
that gesture/ For a style.’
Oppen is shrewd, and also wrong. If style is an exercise of radical will – the assertion of an
individuality – then we might agree that a gesture is preferable to a style. We might agree
that gesture and style were different. We might nod towards the apple. That’s that.
Go further though. Consider disparate elements. Consider disparate elements held together.
Consider that the holding is not necessary, that it is an intellectual act. The elements held
together are an instance of style.
Style is a holding of disparate elements.
Not apples, elements. The question is: which?
3
It is complicated in the case of people. In Giorgio Agamben’s State of Exception, Giorgio
Agamben writes about holding. He writes about States and what they hold; about those they
don’t hold: the state of exception.
Everybody is held, and everybody not held is also held. The state of exception is a special
kind of holding; a place (though not always a place) where those not held by the State are
held.
Style is a relation with elements not ourselves.
More after the break, or read it (in a nicer pdf version) via Almost Island.
