126 contemporary poetry
Enters the EVERY HOST
dragging a badl Eg
Finally!
So that the inspiration for such thoughts
becomes visible through the navel in order
To take advantage of the interior mechanism
run through the thoughts retained of little girls
as a panorama deep in the belly
revealed by multicoloured electric
illumination^62The openness of Bergvall’s text enables multiple interpretations,
but one might suggest that references to the ‘HOST’ and ‘inspira-
tion’ draw some strong kernel words from Catholic doctrine and
practice. Against this we have the viscerality of the ‘navel’, possibly
even a challenge to ideas of an immaculate conception. There are
suggestions here of human reproduction: one has only to consider
the ‘little girls’, ‘badl’ – possibly ‘badly’ – and ‘eg’ – maybe ovum.
Another critic may fi nd alternate readings, as Drew Milne states
that Bergvall’s poems work ‘both as residues of performance
poetics and as scripts for performative interpretation’. This in turn
‘generates ambiguities for readers more used to studying texts in
order to establish an ideal or fi nalised close reading’.^63 Certainly,
if we follow through on our initial reading there is an equivocation
here between the idea of spiritual inspiration and the synthesised
rainbow colours of an ‘electric illumination’.
To borrow from Barthes, Bergvall delights in the ‘voluptuous-
ness’ in the soundings of languages. One section of Goan Atom
orchestrates a multilingual play between verbs, as well as reintro-
ducing deconstructions of gender and the intrusions of scientifi c
cloning. Sonic association links this patterning of phonemes in the
text:
Forte love
Forte loot
o found ConCubicles
Some Fav affemmée
an Ourite’s Belle