By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
'Giving Im' mixes place, object, feet walked, Hollyness, war, stars, harvested eyes, obscure temptation, immigation, couriousity, and tune.
It stays fragmentary while still moving forward. Giving in here reads less like defeat than a shift of scale, from place and object into motion, war, migration, and song.
Titled 'Giving Im,' a fragmentary travel-and-surrender lyric. It records movement without possession - 'I did not make a place / My hand on an object / But I walked that number of feet / Crossed down to where you can / say you have been.' The middle couples sacred and violent registers, 'Hollyness and war / Caught hard against your stars' (source spelling), then drifts through 'Sort eyes harvested' and a clipped catalogue: 'Hurry tempted, obscure, no loss, / a gain of immigation, couriousity.' The close is a near-shrug that reframes giving in as a change of scale into song - 'Anything, anything, / I guess as a tune.' Misspellings (Hollyness, immigation, couriousity) are part of the source texture.