Welcome. Out of Its Wooden Brain is written by me, RM Haines, a poet and essayist who runs a small press, Dead Mall. By subscribing, you’ll receive my poems and essays, with thoughts on literature, publishing, and capitalism—w/some music & film writing thrown in too. I also sometimes share translations and have been working on Tristan Tzara’s epic surrealist poem, L’Homme approximatif (Approximate Man, 1931). I also have a bookstore on the blog, where I self-publish small books of poetry. Paid subscribers get discounts on my books along with other perks, including access to the archive.
What’s up with the name?
“Out of Its Wooden Brain” is a phrase appearing in volume one of Marx’s CAPITAL. There, in writing about the bizarre, transformative effect that commodification has on material objects, he states:
[As a wooden table] emerges as a commodity, it changes into a thing which transcends sensuousness. It not only stands with its feet on the ground, but, in relation to all other commodities, it stands on its head, and evolves out of its wooden brain grotesque ideas, far more wonderful than if it were to begin dancing of its own free will.
This convergence of psyche and matter, especially when effected via commodity form, has become an essential idea for me. And as plenty of what is written here will discuss imagination, psychic distortions, capitalism, and the materiality and commodification of art, it seems to be as good a way as any of orienting this project.
