Check it: http://architravepress.storenvy.com/products/329442-the-language-laughter-studio-by-kristen-elde
I'm quite pleased w/ how it all came out--the words, the pressing of letters, Jennifer's (editor's) perfectly apt description of my poem...
(It's nice to feel Gotten, wouldn't you agree?)
And be sure to read the others in the collection--strong stuff!
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Friday, April 27, 2012
Horses at Midnight Without a Moon
Our heart wanders lost in the dark woods.
Our dream wrestles in the castle of doubt.
But there's music in us. Hope is pushed down
but the angel flies up again taking us with her.
The summer mornings begin inch by inch
while we sleep, and walk with us later
as long-legged beauty through
the dirty streets. It is no surprise
that danger and suffering surround us.
What astonishes is the singing.
We know the horses are there in the dark
meadow because we can smell them,
can hear them breathing.
Our spirit persists like a man struggling
through the frozen valley
who suddenly smells flowers
and realizes the snow is melting
out of sight on top of the mountain,
knows that spring has begun.
--Jack Gilbert
Our dream wrestles in the castle of doubt.
But there's music in us. Hope is pushed down
but the angel flies up again taking us with her.
The summer mornings begin inch by inch
while we sleep, and walk with us later
as long-legged beauty through
the dirty streets. It is no surprise
that danger and suffering surround us.
What astonishes is the singing.
We know the horses are there in the dark
meadow because we can smell them,
can hear them breathing.
Our spirit persists like a man struggling
through the frozen valley
who suddenly smells flowers
and realizes the snow is melting
out of sight on top of the mountain,
knows that spring has begun.
--Jack Gilbert
Saturday, April 21, 2012
The Dancers Inherit the Party
When I have talked for an hour I feel lousy
Not so when I have danced for an hour:
The dancers inherit the party
While the talkers wear themselves out and
sit in corners alone, and glower.
--Ian Hamilton Finlay
Not so when I have danced for an hour:
The dancers inherit the party
While the talkers wear themselves out and
sit in corners alone, and glower.
--Ian Hamilton Finlay
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Poetry in Time of War
I want to forget their names, the generals,
advisors, puppet rulers,
the puffed-up and the brought-low,
I want not to know them,
not hear their plans, their excuses,
the President and the President's men,
the Pope with his white smoke for voodoo,
the suits, ties, teeth, insignia,
the guns, the names of trucks and weapons.
I want to forget them all,
to be washed of them,
to begin again: where no one knows who anyone is,
or what he believes.
To give my attention to:
frangipani leaves uncurling,
the smell of jasmine,
one person helping another across a street;
to the seeds,
to the beginnings; to one clear word for which
there is no disguise and no alternative.
--Rosalind Brackenbury
advisors, puppet rulers,
the puffed-up and the brought-low,
I want not to know them,
not hear their plans, their excuses,
the President and the President's men,
the Pope with his white smoke for voodoo,
the suits, ties, teeth, insignia,
the guns, the names of trucks and weapons.
I want to forget them all,
to be washed of them,
to begin again: where no one knows who anyone is,
or what he believes.
To give my attention to:
frangipani leaves uncurling,
the smell of jasmine,
one person helping another across a street;
to the seeds,
to the beginnings; to one clear word for which
there is no disguise and no alternative.
--Rosalind Brackenbury
Monday, April 16, 2012
Getting Words In
In a circle of several, with vocals,
it can be hard to know when to go.
One pipes up, stops abrupt—
then begins again as though
there was no pause to speak of.
(Where’s the entry point there?)
From here on, I grant a wide berth
to a guy who seems to ask it.
But wouldn’t you know, there are
other arrangements, unforeseen.
Take this woman, essence of ease:
she’s just completed our guy’s
sentence. And this other one,
a kind of verbal cake decorator,
capping crumb, icing untidy edges
(false starts, awkward interruptions)
with effortless pastel grace.
He just knows his place.
And then there’s me,
waving around a big knife,
shearing sharings—lopping off
syllables, even whole words,
at first indication of trailing.
That, or just not saying.
This doesn’t even bring us
to the hazards of explaining.
it can be hard to know when to go.
One pipes up, stops abrupt—
then begins again as though
there was no pause to speak of.
(Where’s the entry point there?)
From here on, I grant a wide berth
to a guy who seems to ask it.
But wouldn’t you know, there are
other arrangements, unforeseen.
Take this woman, essence of ease:
she’s just completed our guy’s
sentence. And this other one,
a kind of verbal cake decorator,
capping crumb, icing untidy edges
(false starts, awkward interruptions)
with effortless pastel grace.
He just knows his place.
And then there’s me,
waving around a big knife,
shearing sharings—lopping off
syllables, even whole words,
at first indication of trailing.
That, or just not saying.
This doesn’t even bring us
to the hazards of explaining.
--me
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Notes from a Composition Book, 1967
The world is in my head. My body is in the world.
The world has no objective existence. It exists insofar as we are able to perceive it. And our perceptions are necessarily limited. Which means that the world has a limit, that it stops somewhere. But where it stops for me is not necessarily where it stops for you.
No theory of art (if it is possible) can be divorced from a theory of human perception.
But not only are our perceptions limited, language (our means of expressing those perceptions) is also limited.
Language is not experience. It is a means of organizing experience.
What, then, is the experience of language? It gives us the world and takes it away from us. In the same breath.
The fall of man is not a question of sin, transgression, or moral turpitude. It is a question of language conquering experience: the fall of the world into the word, experience descending from the eye to the mouth. A distance of about three inches.
Faith in the word is what I call Classical. Doubt in the word is what I call Romantic. The Classicist believes in the future. The Romantic knows that he will be disappointed, that his desires will never be fulfilled. For he believes that the world is ineffable, beyond the grasp of words.
To feel estranged from language is to lose your own body. When words fail you, you dissolve into an image of nothingness. You disappear.
--Paul Auster
The world has no objective existence. It exists insofar as we are able to perceive it. And our perceptions are necessarily limited. Which means that the world has a limit, that it stops somewhere. But where it stops for me is not necessarily where it stops for you.
No theory of art (if it is possible) can be divorced from a theory of human perception.
But not only are our perceptions limited, language (our means of expressing those perceptions) is also limited.
Language is not experience. It is a means of organizing experience.
What, then, is the experience of language? It gives us the world and takes it away from us. In the same breath.
The fall of man is not a question of sin, transgression, or moral turpitude. It is a question of language conquering experience: the fall of the world into the word, experience descending from the eye to the mouth. A distance of about three inches.
Faith in the word is what I call Classical. Doubt in the word is what I call Romantic. The Classicist believes in the future. The Romantic knows that he will be disappointed, that his desires will never be fulfilled. For he believes that the world is ineffable, beyond the grasp of words.
To feel estranged from language is to lose your own body. When words fail you, you dissolve into an image of nothingness. You disappear.
--Paul Auster
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