Thanks, Sheila. Happy to hear these are hitting 'a chord' (accord?!) with you.
They be fun.
Be well with your own flock of syllables!
Stephen
Sheila Murphy <[log in to unmask]> wrote: this is glorious, Stephen. I really like what you are doing, and what a
great source point! Sheila
On Sat, Mar 15, 2008 at 3:04 PM, Stephen Vincent
wrote:
> The cedar dies
> from the top,
> the prisoner dies
> in the pit
> Of nine strong bonds
> I've worn out eight
> the ninth one
> wearies me.
> Prisoners' Song from the Hungarian
> Trevor Joyce, What's in Store (Gig / New Writers Press, 2008)
>
>
> Good-by old man
> Turn the key
> Darkness is not your friend
> The willows bend
>
>
> Knock, knock, dear Reaper
> Open the black door
> Kill the cat
> Jump over me.
>
>
> Stephen Vincent, Untitled poem from the English of Trevor Joyce's
> Prisoner Song in Folk Songs from the Hungarian.
>
>
> Lately I have dropped my 'sweet reed', that is my Haptic making
> Faber-Castel India ink brush, to pick up various ball-point pens, filling my
> journal pages with a series of poems in a project I call Trellis. The
> writing process is built on metrical patterns from which I have copied
> frompoems by Trevor Joyce in his recent, and I think, brilliant volume,
> What's In Store [If you not read my new review of the work, it's published
> in Galatea Resurrects #9]
> With a Trevor poem, I simply match the line count, and then pair the
> lines either by their word count, or syllable count. I do closely read the
> originating poem and, sometimes, my content will mirror and comment on
> Trevor's content, though, often any thematic relationship is, at best,
> oblique or not there at all. Trevor's poems give my pieces a formal frame on
> which to rise and make words that fit. As with Trevor's work, his forms
> compel a making that is similar to the challenges faced by a stone mason
> where the stones first need to be chosen in a way that will fit the
> structure. Imagination comes in to play as a means to pick words with an
> appropriate texture, color, etc. Those choices make the difference between a
> dull or interesting poem.
>
>
> The excitement of this kind of making is that the poem's formal structure
> may provoke content/rhythms & a 'music' that in turns - sometimes an abrupt
> torque - may constantly surprise. What's opened up on the page is, ideally,
> revelatory to both maker and reader. How this process is similar to
> surrealist and Ouilipo exercises, I suspect, has been discussed elsewhere.
> It does not interest me to go there right now. I am have too much obsessive
> fun watching new stuff pop out of the hat.
>
> Gone
> Sure blessing
> Cross without nails
>
> Beauty burns
> Such holes
>
>
> Backwards
> In bunches
>
>
> Braided
> Gold silk
>
>
> Slender throat
> Enamel
> White collar
>
>
> She
> Does not
> Belong to God
>
> Nor witness
>
>
> Blue silk
> Angels
> The sky pumped
> Clouded
>
>
> Pure
> Crimson.
>
> ("Binging away" on several in a row, I forgot to note the poem from where
> I got the formal count and arrangement on this one!)
>
> Appreciate your comments.
>
>
>
>
> Stephen Vincent
> http://stephenvincent.net/blog/
>
>
>
> Comments (0)
>
>
