the poem demands attention: a silence otherwise mistaken

It strikes me that we read a poem differently from text than we do when we read a poem for workshop. There's a way in which we begin to care more fully about the workshop piece; as though the white fabric-wood woven somehow represents a sliver of the poet's life, whether biographical or not.

I do feel this way, sometimes when I read a "published" work; and given, I don't always feel this way about a workshop poem. But there is a sense with a workshop poem that we do feel the obligation of taking the time to get to know the poem, to get to know the voice behind the poem (not necessarily the poet), in order to better listen to what we need to hear--to be able to differentiate the whisper of what the poem is or needs to be.

Peter Riley's, A Map of Faring

I've been reading A Map of Faring to get a better understanding of Riley's work before he reads tomorrow. Readings inevitably have their own sort of feel, but I am not at all familiar with Peter Riley and thought it a good idea to meet him in verse before seeing him in person.

Here's a few lines I found of interest:

from "First Sett":

"quiet breathing slowly devolving thought" (p. 5, l. 2)

"Everything I do is that song's descant." (p. 6, l. 15)

"Human image, arms outspread--sign" (p. 9, l. 1)

"The pictures on the wall, I can't
remember the pictures on the wall
you shadows, reaching
into life." (p. 10, l. 1-4)

"The image stands out from the wall,
solid, indicative, moves
almost. The earth moves.
The body fades. Is helped
into the earth." (p. 13, l. 4-8)

"saying the word, Africa,
into the night." (p. 14, l. 6-7)

"realised by light, thin taper" (p. 15, l. 2)

"Dark, you came and sat beside me
I lost half my wing, on waking
the sky was a dome in the rock, the wren
screamed past its entrance." (p.16, l. 4-7)

"By the thin light, watched
by the dead man, writing
new words in the old book." (p. 18, l. 1-3)

"love is an ordered thing, requiring" (p. 19, l. 2)

"Butterfly on the lemon balm,
gentle drumming, my
worst fears, my sweet rest." (p. 22, l. 13-15)

from "Second Sett":

"I, or whoever this language pauses at,
pause again, where the railway crosses the road,
the slow fire threaded through lives
the aromatic smoke above the roofs
the dusty hands that hold hope forth" (p. 26, l. 6-10)

"all over the valley, tomorrow's loaves
waiting like moons, like slow clocks." (p. 33, l. 3-4)

from "Terezin":

"The world stands. Visitor, reader,
be quiet, learn to die. Lover of sleep,
learn to fall, into a small space
with a plaque on the wall saying: HERE...
This place, this grassy ground where it swells
here against the wall. Was brought here.
And forty thousand more, one by one." (p. 48, l. 1-7)

Sweet picture of Olson

I found a sweet picture of Charles Olson from some random flickr page, but couldn't for whatever reason post it here; it's called "Olson, Dust, Stems" by some person by the name of Stewingham: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stewingham/110486579/. I could SnagIt, but decided if I couldn't save it for my background, dude probably didn't want me to...whatever. Still a good picture.

Anywho, here's another site full o' Olson; the picture in upper-right of this post is from this website: http://charlesolson.uconn.edu/Photographs/selectphotos.cfm?SeriesID=2

Taken at Black Mountain by Jonathan Williams in 1951.

a beginning

The only way to start is to write; I hesitate in this space...the artifice of light and emptiness: not even ink, no scratch across the page, yet a space. Perhaps more space, as neither space nor thing. Radio waves, at least, drift beyond--echoing forward what was and is behind: a call outward from center. In a strange way, this is both an act forward and an act inward...an audience of self, or merely observer of self attempting to be written.

Regardless, it strikes me that blogs are retrospective. There's a way in which these words will become the last read, this first post will be read at end; those "newer" posts read first, the reader making their way forward to the very back, in the way old food remains on the shelf as the newer boxes are sold and replaced by even newer boxes, the old ones pushed further and further back in the seat of darkness and dust.

Though whether beginning or end, one always has the sense of having started in the middle. Mmm...an epic turn for a blog-creature, a thing made of ash and bytes, and a bit of mind-slog for measure.