Discoveries

DISCOVERIES IN POETRY

WILDERNESS

Lorine Niedecker

You are the man
You are my other country
And I find it hard going
You are the prickly pear
You are the sudden violent storm
The torrent to raise the river
To float the wounded doe

NYT June 8, 2008

LEAF

Jacob Polley

Vessel of water, vessel of wind:
old yellow eye
lost in the fall, lost in the mind
where the other leaves lie
as leaf by leaf the trees go blind.

TLS Feb.1, 2008

FOR THE COSMONAUTS

Meirion Jordan

I, Yuri Gagarin, having not seen God,
wake now to the scrollwork of a body,
to my own white fibres leafing into the bone:
know that beyond this dome of rain there is
only the nothing where the soul sweers
out its parallax like a distant star and truth
brightens to X, to gamma, through a metal sail.

So I return to you, cramming your pockets
with the atmosphere and the evening news,
fumbling for gardens in the moon's shadow,
in its waterfalls of silence. I wish for you
familiar towns, their piers and amusement arcades
unpeopled at dusk, the unicorn tumbling by
on china hooves behind the high walls
of parks, among congregating lamps.

May you find Earth rising there, between
your steepled hands. May your voyages
end. May you have a cold unfurling
of limbs each morning, when I am fallen
out of the world.

TLS Feb. 29, 2008

LOSING MY HAIR

Wesley McNair

In the old allegory of the wolves
chasing the dog sled across
the tundra in the waning
light of life, I myself
am suddenly the aging man
who must reach inside his chest
to find some failed organ
that might appease them,
though all I have now
to throw over my shoulder

is this small offering that lifts
in the wind when I turn back,
flying apart so high above them
it has nothing to do
with the gathering dark

of their bodies, and their swift
legs that barely touch the snow,
and their cold, patient eyes.

http://www.slate.com/id/2182838

RHETORICAL FIGURES

Tom Christopher

When a sentence is composed of two independent
clauses, the second being weaker than the first,
it is called One-Legged Man Standing. If it
purposefully obscures meaning, it's called Ring
Dropped in Muddy Creek, or if elegant composed,
Wasp Fucking Orchid. There are words behind words,
and half the time our thoughts spraying out like water
from a hose, half the time banging inside ou rheads
like a wren in a house. When a sentence ends
unexpectedly because someone has punched
the speaker in the face, it's Avalanche Sudden.
When instead the speaker is stopped with sloppy
kisses, it's Dripping Cloud. Not to be confused
with Dripping Cone, when someone overturns
the table, or Bird Pecking the Mountain, when
the sentence goes on for an hour and a half and ends
in a shaking death. If the speaker lies in the driveway
so drunk on cheap wine that one listening cannot
get close to the meaning and thus runs away again,
claiming, "For the last time," it's Pregnant Dog
Cooked in Sun. If the speaker sells everything for
an old convertible and drives out into the desert
with untintelligible shouting to the pissed-off stars:
Aching Stones Laughing. Forced incongruent words
are Fishes on Fire, and are beautiful but bring us
no closer to the Truth or the Cosmos or the All,
so either we tour Europe looking for the bodies
of saints or drink all night playing Johnny Cash LPs.
Everything we have said, we have said all our lives.
Same for what we haven't said. Learning the terms
doesn't help, we're still filled over the rim with longing.
Already in the poem there is Clamshell Moon, Barn
House Burning, Cow Lowing the Field, One Hundred
Village Bells, Moth Flurry. Somewhere above, a Torn
Shirt, a Peasant Girl Crying, a Baby Dropped Through
Smoke to Voices Shouting. Not much further a Cat
in Heat, a Wailing Street, and in the end Tree Frogs
Blazing Reeds with Sound.

fron Haydens Ferry Review

MISPRISION

Tony Towle

someone said Sappho could be understood
only through her original tongue
and I said I didn't think so
as educational as that would probably be

someone wrote that Charles VIII
entered France in the 1490s
and I said to myself: I don't think so
he was born many years before that
but he did penetrate Italy in 1494
as far as Naples, and didn't withdraw
for an entire year, which seems extraordinary
by today's standards
but he finally lost virility and everything else
by hitting his head on a doorway in 1498

someone wrote that gardening was a literature
in which scholars nibbled at the edges
of what appeared to be an insurmountable edifice
and I thought that makes perfect sense
nibbling is an authenti scholarly pursuit
and eventually the edifice will get lower and can be surmounted.

somebody said the cretins painted murals
and got out of labyrinths but that seems unlikely
and someone wrote to say it's time for a poetry museum
but I don't understand how anyone could possibly know that
and isn't that what our books are already
glassless vitrines
where you're allowed to run your fingers over the art
or nibble on the implications
or loiter in the white passageways between the lines
hoping to meet the lenders to the exhibition

from LIT

NEWTON: Questions from the Optics
(1671)

Hannah Baker

UNTIL the earth be dissolved by the water - I know no body less apt to shine
than water - and separated into smaller particles'

IT SEEMS TO BE all bodies are either hard or may be hardened - even the rays of light seem
to be hard bodies - for otherwise fluids would not congeal, as water, oils, vinegar, and spirit

of vitriol do by freezing, mercury by fumes of lead, spirit of niter and mercury by evaporating
the flegm, and spirit of urine and spirit of salt by subliming them to make sal armoniac;

IT SEEMS TO BE this crystal polishes better upon pitch or leather or parchment
and must be rubbed with a little oil or white of an egg, to fill up its scratches,

whereby it will become very transparent and polite - but for several experiments,
it is not necessary to polish it;

IT SEEMS TO BE of no use, and he heavens
are much emptier of air than any vacuum we can make below;

IT SEEMS TO BE salts are of a lasting nature, being scarce destroyed,
for in the universe, there are many mansions;

IT SEEMS TO BE, but these things cannot be explained in a few words,
flies walk upon the water without wetting their feet.

TLS, December 12, 2006.

PREVIOUS DISCOVERIES

WILDERNESS Lorine Niedecker You are the man You are my other country And I find it hard going You are the prickly pear You are the sudden violent storm The torrent to raise the river To float the wounded doe NYT June 8, 2008	LEAF Jacob Polley Vessel of water, vessel of wind: old yellow eye lost in the fall, lost in the mind where the other leaves lie as leaf by leaf the trees go blind. TLS Feb.1, 2008
FOR THE COSMONAUTS Meirion Jordan I, Yuri Gagarin, having not seen God, wake now to the scrollwork of a body, to my own white fibres leafing into the bone: know that beyond this dome of rain there is only the nothing where the soul sweers out its parallax like a distant star and truth brightens to X, to gamma, through a metal sail. So I return to you, cramming your pockets with the atmosphere and the evening news, fumbling for gardens in the moon's shadow, in its waterfalls of silence. I wish for you familiar towns, their piers and amusement arcades unpeopled at dusk, the unicorn tumbling by on china hooves behind the high walls of parks, among congregating lamps. May you find Earth rising there, between your steepled hands. May your voyages end. May you have a cold unfurling of limbs each morning, when I am fallen out of the world. TLS Feb. 29, 2008	LOSING MY HAIR Wesley McNair In the old allegory of the wolves chasing the dog sled across the tundra in the waning light of life, I myself am suddenly the aging man who must reach inside his chest to find some failed organ that might appease them, though all I have now to throw over my shoulder is this small offering that lifts in the wind when I turn back, flying apart so high above them it has nothing to do with the gathering dark of their bodies, and their swift legs that barely touch the snow, and their cold, patient eyes. http://www.slate.com/id/2182838
RHETORICAL FIGURES Tom Christopher When a sentence is composed of two independent clauses, the second being weaker than the first, it is called One-Legged Man Standing. If it purposefully obscures meaning, it's called Ring Dropped in Muddy Creek, or if elegant composed, Wasp Fucking Orchid. There are words behind words, and half the time our thoughts spraying out like water from a hose, half the time banging inside ou rheads like a wren in a house. When a sentence ends unexpectedly because someone has punched the speaker in the face, it's Avalanche Sudden. When instead the speaker is stopped with sloppy kisses, it's Dripping Cloud. Not to be confused with Dripping Cone, when someone overturns the table, or Bird Pecking the Mountain, when the sentence goes on for an hour and a half and ends in a shaking death. If the speaker lies in the driveway so drunk on cheap wine that one listening cannot get close to the meaning and thus runs away again, claiming, "For the last time," it's Pregnant Dog Cooked in Sun. If the speaker sells everything for an old convertible and drives out into the desert with untintelligible shouting to the pissed-off stars: Aching Stones Laughing. Forced incongruent words are Fishes on Fire, and are beautiful but bring us no closer to the Truth or the Cosmos or the All, so either we tour Europe looking for the bodies of saints or drink all night playing Johnny Cash LPs. Everything we have said, we have said all our lives. Same for what we haven't said. Learning the terms doesn't help, we're still filled over the rim with longing. Already in the poem there is Clamshell Moon, Barn House Burning, Cow Lowing the Field, One Hundred Village Bells, Moth Flurry. Somewhere above, a Torn Shirt, a Peasant Girl Crying, a Baby Dropped Through Smoke to Voices Shouting. Not much further a Cat in Heat, a Wailing Street, and in the end Tree Frogs Blazing Reeds with Sound. fron Haydens Ferry Review	MISPRISION Tony Towle someone said Sappho could be understood only through her original tongue and I said I didn't think so as educational as that would probably be someone wrote that Charles VIII entered France in the 1490s and I said to myself: I don't think so he was born many years before that but he did penetrate Italy in 1494 as far as Naples, and didn't withdraw for an entire year, which seems extraordinary by today's standards but he finally lost virility and everything else by hitting his head on a doorway in 1498 someone wrote that gardening was a literature in which scholars nibbled at the edges of what appeared to be an insurmountable edifice and I thought that makes perfect sense nibbling is an authenti scholarly pursuit and eventually the edifice will get lower and can be surmounted. somebody said the cretins painted murals and got out of labyrinths but that seems unlikely and someone wrote to say it's time for a poetry museum but I don't understand how anyone could possibly know that and isn't that what our books are already glassless vitrines where you're allowed to run your fingers over the art or nibble on the implications or loiter in the white passageways between the lines hoping to meet the lenders to the exhibition from LIT
NEWTON: Questions from the Optics (1671) Hannah Baker UNTIL the earth be dissolved by the water - I know no body less apt to shine than water - and separated into smaller particles' IT SEEMS TO BE all bodies are either hard or may be hardened - even the rays of light seem to be hard bodies - for otherwise fluids would not congeal, as water, oils, vinegar, and spirit of vitriol do by freezing, mercury by fumes of lead, spirit of niter and mercury by evaporating the flegm, and spirit of urine and spirit of salt by subliming them to make sal armoniac; IT SEEMS TO BE this crystal polishes better upon pitch or leather or parchment and must be rubbed with a little oil or white of an egg, to fill up its scratches, whereby it will become very transparent and polite - but for several experiments, it is not necessary to polish it; IT SEEMS TO BE of no use, and he heavens are much emptier of air than any vacuum we can make below; IT SEEMS TO BE salts are of a lasting nature, being scarce destroyed, for in the universe, there are many mansions; IT SEEMS TO BE, but these things cannot be explained in a few words, flies walk upon the water without wetting their feet. TLS, December 12, 2006.