new review of dadada and locket at triplopia

yes my parrot ate my shift key

http://www.triplopia.org/inside.cfm/ct/462

isn't great how control + v is paste????

in any case, yet another thoughtful review of my books

it has got me thinking -- I don't want to respond directly, except to note that my uncle, Neal Skowbo, who is responsible for paying for many of my art, french, and piano lessons in addition to buying me loads of books including those formative ones of james joyce, marianne moore, hans christian anderson, and william butler yeats, was the first to point out that possible the most unfriendly-to-the-reader poems I could have begun da3 with were "in the beginning" and "last words" (friends, these are online at cauldron & net), which are every first word of every piece in the norton anthology of poetry second edition and every last word from the same anthology. "Ae Ye Scots" -- that's Burns.

no, the piece has me wanting to write about sound and word play (ok, also getting ready for these readings / appearances); the reasons I asked who I asked to write stuff on my books. It was very important to me to have Annie Finch because although she is challenged by poetic meter and form and I resist certain types of Rule and Order, I do feel that some of the word play and sound in locket represents a similar torque applied to "plain speech," whatever that is, as form and meter sometimes torque

[Tomás de Torquemada was the first spanish inquisitor -- no one expects the spanish inquisition]

and, while a few poems in that book do display what some call the ghost of meter, notably the lionel trilling poem, I feel a lot of them are subbing in world play or reference to lyricism (the riddle poems)

it being equally important to have Janet Holmes mentioning lyricism and the 21st century to me

while on DaDaDa, Adenna Karasick writes about the relation of systems as rooted in sound, which is closer to what I mean, since in her stellar word play, like mine, I feel, the sound is always part of the meaning, and vice versa, esp. important when attempting to communicate, or fashion communication

in other words, "special" language -- and language in poetry is always special -- always calls attention to itself; that call may or may not be part of the layers of meaning imparted thereby, but why shouldn't it be? why shouldn't every aspect of a poem mean something?

Comments

Anonymous said…
What a wonderful invention it is, this thing we call the Internet!
Gene Justice said…
Catherine,

Actually, I'm glad the review got you thinking. It was a bit nerve-wracking to write it up, and I found myself more than usually worried about what the author's response might be. That it is occasion for further thought pleases me more than you can probably know.

As mentioned in the review, I'm looking forward to reading the next book.

--Gene @ Triplopia
Anonymous said…
The parrot and I have made a deal. He stays off my desk and PC...in exchange for which he can happily consume walls, doors, furniture, books, etc.

I didn't say it was really a fair deal.

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