I get poetry month

[tamaravining]

Thanks to sculpin I sent away (from her posting on March 14th) to Copper Canyon Press for free books for "Poems Aloud", their group poetry promotion, and received this week "Unraveling at the Name" by Jenny Factor. Thanks sculpin!

I love the names of poems, and usually don't have trouble naming my own, but sometimes I call the poem so long by it's working title that it just becomes that name. Here is the section One from the Contents page of that book. I usually read the contents and then, if the names are descriptive, sometimes I don't read the poem for awhile. It's like the name of the poem holds this promise and an implied direction or focus of thought. Sometimes the Contents page creates a poem of its own.

  
3	Conciliation
6	Summer Journal, Israel (Age 19)
8	To Twenty Canada Geese
	in the Palisades Industrial Park
10	Unstable Singularities
12	Extramarital. . .
16	Happenstance
17	Swing Time
18	An Uncommon Coupling
22	Mermaid’s Wedding License
23	Unraveling at the Name
31	Mating of Horseshoe Crabs

Comments

[pnh.livejournal.com]

Hell, "Extramarital... / Happenstance / Swing Time / An Uncommon Coupling" isn't just a poem, it's a short story. ("Mermaid's Wedding License" may be the sequel.)

[tamiam.livejournal.com]

I have a wall hanging given to me by an artist friend, given because I was the only one who saw a complete story spelled out. It is sort of tapa cloth with 23 small wooden rectangles attached, making a 3D effect, and on each (3 columns of 7 with 2 off set from the columns at the bottom) tile there is a symbol, though no earthly symbol. Could be alien shorthand like the international symbols for things like restroom and eat here. Well, OK, there is one recognizable bear paw print, and a possible symbol for pi, and maybe a forest, but the rest is pretty alien. I look at poetry that way sometimes, too, and see whole stories in a few words.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

Trust me, geese are definitely unstable singularities.

Mating

[tamiam.livejournal.com]

Do they mate for life? And who is watching those mating horseshoe crabs, anyway? This section seems to be about mating. Something I think I gave up long ago. Ha.