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Untitled
But what was the question? I didn’t think we heard it all over the loudspeaker, the morning announcements padded between “Rapper’s Delight” and “Free Bird,” and you with your head down in home room on a stack of grubby books. Oh no, it’s new all right, fresh off the rack with the tags still attached. […]
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Loose Ode: Colorado
strophe I’ve been here before. Last week, at poolside in Boulder, a man lay on his back reading about spiritual themes in the poems of Wang Wei. But that’s what’s done in Boulder. A young woman dove into the pool, breaking its placid surface only to rise from that surface again exclaiming:“I’m angry; I’m enlightened; […]
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Toluene Summer
Teal dulls the subtleties. The coral white heat too close to stereo so court and sparked blue milk crate diadems. Deer Park held imitation “Only once in a great while” A canopy thinning the vivid thing.
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on Karl Gartung’s Now That Memory Has Become So Important
Now That Memory Has Become So Important, Karl Gartung, Midwestern Writers Publishing House, 2008 [ click here to order ] It’s hard not to be moved by Karl Gartung’s first book, Now That Memory Has Become So Important, published in 2008 by Midwestern Writers Publishing House. Foremost, it’s a beautiful book comprised of carefully crafted […]
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“A Few Thoughts about My Recent Work”
It seems absurd to write a poem out of the scraps and random thoughts of a day or two. Encounters, conversations, what one finds in a book or newspaper, what one remembers of a dream, however vivid. The only way to justify the attempt is the knitting together of phrase with phrase by way of […]
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The Impossible Poem
“Can this be New Rochelle?” George asked J—. “I lived in a house on the water, near the harbor, in a small village.” J— replied, “What village? What harbor?” —Mary Oppen This is true: the work before you is still the work ahead of me. It is not George Oppen, but something other than what […]
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01.19.09
This update features poems from Robert Archambeau, Wes Benson, Joseph Bradshaw, Jon Curley, Norman Finkelstein, Michael Heller, Matthew Henriksen, Gregory Ott, Adam Fleming Petty, John Phillips, Pam Rehm, Mark Scroggins, Chuck Stebelton, Jason Stumpf, & Shannon Tharp; prose comes courtesy of Peter O’Leary & Mathias Svalina; images are from Cary Conover (including two video pieces), […]
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Nawlins Dreamsong Late ’08
Though bloweth smoke, and often from Archambeau’s mouth. In truth. Yet this: did actual happen, did. While he sat in smell of riverfunk and barbecue, by the rank cold sunspiked Mississip. In his black jeans black, his jacket too. To read: of his big black book. Until. The griz-beard bicycist sallies up, Quix-ote, and old, […]
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Dark Room
The emulsion paper, a tarn, develops still life is spectacle and motion: the silt solution settles in the bath between work and exposes what was before.