"Terse as this is: Meta-Poetry"

7/30/2019 "Terse as this is: Meta-Poetry"

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“Terse as this is: Meta-

Poetry” Adam Fieled

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jtuZlixsOBY/UE5c-7OsvvI/AAAAAAAACPM/eoV5cbEOCJ8/s1600/AbbyPainting1.jpg



Apologia

Experimental English-language poetry in the last half-century has demonstrated a vested interest in interrogating its own origins. Meta-poetry, poetry which takes as itsthematic basis the art of composing poetry itself, has flourished, sometimes under the rubricof Deconstructionist literary theory, sometimes otherwise. The scalpel avant-garde poetry takes to itself can be intriguing— however, much poetry written and published in this vein inthe last half-century suffers from various forms of impoverishment, especially tactile ones.In other words, this kind of poetry is wont to become lost in abstractions, and lose thetactile sense not only of harmonious language but of imagery and metaphor. What thepoems in this collection attempt to accomplish is (to use a homely metaphor) not to throw out the baby with the bath-water. The imperative to interrogate language is balanced with animperative to make memorable poetry which employs old tropes, techniques, and topos innovel ways. Thus, it is a meta-poetry which does not need to disavow narrative sense.



#1335

terse as this is, it isgiven to us in bitscarelessly shorn

from rocky slopes,of this I can only say nothing comes with things built in,it’s always sharp edges,crevices, crags, precipice,abrupt plunges into “wants,” what subsists between ushappens in canyons linedin blue waters where thisslides down to a densebottom, I can’t retrieve

you twice in the same way, it must be tersebecause real is terse,tense because it’s sofrail, pine cones heldin a child’s hand, snapped.



#1084

Poems are train-wrecksthat move— to stand

on tracks, to do so solidly, is

suicide of a high order—

to die by force of wreckage—



#1117

Sometimes you writefrom ocean’s bottom,blue waters bury you,

an octopus comes togive you ink, tentacle words, fortitude for

battles to get back onthe surface, where youmust fight to get past

jellyfish blocks, tears—



#1083

Is art slightly lessstupid than every-thing else?

I am moremoved by flesh, andstupidly,

how easily some skinpeels off

layers of text— “company of blood,”Lucy on a bed

with diamonds—



#1134

It is by dint of great laborthat lines heap up on oneanother (enjambed or not),

it is by dint of great laborthat they take on the cast,die, substance that sticks,

it is by dint of great laborthat poets must forget this,because to stick means not

to stick, it means to loosenperpetually out of grooves,let things topple into place,

let shapes manifest slowly,let life meander, be rolling—



#1145

The Tower of Verseis a Babel, no one paystheir rent, many leap

from windows to suredeath, many leave, yetthere is a strange senseof satisfaction given tothose who stay, and itis merely this—

clean windowsallow us to see wisps of smoke,(grey, red, turbid)rise from ashes—



#1288

Times you get bored with the process, but

worse are times when words are little deaths,

wrung out like sheets,draped over hangers,

out in a damp yard ona cold autumn day, as

wind rises to pin themto your hopeless breast.



#1343

This process of leaping happens between lines,like a fish that baits its

own hooks; heights indepth, depths of height,all colliding in a mesh of net cast only for a fish tobring it down on itself, sothat others swim out past— I don’t mean myself in this.



#1209

Poems with “I” and “she”are older than the galaxy,have power to rivet me,

because there is no “I”for me without a “she,”even if I feminize thishighly vaginal computerscreen, my seminal hands—



#1571

To cut right to the bone— there is no bone in this,it’s mirrors, echoes, bits,

more than play, less than

life, but anything limiting this needs to be chuckedlike fruit rinds into a bin,any arbitrary signifier that

knows itself to be arbitrary can work as mirrors, echoes,bits, if you have faith that what’s ineffable counts, is.



#1549

Think of these in termsof vertical movements— what goes up or doesn’t.

Does this go up? It may,if it creates something Ifeel is not “in the world”

yet, but it must also havesolid roots in the worldto be something else, it

must acknowledge whatcan be called horizontal. The best poems are zig-

zags, lightning bolts, thatgo from side to side, upat the same time. This is

a meta-bolt, but whetherit “goes” is up to you alone.



#1533

So much gets involved withthis that isn’t this, that whatthis is gets lost, whatever it

is, which no one knows, butthat “I” is in it somewhere(no one knows where), theremust be a “you” (if it’s art,as it may or may not be), sotwo bases are covered, liketwo breasts of a mother weaning her young, and whether or not we are madeyoung by this is another goodquestion: we may be, maybe.



#1563

If poetry makes nothing happen,there is no “great political poetry tradition,” so I yawp no “O any-

thing” to anyone who is not my captain, and whose position is notin any way tenable; no one (that Iknow) has any excuses, we forgeahead regardless, Nero’s fiddle issounding in the distance, personalhabits of Romans have entered ourlives, but I have this time to writethis and if you like it, is it enough?



#1524

Poems: do this every day, it

becomes like roulette without

being (or seeming) Russian; if

you go here what happens, if

you move your knight onto a

new square can you take all the

pawns (at once, even, why not

be ambitious?), not everyone is

simpatico, the knights often say

they’re kings, the board is clay.



#1601

What words get sent upon sharp frequencies arefractious, bent from pain,

Hephaestus in iron-groans, what goes up sticks around,so that base/top get covered,

all things resonate like pitch-forks, tweaked by conductorsbefore their final, triumphantperformance for a hall empty of bodies, filled to capacity.



#547

Spirit melts, leaving butter particles strewn

along leaf-veined avenues— how absurd, that it shouldbe in poetry, hiding therelike a cat in a dry bath-tub,like water in a drain, likeso much dark moon.



#545

Words are spirits, words wording through us like

savored pulp. Words, strainedor comatose,plucking laurelfor some lucky fuck. Substantivespirit words, cored &pitted, wait to be bitlike knowledge of good & evil, stems.Not a cask or a flask— some vessel from

nether regions of Venus. Easy to bedispirited, cored,yet stem systems arepermanent. Say them.



#577

You can only transcribe by dying,the things you transcribe are dying,

the way you transcribe is dying by the time you transcribe,

so if you must transcribe,you must die, or die trying



#1602

I stepped like a mantis off this ship

of fools, felt around for prey, found

a plate of ants to put in a microwave,

I saw how they scurried briefly, put it

into text that had the heat of ovens in

it, shipped this text across vast oceans,

it preyed on suspicions, was placed on

plates, now that I have prayed, I am (or

may be) redeemed, but every step I take

feels like a scurry, as the fools are more

numerous than I thought, just like ants.



Credits

Blazevox— 547

Cricket Online Review— 1571

denver syntax— 1343

fourW Anthology— 1209

moria— 1524

Otoliths— 1549

PFS Post— 1602

Stoning the Devil— 1288, 1145

Tears in the Fence— 1043, 1084

Upstairs at Duroc— 1355

All of these poems were included in 2010 Blazevox print book “Apparition Poems.”

Cover painting is “The Skaters,” by Abby Heller-Burnham





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"Terse as this is: Meta-Poetry"

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