Versed by Rae Armantrout (What a striking percentage of inflections codified in italics and quotation marks thru the text’s short lines yet it all works together.) Excerpt from p. 109, Still
Once we believed the bees,
moving as attention does
settling and lifting
from blue identicals.
were the picture
of eternity.
Is a pretty ahhh with a hook to the half-hooked expectations. But a bit of p. 6,
Let’s see
your itty-
bitten specificity
fetish,
your mom’s phantasmic
what’s-it
held conspicuously
under threat.
Day hoists its mesh
of near
approximations,
(its bright
skein of pores.)
Eyes fetch thrown
shadows
What a fun play with language, this dexterity reminding me to visit Adeena Karasick again.
Each word to word and punctuation isn’t predictible, yet is right. Love how internally she has periods for end of sentence and at ends of numbered poem sections and yet end of poems don’t have a period. The page ending is signal enough.
And to end the sample with Address of page 7. A shy whispered sort of tone following on the heels of the lingustic romp above with a straight-up truth, the pangs implicit.
The way my interest
in their imaginary
kiss
is secretly addressed
to you.
I can happily read and reread.
The Book of the City of the Ladies by Christine de Pizan (1405)
Section I:20.1 Here She Speaks of Zenobia, Queen of the Palmyrenes
This lady did not consider it a hardship to to sleep in the woods, on the hard ground in cold an in heat, for she feared nothing, nor did she mind travelling through forest passes, climbing mountains, going down into villages as she pursued the various beasts […] So wisely did this lady govern that she was honored by princes, obeyed and loved by her people, and feared and respected by her knights. When she rode out in arms, which happened frequently,…
Somehow I feel like this book should have been made mention of. 6 English courses and 7 history courses from high school and university and half the population eerily absent. Ah well, self-learning is for the building on the rest.
Judge Sewall’s Apology: The Salem Witch Trials and the Forming of an American Conscience, p. 100 and 125
Proctor reversed the equation between the accusers and the accused, transferring evil possession to the afflicted — naturally enough, since his own wife was going to be in the dock. If you were convinced that an accused person was innocent, then, of course, the accusers themselves looked demonic.
[…]witchcraft testimony pointed in two directions: outward toward the farming landscape and the wilderness beyond, inwards to the depths of the individual soul. Often the lattwe course would be triggered by an argument […] a family is struck by a mysterious misfortune that causes real fear and suffering, so they track back for a possible explanation.
Although the theory of mass hysteria from a mould causing trippiness from the grainery is intriguing, the community failing as individuals to call a spade and cowarding out less they get implicated too seems more in keeping with probability. A whole community polarized or else standing well back as the scene gets more complex.
Leave a comment