34

Give it new names: breasts of God
left out to catch the dew

33

the names of flowers
pot-holed streets, sluggish gutters--
they cleared a space and

32

Havana in hurricane
iron, bongoseros
green dream in rhythm

31

Realize every minute--
No, saints and poets maybe.

30

He begins with the chase of--
the deer or the wild goat?
Out of whose horns was the bow made?

29

a large bird who was trying
to regain some sense of beauty

28

This specular structure
this is my letter
a form of contact

27

Asia of the one side
Africa of the other

26

Look: he has not turned,
has tears in his eyes; no more.
Let them be well used.

25

The self as given is in-
adequate and will not do

24

try to account to know
express to know
to account to try

23

To grow famous, and his family rich...
all the world turns when he spins.

22

the rust freckled barbed
wire, keeping out no one,
thick as thirst

21

:painted upon the walls: a man,
a dog was a dog, and a circle was sun

20

Like a green girl
in a nutshell
count myself a king

19

A tedious argument,
an overwhelming question

18

These were all the crimes --
Even citing the poetry.
It sounds absurd.

17

As she gave birth, she screamed out
that all who heard that scream would suffer...

16

The orphan limb, a felt
recovery--its tenuous kinship
making the music social as well

15

What good does it do to bombard
chaos? The loss of certainty!

14

Finally I have succeeded
in telling the truth. Whatever...
better than the past.

13

feast on the leaves
of trampled sentences

12

warm hands at never
extinguished fires of scholar-
ship, blazing

11

You will have no companion
But the heap of your words

10

Those rungs are unsafe
that tongue that was used
altered at an end

9

try it, or better, try a ladder--
rise in the present

8

one comes to language
from afar, the ear ponders,
swishes into town

7

One word, whose word, could be said
perhaps blend of "fray" and "fazzle"

6

Just waiting for
my power to be recognized--
Lighten our darkness.

5

reimagined, the world expands
language is not something static

4

the man had been hanging
friends thought he was doing an art piece
and other poems

3

A whole rain of signs
falls. And by morning--sunshine.
Avoid such places.

2 (revised)

strands of that elegiac grace
we never possessed

2

pick these lament passages--
all that elegiac grace
we never possessed

Idolatrous Art: Hokku (1)

A sketch from your window--
Six syllables, page to screen.
Let's be each other's guest.

Renga Rules: Found Poetry Oulipo

Rules for our upcoming renga, as compiled by Sneza, Janet, and HAT, a la previous discussions:

* Found poetry renga surrounding a particular conceit/subject/theme
* Theme/Subject/Conceit/Concept being idolatrous art
* Using titles and/or subtitles of poetry books, plays
* Using lines from poetry or drama
* Incorporating oulipo-type experiments

From Wikipedia on Oulipo:
Oulipo stands for "Ouvroir de littérature potentielle", which translates roughly as "workshop of potential literature". It is a loose gathering of (mainly) French-speaking writers and mathematicians, and seeks to create works using constrained writing techniques. It was founded in 1960 by Raymond Queneau and François Le Lionnais. Other notable members include novelists like Georges Perec and Italo Calvino, poets like Oskar Pastior or Jacques Roubaud, also known as a mathematician.

The group defines the term 'littérature potentielle' as (rough translation): "the seeking of new structures and patterns which may be used by writers in any way they enjoy".

Constraints are used as a means of triggering ideas and inspiration, most notably Perec's "story-making machine" which he used in the construction of Life: A User's Manual. As well as established techniques, such as lipograms (Perec's novel A Void) and palindromes, the group devises new techniques, often based on mathematical problems such as the Knight's Tour of the chess-board and permutations.

From Wikipedia on Palindromes:
In languages that use a writing system other than an alphabet, a palindrome is still a sequence of characters from that writing system that remains the same when reversed.

Japanese palindromes, called kaibun, rely on the hiragana syllabary. An example is the word しんぶんし shinbunshi (in syllables shi-n-bu-n-shi), meaning "newsprint". The Japanese syllabary makes it possible to construct very long palindromes.

A Chinese word is a character, and is not composed of letters or syllables. Therefore, any Chinese word itself is a trivial palindrome. Chinese palindromes have to be phrases or sentences and are much more easy to construct than in languages written with an alphabet. For example, the phrases "我愛媽媽，媽媽愛我" ("I love mother, mother loves me") and "上海自來水來自海上" ("Shanghai's tap water comes from the sea") are palindromes.

Palindromic poetry (回文詩) was a literary genre in classical Chinese literature. The "forward reading" and the "backward reading" of such a poem would be similar but not exactly the same in meaning. Although called "palindromic", these poems are often not palindromes in the normal English sense of the word. They do not necessarily have symmetry of characters or sound, but merely need to make sense when read in either direction. The following example was composed during the Song Dynasty:

枯眼望遙山隔水，往來曾見幾心知。壺空怕酌一杯酒，筆下難成和韻詩。迷路阻人離別久，訊音無雁寄回遲。孤燈夜守長寥寂，夫憶妻兮父憶兒。

The "forward reading" of the last sentence is about husband missing wife and father missing son, while the "backward reading" is about son missing father and wife missing husband.

Rules for new renga: found poetry?

We're looking for rules for a new renga. After having considered the variety of rengas we could take up, the most appealing one (suggested by Sneza, fleshed out by Janet, constructed by HAT) is the idea of renga comprised of found poetry. As I said to Sneza and Janet: I think it would be interesting to restrict ourselves to finding poetry within certain titles and subtitles of books and plays but no films or music. It is a way of paying homage to the great body of literature of which we are part. It may also be a way of paying homage to (or mocking or parodying or idolizing or defiling?) the writers whom we envy/love/idolize/imitate.

The only thing we're missing is a particular theme or subject around which to build this renga. Something traditional like love or war, or something wildly different? I would prefer something wildly different, but my only concern is that we maintain balance. Should the experimental conceit of found poetry renga be balanced by some traditional subject? So much to consider...

Renga: Cityscapes

The following kasen was written with the collaboration of Darby, Janet, Sneza, and HAT, from May through October of 2006. The idea of this particular renga was to capture images of city landscapes, wherever we are in the world. The successful completion of this kasen is a testament to the globalization and glocalization of poetry and technology, as well as a testament to the intermingling of the two seemingly different fields -- poetry in the world of bloggers. To review the rules for the Cityscapes renga, click here.

Saigon: motorbikes
Jammed at stoplights, exhaust fumes
Scattering insects

Towers in the east are there
so she knows she is here

Poised in the center,
flung to the edge of the
roundabout turning

From the bus window, the miles
float under well-traveled wheels

The coming of storm?
Trees in the margin
italicized by the wind

Interpret the messages
The speech of cogs and branches

Beveled histories
facades of pilaster, plinths
speak, La Place Vendome

Peering down on the plaza
speckled with light and foot traffic

Filmy fog distances blue
structures, milks signals
from the tips of antennae

Speedbumps glazed with yellow paint
Sleeping roadway log lizards

Labyrinth turnpikes
on the daily commute—
tolls along the way

She sketches loops and spirals,
pencil resting against her thumb

Leaf in clover leaf
Cartoon school bus wiggles by
Scattering the wind

Ideas of her self lurking
underneath overpasses

Plastic covers sag with rain,
cranes halt above
the future hospital

Yellow bulldozer snorting
launches a swirl of seagulls.

Wings rise east
misguided by burning treelines,
charred city – a speck, a speck

Still – we’re under the spell of the
alphabet of retaliation

Each to a word, lines
traced in wartime letters
maps to our past

Imprints of hands on windows
just before shattering

The line snakes over
Boat rail, turbulent water
Dead fish on the pier.

Fishboats at the marina,
City of water and ash

Migrant workers camp by
the millennial library:
the wait, the weight

Jackhammer shredding sidewalk
Farmer’s market crushed berries

Plate stained purple,
typewriter minus letter H,
free with any purchase.

Alphabet soups for sale, one
by one, constructing letters

walk into the café,
to the back of the room
to the one face, beaming

Hiss of espresso monster
conversation bubbles up

Carefully prepared
in an old fashioned homestyle—
come home to old friends

Mother’s microwaved dinner
Salty with laughing crying

Steaming custard buns
white surface, one dotted red
Mars hangs in night sky

Make-up kit spilled on the 3rd ave. bridge,
Minneapolis, red leaves, red lights.

Street lights splice traffic,
Provinces of fire-blown trees
perilous paradise

Today: one more baby born
or border crossed, 300 million.

Rainfall will end
up with a thin ice crust,
synchronizing storm drains.

Pins drop into a steel cup.
The shake of a passing train.

- Collaboration with D. James, J. Salsman, H. Tran, S. Zabic. May-October 2006

Renga: Ars Poetica

After several months of painstaking work, we've successfully completed our Ars Poetica Renga. The following is the complete kasen, from beginning to end to beginning. To review the rules for this particular renga, click here.

Always the new: first,
sharp graffiti on a train.
Then, a blur speeding past.

Images running one in-
to the other, borderless

Is it the words or
The pictures in the spaces
Between our buzzing ears?

Bodies on beaches, faces on mass transit:
I see birthmarks I don’t wish to see.

An ocean filled with
Sounds, running to the edges
On any given page

Silen sand symbols scrawled—
Roar of rocks, water, air

Verse freed from “be-
autiful,” from “org-
anic.” Always engineered.

Sounds, textures, rhythms – leaping
Fragments of dislocation

Dirt and orange peels
Root fingers reaching water
Green joyful shoots rise up

behind the clouds: pale blue rain,
morning comes in fresh blank pages

calligraphic rain
stream lines of textured water
read reflect release

risks in an alphabetical order
waking up the dictionary

Slogan on truck door
Rolls in, out of bridge lights, flash
Of reflection, dark.

Next, producing at a level
People can afford to buy.

Random thoughts for sale:
Lightly used, binding still new—
Buy one, get one free

Threads from old books’ spines
Woven in entangled texts

Tuesday like Monday
Poem its own analog
Watch—tick its time.

Violin, piano, cello:
Each, unworded concertos

Oily residue on the keys
Sleeve dipped in coffee,
Empty screen still empty.

every word screened by keystroke
after keystroke: deleted

Piano plinking
spitting out sounds, thunder clap
begin again silent

Noise increases, grooves
Deepen under the needle.

Rich pages in wine country,
Savored glasses filled with
Deep wines red of heart

A round is around
is aroused, is Rose

Words mumbled sleeping
hand over dream trail end like
benediction, curse

Against this window: black rain
Sheets washing away the grime

Windshield wipers
Measure accents
Across state lines

A book of my nights in cities
In yellow gray geography

Uphill downhill turn
signals flash dappled green shade—
where are we going?

Along sandy shorelines, words
Bathing on beaches naked

Tell the truth: magic
makes meaning from bloody guts—
Root around and see.

Grains in your lines,
Ridges along your nails

Above thin trees sweat-
ing pollen, stark raving sun
lashing lashing lashing

Bee clouds gather, suck, pack up
the sun, make it food for gods.

Down here we place verse
on verse on verse, teeth
on lips, tongue on teeth

And then, oh then, it ends like
A snake, like a breath, like death.

- A collaboration between S. Zabic, J. Salsman, H. Tran. Januaury - April, 2007

36

And then, oh then, it ends like
A snake, like a breath, like death.