16 December 2011

More movable TYYPE



I first saw Kathleen Fraser read in an underground basement or bar (or something!) back in (I guess?) 2000, at the book launch for her A+ Bend chapbook 20th Century, reading along with, if I remember correctly, Cole Swenson. I fell in love with her work at that reading, especially the poems in 20th Century, and I was reminded of their power while recently reading her new volume movable TYYPE. The book opens with a remastered, reordered selection from 20th Century, beginning with the unimpeachable couplets of "Orologic" which I present in full below:

Orologic


Delay'd the—what was it? —leftover, almost said mainspring
locution—off-putting—lifting's effort of red-wire modest stratagem.



Gem's Spa (Ninth & 2nd) chocolate folio under which egg cream air,

he told you—sutured with tape and geranium rose—his secret


stutterer scrapheap
—"...if only we'd...". Said he wasn't spiritual
but could feel the awe—that little Yes material—script pierced (& pierces)


sleep's end of it, rose geranium whistle-stop nape of neck thistle. 

Down fallow mind of page—delay'd, early sphere theory.


Margins: Stella begins rebuke: torn shirt Stanley's & white

silent movie-talk ending, a few blue decals. 


in the projection cabinets. Abuse of reliable matter (embossed), 

how "A" connects to its wire. One glance—marron glace; when


she talks about "frame theory," the game-bird's heartbeat under

glass (fluttery to her as a pamphlet or flock of blank ink), wings tied-off.


Song rebuke rescinds the variable. You often measured

pretense between face and thread, when you demonstrated


linen. Corner understood (unsafe on-camera) reading him:
delay'd erasure, giving him 0 or 1. Syllabic temptation


of yesterday's waving particle. Lawd low Atlantis shallow.
Wrong obsidian lesson & axis ladder & hairpin do not "hold sway."

Kid integer dot picture folds up playground early, witness pulling
her inviolate back a'shine as effacement mirror not seen.


What passed in dark's sidereal cloud chamber festoon'd with giddy
scars is past & perfect. You write "Dear Sir: whereever you be,


please map us there..." (open side of resilient moon yawn


—for J.H. 

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