SEE THE CATHEDRALS!/ VOYEZ LES CATHEDRALES!

 

Here’s the title poem of my bi-lingual collection, ANT-SMALL AND AMOROUS, with French translations by Anne Talvaz. http://www.corruptpress.net/books/ant.shtml

See the cathedrals!

They make you so small —

the great pines, the night.

 

Tonight is big

with sister small-seeming moon from here.

 

Oh sweet moon, sweet woman!

 

Big night

so sonorous pressing

my breasts and my belly

 

making me beetle-small

ant-small and amorous.

 

---

 

Voyez les cathédrales!

Elles vous font si petit —

Les grands pins, la nuit.

 

Ce sir est grand

et la lune, ma soeur, d’ici paraît si petite.

 

O tendre lune, tendre femme!

 

Grande nuit

si sonore pressant

mes seins et mon ventre

 

me faisant petite comme scarabée

infinitésimale et amoureuse fourmi.

INFLUENCES (2)

Continuing my series of influences, I must mention THE REALITY STREET BOOK OF SONNETS, edited by Jeff Hilson. This anthology of 20th & 21st century sonnets includes work ranging from Edwin Denby to Ron Padget, from Bernadette Mayer to Geraldine Monk, from Anselm Hollo to Eléni Sikélianòs. Besides being very inspiring, these sonnets taught me how to read aloud with ease and enjoyment;  they also showed me how to count pentameter — that is to say, that there are many ways to count to 5. For example, here are the 3rd and 4th lines of  “From The Unfollowing 1″ by Lyn Hejinian:

A woman throws beans, a woman rakes leaves, a heavy man moves ahead on a       horse, a light man coughs

The visible is rough

 

Here are the first 2 lines of  “From Blue Irises 4″ by Michele Leggott:

Honeyed learning! I traced her once

to an island in spring, pointilliste mouse-ear

 

And here are the first 2 lines of “From Involuntary Lyrics XI” by Aaron Shurin:

Away

from yellowed leaf, November, in park bench solitude, across where bright grass, late November! still grow

 

The anthology also includes visual sonnets from Alan Hasley, Lawrence Upton, David Miller, et al.

It is available from http://www.realitystreet.co.uk

ALL NIGHT THE POEMS/TOUTE LA NUIT LES POEMES

Here’s the first stanza of ALL NIGHT THE POEMS/TOUTE LA NUIT LES POEMES from my bi-lingual collection, ANT SMALL AND AMOROUS http://www.corruptpress.net/books/ant.shtml with French translations by Anne Talvaz.

ALL NIGHT THE POEMS

I envision

my language

in its other languages.

For example:

its long ropes of Rs

the dark Ls spinning out indefinitely in front of me.

 

TOUTE LA NUIT LES POEMES

J’envisage

ma langue

dans ses autres langues.

Par example:

ses longs chapelets de r

les l ténébreux se multipliant à l’infini devant moi.

Influences

I’m starting a series of posts on influences: poets whose work I greatly admire and who have been very important to my own writing over the years. Poetry that has taught me things, in addition to being unforgettable. There is no poet, dead or alive, who has influenced me more than Alice Notley. I met her in Paris in the early 90s. I went to all her readings and have read all her collections; she was my teacher and mentor for some 20 years and we became friends. She has made me a better poet and a better person.

I would like to share here “Alice Notley and the Art of Not Giving a Damn” by David Wallace in the New York Times. He reviews her latest book, FOR THE RIDE (Penguin Books, 2020).

Alice Notley’s influence on a later generation of poets exploring the subject of motherhood is hard to overstate. Photograph by Nigel Beale / The Biblio File

 

Featured voice on CANOPIC JAR

A person can be passionate about so many things, football, for example. In my case, it is primarily poetry — the way the words lift off the page and fill a space and linger, the way they make music and thus create an understanding. My thanks to Phil Rice and Ret Masilo for inviting me to their CANOPIC JAR to talk about my latest collection. http://canopicjar.com/featured-voices/alvarez/

In a Form of Suspension

Dance improvisations by Romual Kaboré to poems from IN A FORM OF SUSPENSION by Pansy Maurer-Alvarez, read by the author.

First review of IN A FORM OF SUSPENSION

My thanks to David Caddy for the first review of my new collection.  It appeared on the Tears in the Fence blog the night before the launch.

What Edmund Berrigan and Andrea Moorhead have to say about IN A FORM OF SUSPENSION:

Click to read:

http://corruptpress.net/?q=node/71

IN A FORM OF SUSPENSION just out from corrupt press, Paris.

On Barcelona, on the last day of May

2 poems, “Burnt-orange Sarabande” and “Painted Crown” from my manuscript IN A FORM OF SUSPENSION, appeared here with many thanks to Halvard Jonhson: http://onbarcelona.blogspot.fr/2013/05/pansy-maurer-alvarez.html