Bernadette Mayer

Image 1 of 1 for Poetry. Bernadette Mayer. The Kulchur Foundation. 1976.


ABOUT THE WORD DIVINATION

The furtive fig does figure like a fiction
INTO THE PIZZAS OF futurity, but it’s a non-fiction fig!
going well with fungus & gorgonzola
& a figment of lovage & fiddlehead ferns
a fraction of
there’s somethng fishy in Denmark
in the fiduciary field, i tend to fidget
i think i have fibromyalgia or something
so i take Flomax 2c a day to find my savior
but i’m sorry to say, we have no finch sock
this calendar year, which is the field
guide to the fancy of my fortune

SUPPLE TRILLIUM LOVELORN LOUTS

The opposite of sonnet is tennos, eh?
Two sonnets would be owt tennoses, three
would be eerth, etc. When you land in the land
of the sonnet, watch out for the barbed wire of
conclusions. There are no warming signs. The
whole area might be full of thorns, so you will know
not to enter, or even reform. I’m just saying
a sonnet is like a little room, just big enough for a
bear cub. He or she can’t even turn around in it.
If a sonnet is injured, you’ll have to carry it
on a stretcher. Be careful of the couplet
or tail. If it is a baby sonnet, you can bring
it home.


John Ashbery

  The New Spirit (excerpt) I thought that if I could put it all down, that would be one way. And next the thought came to me that to leave a...