Category Archives: Poetry

Made Domestic

Posted on September 22, 2009 by Francois Lachance

Terence Johnson in his article on Robert Duncan in The Gay and Lesbian Literary Heritage (edited by Claude Summers) observes the timing of the cultivation of a certain theme. He puts it succinctly as a matter of biography. After 1951, … Continue reading →

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Testing Tautologies

Posted on September 21, 2009 by Francois Lachance

There is a didactic element to Kit Robinson’s “Lyric Strand” in Writing 25 (1990). It sports the following few lines Sound is an antidote to words, meaning lies. It can be used to show that they are used and only … Continue reading →

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Calligram II

Posted on September 20, 2009 by Francois Lachance

Karl Petit. Le Dictionnaire des Citations du Monde Entier. (1960). Entertaining displays of typographic fantasy adorn the alphabetically arranged sections of the book. The “G” page offers three words The link between gastronomy and glutton seems evident (it’s an inverse … Continue reading →

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Calligram I

Posted on September 19, 2009 by Francois Lachance

The book is a collection of quotable passages. It is arranged alphabetically and each of the sections begins with a display of bravura typography. For example, take the E. Here transcribed from the French for the visually impaired: Justified right … Continue reading →

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Stasis and Flight

Posted on September 17, 2009 by Francois Lachance

They are by temperament different. By métier, poets. Both attentive to detail. Sandra Kasturi in Come Late to the Love of Birds, just before her homage to Ursula K. Le Guin, has a poem, “Bird Logic”, which ends in a … Continue reading →

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Placer Epiphanies

Posted on September 16, 2009 by Francois Lachance

There is an invitation to reflect in the words of “Practical Meditation” in Ash Steps by M. Travis Lane. We are invited to contemplate the similarities between our life and the firefly’s brief flicker “as splendid in its vanishing / … Continue reading →

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Mirage Murmurs

Posted on September 15, 2009 by Francois Lachance

A selection from “Sentimental Intervention” by Dorothy Trujillo Lusk appearing in Writing 25. Plucked of a miragement of video-control systems while others murmured towards her an ill-will. He reproached himself with his devotion to/in any case. The different trees afforded … Continue reading →

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A Moment Apart

Posted on September 13, 2009 by Francois Lachance

This is an excerpt from a poem not particularly focused on the preparation of a good cup of coffee. But the lines and the gesture they describe are arresting. [Note: the word “steady” has a vocal echo in “steam” that … Continue reading →

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Deter Gently

Posted on September 12, 2009 by Francois Lachance

For Giles who loves soap Reading After Jack by Garry Thomas Morse, I am struck by his genius for translation and invention offering us a complex chain of chemical traces to reread Jack Spicer and beyond his “After Lorca” to … Continue reading →

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Roaming The Discussion Starter

Posted on September 11, 2009 by Francois Lachance

OMEP – Organisation mondiale pour l’éducation préscolaire From the front section of a pamphlet (French and English vocabulary list with definitions) printed in Britain. Discussions are a most valuable part of OMEP World Assemblies. For the 1961 VIIIth World Assembly … Continue reading →

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