This Nothing: Poems

Abstract

This manuscript contains forty-two poems, written in primarily open forms, with some use of meter and measure in the line. One focus is to balance aural aspects of poetry--to transcribe the music heard in the mind--with visual aspects inherent in a written art form--to be interesting, beautiful and clear on the page. The poems follow an arc of momentum that seeks to convert the remembered moment into a map of the voice. Where they loosen, linger, or are halting, they hope to direct the pace of the breath. Any development in the work has been toward the idea of a measure based on my own breath, which incorporates an understanding of the tendencies of the language, while trying to remain faithful to an idiosyncratic voice.