Tag Archives: failure of language

#MormonPoetrySlam, Day 10 (2014): Eric Jepson reads
an Excerpt from Onan the Illiterate by Stephen Dirle

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an Excerpt from Onan the Illiterate by Stephen Dirle
"How well I could write if I were not here!" from madamepsychosis on Flickr

Here’s a link to the poem if you’d like to follow along as Eric reads. Read more about the Mormon Poetry Slam here and see the posting schedule here. Vote for your favorite performance here (the link will go live once all the entries have been posted). Use #MormonPoetrySlam if you post about this in your social media circles.

Poetry of the Void: Melissa Dalton-Bradford’s “House for Rent”

Anthology Poet Highlight 44/82: Melissa Dalton-Bradford, “House for Rent” (Scroll down, both there and here) Language came to me deeply when my paternal grandfather started to decline, when his body began to give in to the detritus of age, when I was faced with his loss. I’ve noted elsewhere that “our words, we hope, will ward off death. Looking into… Read more »

Mirroring Mortality: Calvin Olsen’s Haiku #100

Anthology Poet Highlight 43/82: Calvin Olsen, Haiku #100 I’ve been fascinated with haiku since I started writing poetry and for a time I, like Calvin, used haiku as a springboard into writing longer poems. I think I was drawn to the form because it’s short, yes, but also because there’s a great deal of intricacy at work in the image-heavy… Read more »

Claire Åkebrand: October is Plush, but Only Fleetingly So

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Anthology Poet Highlight 42/82: Claire Åkebrand, “October Plush” (scroll down) Like the violet at its center, the texture of Claire’s “October Plush” is lush, but only fleetingly so. The poet runs her words like fingers over the flower’s petals, pausing in her passing by to notice the beauty of the transient subject at her feet. For although the violet can’t… Read more »

Jonathon Penny’s “Confession, after battle”: A Soldier’s Litany

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Anthology Poet Highlight 29/82: Jonathon Penny, “Confession, after battle“ At first glance, “Confession” seems a simplistic poem: the poet repeats the same structure for four, essentially five, stanzas, changing only a word per stanzaic turn. The structure is thus something of a template— I’m sorry that I killed your ______ I did not know he was your ______ I only… Read more »

Language—and Beyond Language: Lisa Bickmore’s “Dog Aria”

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Anthology Poet Highlight 23/82: Lisa Bickmore, “Dog Aria” Lisa’s poem is about a dog. And not about a dog. On the surface the poet narrates her dachsund’s relationship with water and with song, showing the canine “baying adagio,” swimming “among the staves”—the movements of the sprinklers, the dishwasher, the washing machine—as the hush of water grows thick in his ears… Read more »

An “Evening Drive” through the Nature of Language with Patricia Karamesines

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Anthology Poet Highlight 16/82: Patricia Karamesines, “Evening Drive“ The lyric quality of “Evening Drive” pulls me into the narrative, placing me in the (rhetorical) vehicle beside the poet and her companion as they drive down a springing lane, both traversing the same landscape, through seeing it through different eyes. Such is the nature of language—and the language of nature, for… Read more »