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NPM #3: [ache] [blur] [cut]: sonnets

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I picked up this slim book last summer at an in-person reading hosted by none other than Ellensburg poet, artist, and raconteur Joanna Thomas. I’m long overdue in posting a poem here. And though I do not have time today for a blog review, I must take the time to say, wow.  As with all of Thomas’s delicious, artful books, Just wow. The woman blows my mind.

[keep]

how do we keep our darlings safe from
the larceny of thieves guard against thugs
called fair use and public domain shield our
ears when someone says good poets borrow
but great poets steal hey there is nothing new
under the sun Mozart is not a copycat even
though Bach wielded g-minor before him
if all art is theft might we admit that poems
are not made but found admit we owe debts
to shoulders we have stood upon aboard our
inclination to remain tight-lipped toss out the
idea that silence is golden reject the obsession
to bundle and stitch our poems into fascicles
then keep them in a drawer locked with a key

— Joanna Thomas

[ache] [blur] [cut] was published by Open Country Press, Helena, MT, in 2023. To learn more about Joanna Thomas, see my previous blog-reviews about her, or visit her page (with images!) at Artist Trust.

Joanna Thomas

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Joanna Thomas writes uncommon books, and this one, bluebird (bloo-burd), is no exception. What great fun to find it this week in my mail.

As explained at the website for Milk & Cake Press, blue-bird (bloo•burd) employs the lipogram, a poetic constraint which requires that a poet not use a certain letter of the alphabet. Using words starting with “B” as the title of each poem, the poems themselves, written as lyrical, lovely dictionary entries, exclude it.

Joanna invited me to write a blurb for her book, and, not understanding that b’s were banned, this is what I wrote — or a fragment of it (I seem to recall going into rhapsodic excess):

bes·ti·ar·y (bes-chi-er-ee) adj. 1. a blast of burgeoning delights. 2. an imaginarium containing bluebirds, hawks, magpies, unicorns, and wing nuts with actual wings. 3. pages that light up like whirligigs.

But you really have to see it for yourself to believe it. So, a sample poem, the first in this delightful collection:

 

baf·fle (baf–ēl)

n. 1. something that aids the eye in aiming. 2. a plethora of afterthoughts; or, a finger pointing at the moon. 3. a final lap, when used as a hassock or a pillow:  Confusion rested its weary tangle upon the tongue’s baffle. 4. the knowing of warp from weft; this from that; come from go; soup from nuts. 5. a fat girl in fishnets. 6. the sound of lips smacking sweet. 7. anaphora, spewed from full lungs; also, thunder, when it’s stolen

Need I add, this begs to be a writing prompt? For more ideas see my blogpost about her book, Rabbit, an erasure poem, or visit her uncommon blog: https://www.joannathomas.xyz.

Joanna Thomas

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RABBIT: AN ERASURE POEM, Joanna Thomas. Dogtown Press, Ellensburg, WA, 2018, 22 pages, $5, paper.

I met Joanna Thomas two years ago at Litfuse. She does this really arty, fun stuff with erasure poems and visuals and — because I generally don’t do those sorts of poem — I almost skipped her workshop.

I am SO GLAD I went. More than the keynotes or anyone else I encountered that year, Thomas’s work burned a hole through my imagination all the way down to my bootsoles. She is a wonder. If you can’t get your hands on any of her limited edition books (exquisite little gems you’ll want to keep and give to friends), then you should invite her to give a workshop for you. (Adults and our delights aside, I think these would inspire some pretty wicked home school lessons.) To read more, visit Thomas’s very visual blog:  https://www.joannathomas.xyz/.

Because the poems don’t run down the left hand margin, my blog space will just make a botch of it; hence, the photograph. In short, Thomas has erased  Webster’s Elementary Dictionary: A Dictionary for Boys & Girls (New York: American Book Company, 1941), and she shares the image from the dictionary, then duplicates the poem (and its peculiar layout) on the facing page.