I entered without words : poems / Jody Gladding.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gladding, Jody, 1955- author.

Series:

Princeton series of contemporary poets.

Princeton series of contemporary poets

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Experimental poetry.

Experimental poetry, American.

Poetry--Collections.

Poetry.

Genre:

Experimental poetry.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (80 p.)

Place of Publication:

Princeton, New Jersey ; Oxford : Princeton University Press, [2022]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

"An innovative and inviting book of poems about the places where language and landscape converge. In this strongly visual and environmentally engaged collection, award-winning poet and translator Jody Gladding explores landscape as a source of language in lyrics that operate as physical acts in three-dimensional space. Composed and printed in a landscape format, these minimal, quiet, playful, meditative, and open-ended poems are experimental in form and inviting in subject. Drawing inspiration from poets like A.R. Ammons, Lorine Niedecker, Gustaf Sobin, and Jean Valentine, and visual artists like Ann Hamilton, Roni Horn, and Cecilia Vicuña, Gladding discovers exciting spatial possibilities within the page itself by exploiting white space and varying typeface. As the page opens into the compositional field that Mallarme, Ponge, and others conceived it to be, words constellate around bolded through-lines to offer multiple, interwoven meanings, interacting with each other and the reader, who moves freely among them, to make poems that are spatial, nonlinear, and different with each reading. And, adding yet another dimension to the collection, many of the poems have facing-page French versions. 'Landscape-oriented' in every sense, I entered without words is an ambitious, innovative, and striking collection by a major poet"-- Provided by publisher.

"This collection is one of two manuscripts recently chosen by Susan Stewart for the Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets, which is dedicated to publishing the best work of today's emerging and established poets. We publish one to two titles per year as selected by the series editor. The series began in 1975 with the publication of Sadness and Happiness: Poems by Robert Pinsky, and has published landmark collections by such poets as Ann Lauterbach and Jorie Graham. I entered without words is a new collection of poems by the poet and translator Jody Gladding. Using unusual visual and verbal forms, Gladding constructs poems that, in her words, allow readers 'to move about the page as they please--there is no right or wrong way to proceed. The poem opens into a three-dimensional space where things can happen simultaneously. And differently with each reading.' Creating many paths for readers across the page through word placements and font choices, Gladding constructs scenes that blend the surreal, the domestic, and the natural world to raise questions about language, poetic form, and representation. Some of the poems have facing-page French versions that further extend the reader's sense of exploration"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Note to Readers

the mother tongue licked me into being

that mare sometimes appeared

l’eau se fait calme quelquefois

now silent becomes listen

have I attended the birds

la montagne reflète la blessure

swallows light in the open

what kind of quest is this

I like having nothing

guest bed

on this green live languages graze

morning in a fog

I still believe in the dark work of idleness

call it harvest

this heart of summer gleams

who is the girl I push so high

qui est la fille que je pousse si haut

messy eater

our young register damage in radiant flesh

je quitte la maison d’être en plein vent du ciel

unhinged I left the house to wind

in my sickness the sky kept spinning

what it means to be reduced

space is not matter

the poor hide what they can

who cooks for you awwwlll

ribs were the first rafters

your hand opens to wave

dark was the night cold was the ground

the stone vault singing

la chapelle en pierre chantant

that light out of darkness may rise

over your cities the grasses will grow

an artist’s best friend is time boredom sway

is art the idling silence

à l’art aigu de roche et ange

merci pour ces très belles ratures

thank you for your very beautiful cross-outs

why everything beautiful hurts

pourquoi toutes les belles choses piquent

lost in lit screens the readers with their books

look back at me my love belong here

last goose

dernière oie

a deficiency hollows places

out of nowhere snow

paper white

a stiff wind makes them more beautiful

la mort n’a pas arasé l’espérance de la neige

death has not eroded hope of snow

I seek the cold mountain spring

je cherche le motif glacé

to knock with gentle barbarism

trouver la porte frapper entrer

des herbes folles

wild grasses

the white flame sank offering only the gesture

ôté de la flamme elle lisait fumait

le vent s’arrache de la langue maternelle exprime tout

wind wrenches free her tongue

every being constitutes a probe employed in a new direction

Acknowledgments

Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780691238975

0691238979

OCLC:

1336403602