Knowing how to joke in
the world
but not in a poem. The solemn
paintings are the ones
that attract me,
& in some there’s a
secret lightness,
a simplicity of heart.
If what I’m saying is
true, it won’t
be “important.” Nothing
knew,
not new. That I’m
amazed
by the things I’ve seen
in my life.
The world, its people,
places. Lost
roads, traveled by
pilgrims.
Ways of life, invisible
traditions.
The last of so many
things:
vestiges, whispers.
There’s the hint that
is a rose.
What I became aware of
once
in poems. Perhaps it
was a song.
The
scent left behind. Follow it. (Kim Dorman, “Ground”)
I’m
fascinated by the first three issues of the pamphlet series/journal Slow Poetry in America, edited and
produced in Toronto by Dale Smith, Hoa Nguyen and Michael Cavuto [they even have a facebook page]. American
poets who arrived north a few years back, Smith and Nguyen are also the
editors/publishers of the long-running Skanky Possum, a literary press which
has since expanded into an occasional series of house-readings. As the website for Slow Poetry in America informs:
Slow Poetry in America
is a quarterly poetry newsletter edited by Dale Smith, Hoa Nguyen, and Michael
Cavuto. Each issue is printed in Toronto, ON and features one poet, and can be
mailed anywhere in the world. Annual subscriptions ($10) are made on a rolling
basis and will include the next four issues.
Bookstore/Institution
Subscriptions are $25.00 annually and will receive 10 copies of each
newsletter. Please email mcavuto@gmail.com for Bookstore/Institution
Subscriptions.
SPIA subscriptions seek
only to cover the costs of printing & publishing, and do not earn any
monetary profit.
Reminiscent
of the pamphlets produced through Rachel Moritz’ WinteRed [see her 12 or 20 (small press) questions here] or Sylvester Pollet’s infamous Backwoods Broadsides, a series which ended an impressive twelve-year run back in 2006, Slow Poetry in America is a self-proclaimed “newsletter” that shares a title with Smith’s own most recent title, produced in 2015 by Victoria, Texas publisher Cuneiform Press, as well as an ongoing poetry and critical blog. Given that, it would seem to be that the title becomes, then, an
umbrella, stretching across a larger poetic, from his own personal writing, to
a collective sense of editing, reading and participating.
TROUBLE
someone who’s
in trouble
sometimes
if i make
my trouble an
intellectual thing
then i can sit at the
table
sometimes (Marion Bell)
The
first three issues are “GROUND,” by Texas poet Kim Dorman, “8 Poems,” by Philadelphia
poet Marion Bell (June 2015) and “Sound Science: Selections,” by the late Texas
(by way of Panama and New York) poet Lorenzo Thomas (1944-2005) from his 1992 trade
collection Sound Science (October
2015), all of which exists as an introduction to poets I hadn’t even heard of
previously. It is curious to see how Slow
Poetry in America, at least so far, works to bring the work of Texan poets
north of the border (which makes sense, given the decade-plus that Smith and Nguyen lived and worked there), and if this series is one that works as an extension
of their prior work with Skanky Possum, or if it will be working to also engage
with the literary community around them, in their new home in Toronto. Either way,
these are compelling publications, and teasingly small, which can only entice.
PROTECTION
Sometimes I’m saying I love
you
Those words in English
mean
I will not let anyone
hurt you
But me (Lorenzo Thomas)
