About the Poems - PP
About the Poems
by P.F. Potvin *** Blame it on the Australian couple. I met them a few years ago when I was a hut warden in New Zealand's Siberia valley. Together we hiked to Crater Lake and practiced safecrossing the rivers. "Conditioning the Escape" is my interpretation of the woman's details growing up, minus the tinfoil pyramids of power where she was forced to lunch every noon with her sisters in the backyard. *** Exhaustive List of Methods to Improve Complexions 1. David Lynch taken straight after midnight 2. a fan to the face *** Thomas Sayers Ellis, my first-semester grad. professor, used to push on the rims of my poems and cry "Risk more, fool!" as a method of encouragement, which ultimately led to the divergence of the signifier from the signified, and landed me, briefly, in the neighborhood of the language crowd. As a sentence can be considered structurally accessible (we can usually determine the open and close by reading from left to right, in English at least), some of my first non-lineated pieces like "History Shortcut," and also my current endeavors, strive to shroud conceptual abstractions in "simple and understandable language." In this way, reading such pieces may appears effortless, the eyes bounding in neatly punctuated paragraphs without pausing to consciously consider the significance of lines and their breaks. But even the perceived simple is wrought with implications of iceberg theory, everything as relational and beyond, which is the why, of course, we continue to tell the same stories. *** New Guide to "This as a Parting" Fruits: Viña del Mar, Chile Vegetables: paper, pressed and colored to represent Grains: 3 Neruda houses, recommended room over bay in Valparaiso Meats/Fish/Beans/Nuts: Instituto Chileno Norteamericano de Cultura Oils: see K is for Kissinger Serving Size: yet unknown *** Pomescheme "Sound the English Canon!" my under grad professors cried, each piping in on the next to form a chorus strong. But I was listening to Look Homeward Angel after reading what Kerouac was reading. And, like many before and the already next, I found it, sadly, just so so ***