Clockwise Cat Issue 40

how much of cyclicality
is
rasp . . .
rub frisson splay, that between the spots fertilizer, fricativetantalize
essentially the dialogue as framework : call & response :
the inter-gather : in-gest ://: di-gest : the insupportable
supported,
the supported → suspect
the road to nutritive road
shanghaied.
These lines, in all their exuberantly bemusing glory,
luminously and humorously showcase the inner workings
of the Hinge-verse, evincing, in a sense, that, like the
mechanics of a clock, each part relies on the other to
operate properly and to be a wholly functioning slice of
verse. It's impossible to cover the staggering scope of his
thick tome in one measly mini-review, but suffice it to say
that it's a rowdily rewarding read - there's even a Table of
Condemnations, where Heller eviscerates the sterility of
modern poetics, and in between poems (are these poems? Post-Poetics has been
mentioned in reference to Hinge...) there are jaunty pseudo-axioms and the like. Lingua
Quake is the one seismic event where you will want to be very present; it will shake up
your world in a glorious way.
Jeffrey Cyphers Wright’s Blue Lyre/Dos Madres Press
Jeffrey Cyphers Wright is a delightfully animated presence. In his poetry readings, he
emanates the air of someone who takes fun very seriously. His
flamboyantly whimsical persona spreads a contagious feeling of goodwill;
when I last saw him, at the New Orleans Poetry Fest, he was wearing a
baseball cap that declared "FUN" in big letters, and it truly warmed my
heart. So I am not surprised that while reading the poems in his latest
tome, Blue Lyre, I could visualize his friendly face and hear his singular
voice that dances and skips along the lines of his verse. Indeed, these
lines, by turns lyrical ("Rain hammers blue nails into dusk's chest"), playful
("Don't hurt yourself trying to be like me (although it couldn't hurt)" ),
melancholic ("That time, late - late in August, when Dad called with the
diagnosis"), indignant ("We have nothing to fear but global warming...")
leap off the page as though they want to twirl and tango with their sculptor,
he who has such a lust for life and language. The poems ooze jazz tempos
and wicked wordplay ("catastrophe's apostrophe"), and surge with sensory
imagery to die for ("Night's silence is actually a thousand cicadas making their opera
roar").
But perhaps it's his "Runaway Doors" multi-part poem that is the centerpiece of the
collection, which features some endlessly quotable lines:
"Door scratched out of homemade sky."