Today's 30/30 poem inspired by Revolutionary War Spy Correspondence

I've long been interested in espionage and poetry. The French Resistance used poetry to throw off the Nazis in World War II, a subject I've explored before, in "Dinner Night At Henri's." (My good friend Nate McFadden recorded the poem for his blog and podcast--click the link to enjoy)

Today's poem is inspired by masks used by Revolutionary spies, which I have recently re-discovered by watching TV. AMC's Turn has a bunch of cool spy techniques detailed on its paper-cut intro, and uses one of the mask techniques in a recent episode. The mask pictured here works best with handwritten work, so the poem I've worked on today is more of a code.

The poem is also inspired by harmonics, as was yesterday's poem. AP Psychology students had an ear full of me last week when we looked at perceptual illusions, including harmonic illusions and psycho-audio hallucinations. Go here for a link about Diana Deutsch's audio illusions. So some of the poem is about saying words in the right key or tone, to open that magical door. The words Abracadabra are meaningless, and it is not the words but the sounds the syllables make that make the magic happen, as with poetry.

Here's a sampling of today's poem:

Oh, my middle sleep! The grease our skins make under the sheets,

nightsweat in the beamed dark, fire lit shades drawn closed,

the theatre a candle makes of dark places, anything ordinary

transforms. Every other word is truth, to cipher the weal

take a pen and scratch out the eyes. To shade, to shade

what have we been voted into or out of? My ghastly

toe-headed conspirator, the pale is the knife wiped clean.

Vibrate with me as we speak the vowels which are gauges,

valves for your sweet breath, your sweat breath and mine.

Laws unmasked as they are made. Unmake men and take them

to edge a field, to meet a faceless man and share a bag of coins.

You can read the whole thing here when it is posted later today.

Summer Poetry Reading in Rehoboth

If anyone's interested in a mid-summer run to Rehoboth's outlet malls, consider Tuesday, July 27th, and stop by the Rehoboth Beach Librar y for the summer poetry series. Besides moi, Denise Clemmons, poet and food critic for the Cape Gazette, and Sherry Chapplle, poet and professor. Excellent company. Books will be for sale afterwards. It's a quality series, and full of surprises. Garry Hanna has done a bang-up job organizing the summer series. Bring a few quarters to ward off the meter maid. Reading starts at 7:00 PM.

Out this week: Thirty Days: Best of the 30/30 Project. Featuring my poem "Love in Reverse"

Marie Gauthier of Tupelo Press selected one of my poems, "Love in Reverse" for Thirty Days : The best of the 30/30 Project Year One. It's one of a few anthologies to feature my work (cue haughty accent, spotlight, espresso, and French cigarettes). Hopefully you'll be hearing more from me over the next few months as projects near completion. Thanks for the support.

Vittorio Carli's work is punk rock #poetry

A Passion for Apathy: The Collected and Rejected Poems of Vittorio Carl i, a small press gem of punk rock poetry, carries poetic traditions in its teeth. Punk rock because of the in-your-face-anti-establishment irony and earnestness in Carli's presentation of his verse, traditional in the homage and muse tradition of poetry. He writes to and for those and that which enlarges his voice. Carli's work reads like a cross between cultural commentary/homage to persons as varied as Lawrence Welk to Woody Allen, to snapshots of socio-political unrest, which are flags of protest. My favorite is the “The Trouble with Librarians (for Andrea)” where Librarians are cast as the progenitors of closed information; they are “all closed books/with a couple of pages missing.” He's a poet, and I imagine him in some stacked room typing madly, or in transit, to and fro Chicago, scribbling on the back of brown paper bags. He works it. He's out there living poetry. Proof. My copy of t...

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