Carrie Etter's Blog

I'm now blogging at my new website, http://carrieetter.com. Come along?

Some favourite passages from this book of lyric poems on "scroll paintings and woodblock prints from Japan's Edo period, which spanned 1603-1868": 


She from the spent cushion
grasps his clothing, not
to keep him but to indicate pleasure-
given loyalty.

from "Lover Taking Leave of a Courtesan"

                                           Bitter-sweet longing becomes inflectedwith song.
from "Hibiscus and Korean Nightingale"

                                             How coolthe light in this region of no awe. Welcomemiddle register: sane, calm.
end of "Sparrows and Camelia"

A boatman reclines on the roof
and smokes. In mist, he is invisible,
swept along, an absent-
minded god.

from "Riverboat Party"


Adrenaline mixes with caution, readyto ride toward what is destined. What molten goldfeels before it's poured into the ring mold.
end of "Young Samurai on Horseback"


Water holds blueness not much longer. Deathwill costume it in its color, and the honking of geesewill give voice to its grieving.
end of "Descending Geese at Katana"



As imitation bends toward knowledge, so pleasurebecomes a version of love. 
from "Courtesan with Her Attendant"

A cricket on the pampas grassoutside wants in. Plotting its escapefrom what looks like freedom.
end of "Crickets, Cafe, and Flowers"

                  Sensuousadmissions, the wildernessof another breached, known.
from "Lovers in the Snow"


                                                      Delightedagainst a camouflage of like-minded flowers, the yellowsand green work to keep him hidden,safe in imagination, before the world gallops in, offeringpromises of glory, real swords and real horses.
end of "Boy Dancing with a Hobby-Horse"



It seems the easiest place to obtain Swallows and Waves in the UK is Abe Books here.

Some favourite passages:


If only I'd read

the moss on the tree!
instead of shaking

it for fruit--


from "Cakewalk"



You burn meat both ends, send
the geese bumpingwithin my skin.
end of "Jitterbug"

Your bordeaux dress
uncorked, let'sbreathe awhile
from "Boogaloo"

...your noisy
nudity--O the brass of your body!
sliding, trombone-style....
from "Break"

O the far-flungmorning, a moon
still among it!
from "Calypso"

Lady, you are my Mobile,Alabama--lowdown & too hot
for human habitat--
opening of "Ramble"

Drive until sun staresme down. Radio & the cicadas
with their static wings--I am singing
to myself again.
opening of "Saxophone Solo"

Tonight even the storm
cannot calm me.
from "Slide Guitar"

Outside azaleas bloom loud& red like ambulances
rushing to save someoneor at least try.
*
Lights out--we navigate
the colding house,feel for matchbooks
which you saveto bring light, I
to remember whereI been.
*
Ice turns eventhe trees heavy
& helpless, allmorning falling--
a song of breaking--winter & plunder.
from "Pastorale"

...take down
the tarnished stars, my breathwill shine them up new. 
from "Cotillion"



In the UK, you can buy Jelly Roll from Abe Books here.

Here are some favourite passages from this powerful, enigmatic book in prose poetry:



Please forgive me. I pray and can't make it stop. There were lambswool wigs and paperweight eyes, two factory fires. Instead of blankness, I learned to draw stars with two triangles, one upside and overlapping the other. I covered pages, then like bracelets, my wrists.
*
What should I do with my mind? Think of the way it broke until the breaking is language.
*
Unlike the other automatons who lift a hand mirror or balloon, she exists even when we close our eyes, slapping one small brass cymbal into another, frantically, to prove touching.
*
When I have a headache, I lift my hand over my eyes--if death is a failure of imagination, we are alive.
*
The mutual helplessness of seeing and being seen.
*
As with every revelation, midair, oblivion is realigned and clarified: I want to die then decide.
*
What makes the object alive is desire without relief.
*
Within the bonnet, the two-faced head is rotated by pulling a string from the torso: one face calm, one crying plastic beads on her cheeks--turning: peaceful, sad, peaceful.
Nothing in-between, no transition--I don't remember why she is suffering, why she is glad. It happens so fast: I am hopeless as I pull the string in her torso, then sick with wonder.
*
After a while, we moan and lift our arms in order to feel what she feels: her pose is agony.



In the UK, Small Porcelain Head is available from Wordery.

Here is my last selection of favourite passages from this outstanding book:


...fifty red parrots dove and roared
like a conscious waterfall.

*

The Pacific at night is red
and gives off a soot of desire.


from "XXXVII. Eyewitnesses"

Enormous pools of a moment kept opening around his handseach time he tried to move them.
from "XL. Photographs: Origin of Time"

...a light so brilliant it feels cold and hot at once.
from "XLI. Photographs: Jeats"

In the photograph the face ofHerakles is white. It is the faceof an old man. It is a photograph of the future, thought Geryon months later when hewas standing in his darkroomlooking down at the acid bath and watching likeness come groping out of the bones.
from "XLV. Photographs: Like and Not Like"

This is a memory of ourbeauty.
from "XLVI. Photographs: #1748"

We are amazing beings,Geryon is thinking. We are neighbors of fire.And now time is rushing towards themwhere they stand side by side with arms touching, immortality on their faces,night at their back.
from "XLVII. The Flashes in Which a ManPossesses Himself"


In the UK, you can buy Autobiography of Red from Hive here. 

In what I hope will become an annual event, we held our second Great Graduating Poets' Showcase at The Bath Brew House last Friday night, and it was standing-room only! Here's a first round of photos from that excellent night.

Our compere was the tutor for the third-year poetry module this year, Neil Rollinson.



Emma Hebron


Matthew Mason displays his pamphlet.




Graduating poet Aaron Lembo and yours truly (wearing Matthew Mason's wonderful hat)




The whole gang! Well done, everyone!

Some more favourite passages from this amazing book:


The pimiento stung his mouth alive like sudden sunset.

*

You eat like my daughter. With a certain
shall I say lucidity.

*

Black outside air tossed itself
hard against the windows.

*

Oh don't go, thought Geryon who felt himself starting
to slide off the surface of the room
like an olive off a plate. When the plate attained an angle of thirty degrees
he would vanish into his own blankness.

*

And for a moment the frailest leaves of life contained him in a widening happiness.


from "XXX. Distances"

Cars nested along the curb on their shadows. Buildings leaned back out of the street.Little rackety wind went by.Moon gone. Sky shut. Night had delved deep.
*
He could see the harbor blackly glittering. Cobblestones grew slick. Smell of salt fishand latrines furred the air.
*
Hardly glancingat one another the three of them playedas one person, in a state of pure discovery. They tore clear and clicked and lockedand unlocked, they shottheir eyebrows up and down. They leaned together and wove apart, they rose and cut away and stalkedone another and flew up in a cloud and sank back down on waves.
*
Black night sky weighed starlessly on the windows.
*
The petals of their colognes rose around them in a light terror. 
from "XXXI. Tango"

...the elevator crashed like a mastodon within its hollow cage.
from "XXXII. Kiss"

Ancash sat very straight,a man as beautiful as a live feather.
*
Soon they were out on the streetwalking fast along Avenida Bolívar with a hard wind strumming their bodies. 
*
A winter sun had thrown its bleak wares on the skyand people going pastlooked dazzled.
from "XXXIV. Harrods"


In the UK, you can buy Autobiography of Red from Hive, supporting local independent shops, here. 

Up on the overpass
the night was wide open
and blowing headlights like a sea. He stood against the wind and let it peel him
clean.


from "XVII. Walls"

...a night suddenly gone solid.

from "XVIII. She"

...Geryoncaught her other arm, it was like a handful of autumn.
from "XX. AA"

Each morning a shockto return to the cut soul.
*
Outside the natural world was enjoyinga moment of total strength. Wind rushed over the ground like a sea and battered upinto the corners of the buildings,garbage cans went dashing down the alley after their souls.
from "XXIII. Water"

Geryon's life entered a numb time, caught between the tongue and the taste.
*
...Geryon'swhole body formed one arch of a cry--upcast to that custom, the human customof wrong love.
from "XXIV. Freedom"

As the aeroplane moved over the frozen white flatland of the clouds Geryon lefthis life behind like a weak season.
*
Geryon closed his eyes and listened to engines vibrating deep in the moon-splashedcanals of his brain.
*
Outside a bitten moon rode fast over a tableland of snow.
from "XXVI. Aeroplane"

A cold sprayof fear shot across his lungs. 
*
Four of the roses were on fire.They stood up straight and pure on the stalk, gripping the dark like prophetsand howling colossal intimaciesfrom the back of their fused throats.
*
He moved off into the tragicomedy of the crowd.
from "XXVI. Mitwelt"

Pulling his body after himlike a soggy mattress Geryon trudged on uphill.
from "XXVIII. Skepticism"

Sunset begins early in winter, a bluntness at the edge of the light.
*
Geryon paused in his listening and saw the slopes of time spin backwards and stop.
*
It was the hour when the snow goes blueand streetlights come on and a hare maypause on the tree line as still as a word in a book.
*
His eye traveled to the clock at the front of the room and he fell into the poolof his favorite question.
from "XXIX. Slopes"



In the UK, you can buy Autobiography of Red from Hive, supporting local independent shops, here. 

One of the best parts of visiting San Francisco is visiting Fisherman's Wharf. Yes, it's too touristy, but 1) the sea lions and 2) clam chowder in Boudin sourdough bread bowls. 

A first selection of favourite passages from this wonderful book:



He clothed himself in this strong word each. 

*

Before this time Geryon had not lived nights just days and their red intervals. 

* 

Facts are bigger in the dark.


from "II. Each"

...said his motherrhinestoning past on her way to the door. She had all her breasts on this evening.
*
She was standing before him nowsmiling hard and rummaging in his face with her eyes.
from "III. Rhinestones"

They grinned at each other as night climbed ashore.
from "IV. Tuesday"

Then he met Herakles and all the kingdoms of his life shifted down a few notches.They were two superior eelsat the bottom of the tank and they recognized each other like italics.
*
The world poured back and forth between their eyes once or twice.
from "VII. Change"

Her voice drew a circlearound all the years he had spent in this room.
*
A pure bold longing to be gone filled him.
from "IX. Space and Time"

He understood that people needacts of attention from one another, does it really matter which acts?
*
His voice washedGeryon open.
from "X. Sex Questions"

He could feel the house of sleepersaround him like loaves on shelves.
*
...and a fragment of human voice tore itself out and came past, it seemedalready long ago, trailinga bad dust of its dream which touched his skin.
from "XII. Lava"

As in childhood we live sweeping close to the sky and now, what dawn is this.
from "XVI. Grooming"






In the UK, you can buy Autobiography of Red from Hive here.