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Arcade
poetry w/2-color woodcuts printed on vellum sheets
- GenresPoetry
53 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1996
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 2, 2025
from First Words
the words in books no one reads
are already unwriting themselves
the words that return in the face
the face of the familiar
defend the overwritten
the words at the center
or at a dead end
use grammar to parse their decease
the words that unbutton the
pants of ardent description
the words leading from one thing to the next
shift as you enter
the words in bones
stand for what they are part of
the words that overstate
hyperbolize
the words that give nothing
beyond the masks carried in ourselves
ensure we don't spill a drop (10-11)
Coronary Artist (2)
Though what I live now is ordinary, I have lived through the glory of numbers. I have visited zero in the sense of absolute beginning to watch fate bleed uncontrollably through a vast chain of explanatory footnotes wound like a bandage over the simplest matter.
I have resisted the power of spelling and broken the spell of pronouns inventing continuity where persons and personalities change sides. I have peered through a keyhole into that narrow room, history, where it is happening to someone else upstairs overhead wearing heavy shoes.
Pathetic, awkward, overdoing it, thumping around breaking into static, fend off the eros to which we react, never initiate, grabbing instead what stales our everyday, our faded monotony. Who wouldn't kick in their sleep and wander off the path of managed impulse? Who wouldn't aspire to become an alien in their own language for a moment to lose the feeling of being both separated and crowded by their experience? (15)
Fortune
We haven't entered enough contests and won. But we'll correct this — we'll break the bank and go from one to the other, sweepstakes winners, lotto lovers, zero demons, a terrible crew of arrivistes, swilling seltzer and ordering books they don't have in the kitchen. Watch out. We will leave a winning streak in our wake, like the sign of Zorro, like a hunter with her ear to the ground, looking for the next roll of dice, like a window you can see through.
Go ahead, make some noise. This morning lives for racket, it makes the sun rise faster, part fact, part fiction. We wake up to make ends meet — to make ends meet. (34)
the words in books no one reads
are already unwriting themselves
the words that return in the face
the face of the familiar
defend the overwritten
the words at the center
or at a dead end
use grammar to parse their decease
the words that unbutton the
pants of ardent description
the words leading from one thing to the next
shift as you enter
the words in bones
stand for what they are part of
the words that overstate
hyperbolize
the words that give nothing
beyond the masks carried in ourselves
ensure we don't spill a drop (10-11)
Coronary Artist (2)
Though what I live now is ordinary, I have lived through the glory of numbers. I have visited zero in the sense of absolute beginning to watch fate bleed uncontrollably through a vast chain of explanatory footnotes wound like a bandage over the simplest matter.
I have resisted the power of spelling and broken the spell of pronouns inventing continuity where persons and personalities change sides. I have peered through a keyhole into that narrow room, history, where it is happening to someone else upstairs overhead wearing heavy shoes.
Pathetic, awkward, overdoing it, thumping around breaking into static, fend off the eros to which we react, never initiate, grabbing instead what stales our everyday, our faded monotony. Who wouldn't kick in their sleep and wander off the path of managed impulse? Who wouldn't aspire to become an alien in their own language for a moment to lose the feeling of being both separated and crowded by their experience? (15)
Fortune
We haven't entered enough contests and won. But we'll correct this — we'll break the bank and go from one to the other, sweepstakes winners, lotto lovers, zero demons, a terrible crew of arrivistes, swilling seltzer and ordering books they don't have in the kitchen. Watch out. We will leave a winning streak in our wake, like the sign of Zorro, like a hunter with her ear to the ground, looking for the next roll of dice, like a window you can see through.
Go ahead, make some noise. This morning lives for racket, it makes the sun rise faster, part fact, part fiction. We wake up to make ends meet — to make ends meet. (34)
February 3, 2019
I believe I picked this work up because of the art, as some of the woodcuts in this collection really are striking. I'm not often drawn into a work because of illustrations (of any kind), but in this case, they go hand in hand with the poems Hunt has created and truly add a different dimension to the work. That said, for me, the woodcuts actually made the collection. I found that I didn't enjoy the poems half so much as I enjoyed the way ideas were offered alongside the art, and the way they were intermingled. The poems themselves felt sometimes draft-y or unfinished, and sometimes a bit forced or rushed, and I had a difficult time staying engaged with them. There are some lovely turns of phrase... but they didn't pull me in and hold onto my interest for the most part.
Would I recommend this? Perhaps to readers of poetry who want to see it intermingled with and against art. Beyond that, I don't know that I would. I fear this collection won't stay with me for long.
Would I recommend this? Perhaps to readers of poetry who want to see it intermingled with and against art. Beyond that, I don't know that I would. I fear this collection won't stay with me for long.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews