Three Mouths

by Tod Thilleman

No single note can contain or describe this work, nor is there a quiet samenesswhich will lull one beyond question. Instead there is a composed concentrationin the center of calamitous movement—movement which embodies inquiry, whichlistens as a means of locomotion, transferring setting to sound, venturing out alongmany circumstances. Laynie Browne, from the introductionTod Thilleman began to attract attention with his sequence collection Wave-Runand has continued to mine secrets and depths inherent in language, but oftenignored. The magic of words—that they have lives of their own beyond their obviouspower to communicate information .... Between continues that process, informedby his conductus, the Daemon. It is a great privilege to have been allowed tofollow the quest. Theodore EnslinZukofsky tells us that those without greek can still pick up the sound of the sea—and know that it is the sea—from hearing Homer’s language. Those who sound thelanguage of Tod Thilleman’s Wave-Run may at first feel submerged in a foreignlanguage only to arrive at a later—and deeper, more alive—realization of English andof a different sea. “Cupped, cupped coiling wave contains/somewhere line’s form’slanguage.” The same is true vice versa. John Taggart

120 pages, Paperback

First published October 30, 2005