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Testament
Testament is the summation of Dennis Lee's decade - long exploration of the dilemma of contemporary existence. Incorporating and rethinking the work published in Un and Yesno, and featuring many completely new poems, this startling collection reminds us anew of the catastrophic reality we have made of our planet, while simul...
144 pages, Paperback
First published April 7, 2012
12 people want to read
About the author
Dennis Lee
123 books48 followersDennis Beynon Lee, OC, MA is a Canadian poet and thinker who lives in Toronto, Ontario. He is also a children's writer.
After attending high school at the University of Toronto Schools, Lee received bachelor's and master's degrees in English from the University of Toronto. He is best known for his children's writings; his most famous work is the rhymed Alligator Pie (1974). He also wrote the lyrics to the theme song of the 1980s television show Fraggle Rock and, with Philip Balsam, many of the other songs for that show. Balsam and Lee also wrote the songs for the television special The Tale of the Bunny Picnic. Lee is co-writer of the story for the film Labyrinth.
After attending high school at the University of Toronto Schools, Lee received bachelor's and master's degrees in English from the University of Toronto. He is best known for his children's writings; his most famous work is the rhymed Alligator Pie (1974). He also wrote the lyrics to the theme song of the 1980s television show Fraggle Rock and, with Philip Balsam, many of the other songs for that show. Balsam and Lee also wrote the songs for the television special The Tale of the Bunny Picnic. Lee is co-writer of the story for the film Labyrinth.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 22, 2022
testament combines two related texts:
Un
and
Yesno
(with revisions).
From Un ...
From Yesno ...
From Un ...
A little planet blues, for the
deathwatch.
A season of rictus riffs.
(When schist prevails, and squamous
pinpricks of appetite
vamp to a second future - who'll chant the
mutant genesis? who celebrate
an aevum cleansed of us?)- blues, pg. 3
* * *
In wreck, in dearth, in necksong,
godnexus gone to fat of the land,
into the wordy desyllabification of evil - small
crawlspace for plegics, 4, 3, 2, 1, un.- inwreck, pg. 7
* * *
Tagalong
snatches, algorithmic
hums. You even wear gene
disguises. Little anti-
threnodic peeps, tell nix in the slurry:
some-
thing matters, no
matter how nano the known.- tagalong, pg. 27
* * *
In cess, in dis-
ownmost, in ripture,
in slow-mo history cease,
in bio in haemo in necro - yet how
dumbfound how
dazzled, how
mortally lucky to be.- history, pg. 44
* * *
Lost word in the
green going down,
husk of a logos,
crybaby word, out
dragging your passel of absence -
little word lost, why in the
demeanigned world would I
cradle your lonely?
You, little murderer? You, little cannibal drag?!- word, pg. 55
* * *
Blind
light, blind
night, blind blinkers.
Blind of the lakelorn /of
lumpen /the scree.
In terminal ought and deny, indelible isprints.
Palping the scandalscript. Sniffing the
petrified fiat.- blind, pg. 63
From Yesno ...
Still singable
coleoptera. Still ozone
ave, still
redwoods memorious: earth
clamant, earth
keening earth
urnal, earth
gravid with loss.
Fluke
crusoe on boolean
sands, heart-
stopt with elderlore - still
spackled with
plosions of
let-there-be. In-
cipit afterplanet.- still, pg. 77
* * *
Earth, you almost enough
Hoof-high to excelsis, trilobite
sutra, cordillera jackpot:
into the new of attrition, the
birth of the lopped.
Into biosaudades.
Too fell a fate, green-
gone inheritor;
iotacome donner & ooze - still singing,
Hail to the unextinct,
oomph to the lorn-being-born.- oomph, pg. 90
* * *
As stuttle inflex the genomes.
As bounty floundles.
As coldcock amnesia snakes thru
shoreline/sporeland/syngone -
hi diddle
template, unning becomes us,
palimpsest gibber & newly.
I spin the yin stochastic, probble a
engram luff, & parse haw
bareback the whichwake, besoddle a thrashold flux.- flux, pg. 102
* * *
Earth heres, earth
nows, is there
nothing?
What whats?
Inlisten.
What blickens?
Inner than
polipulse, homer than breathbeat, listen to
isten. To
istence. Listen to inguish. Listen to
is.- listen, pg. 111
* * *
Of more the less; of
least, prognostipangs.
Scrabbling for abc.
No heaven, no
beanstalk, bare earth.
Shedding what pyrotech-
tactics?
Threading what speakab/un-
speakable, ekable, seekable
gauntlet of need?- abc, pg. 121
* * *
Mercator cleanup or what?
Toxijam loosened, slum-
praxis goosed;
techmate relievo or what.
Alphas of stricken, bare omega noodlers -
swot to revivify human,
vamping on taptoes of must.
By the law by the lab by the ballot:
sanity sweat.
Lost-ditch endorphins or what.
Hometruth cojones. Or what?- orwhat, pg. 129
August 8, 2022
The words - my soul - the words!! I filled pages and pages in my journal with the words. Loved it!
A selection:
abracadaver
cedarfast willowpang maplemind oakable
techmare
tonguetide
thrashold
wreckabye
And phrases:
thingdom come
and / debit, debit, debit moans the moon
to / praise with a broken art
holes in the wholly
clash and blurn
A selection:
abracadaver
cedarfast willowpang maplemind oakable
techmare
tonguetide
thrashold
wreckabye
And phrases:
thingdom come
and / debit, debit, debit moans the moon
to / praise with a broken art
holes in the wholly
clash and blurn
April 13, 2023
The dismantling and reassembly of language. The eco-system of the world as its poetry playground.
Wow.
Wow.
January 31, 2025
CNF. Too reliant on the Jabberwocky gimmick, no real payoffs other than that. Read half a dozen, then flipped around to a few others at random, then gave up.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews