JOINT WORDS

by John M. Bennett, Bruce Andrews

14 loose cards - each with a 2 word poem on them.

Genres: Poetry

14 pages, cards in envelope

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

John M. Bennett (b. 1942) is a poet, visual poet and musician living in Columbus, Ohio. In 1974, he founded Luna Bisonte Prods, a small press releasing his own poetry and art, as well as other writers’ work. He edited and published the Lost and Found Times magazine from 1975 to 2005. He is curator of the Avant Writing Collection at The Ohio State University Libraries, Columbus, OH. In 2002, he exhibited some specimens from this collection during a show called An American Avantgarde: Second Wave. The 84pp catalog is a perfect introduction to the world of visual poetry and is linked to below as a PDF file. Bennett has published over 400 books, chapbooks, cassettes, and CDs of poetry and other materials. He has collaborated with numerous avantgarde poets, artists, and musicians since the 1970s, lately with the Be Blank Consort, a quartet of sound poets including Scott Helmes, Carlos Luis, and Kathy Ernst, performing with occasional guests.

[This UbuWeb Resource is edited by Benjamin Bennett.
https://www.ubu.com/vp/bennett.html]

Reviews

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fourteen poems, each two words in length. Can these two-word poems be called "poems"? Why not?

SLOW FLOOR

WORD KAK

YET HAND

SAME RATION

KAAK STUNT

WHITE PULP

LOCK QUART

THAT UNIT

BOOM BOOM

SEND LINKS

STIFF EACH

ACTUALLY CLEAVES

SHEET NESS

METER AXES

Source: eclipsearchive.org

[Tentatively, Convenience · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hhmm.. As is perhaps too often the case (?), I like this more for its formal properties than for any other reason. Word combinations like: "SAME RATION", "STIFF EACH", "ACTUALLY CLEAVES", etc, 2 words per small card - perhaps each writer contributed one word per card, perhaps knowing what the other had written, perhaps independently. Perhaps these are poetry Rorschach blots, little catalysts to 'make-yr-own-poem'. Whatever the case, this is unique.