Perturbance

by Bill Bowling

Perturbance is a collection of poems composed using a special short form; that form is called a Sevenling. The poems are brief, but thought provoking. This is poetry that remains close to the earth but travels well in this tech driven 21st century.

With Perturbance we have a whole flock of Sevenlings + a bonus essay.

A Sevenling is a little bird, ahem, poem, consisting of seven lines; it's very quick, terse. It enters and creates this immediate and impressive burst in the psyche. It leaves an air of mystery, which is part of its captivating charm. It can come on like a mini-fireworks display, or it can surprise you like sudden downpour. The experience of reading Sevenlings is similar to connecting with haiku or tanka, but with a more agitated feel.

The Sevenling originated with Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, who is recognized as a premier writer in the early 20th century. The form has been taken up, tweaked, and modified by poet Roddy Lumsden, and others. The poems ordinarily don't have titles, but use instead the first line as the title; that tradition has been kept in this work.

Perturbance basically means disturbance, but perturbance, the word, widens the connotative field to take in deeper interactive, affective processes. In other words, it's all perturbance; it's all in the moving with, passing through, interacting with what is all around us--that outside we feel separated from to whatever degree.

. . . Where and what is Perturbance? Perturbance is in the mind, perturbance is in the sky, perturbance is in the earth, the soil, the rivers, the oceans, perturbance is in the body, perturbance is in the spirit, perturbance is both a shady presence and a catalyst toward some action, if only the leap at utterance. (From the Introduction to Perturbance)

Culled from the writer's journal, these little poems are the result of working within certain constraints in the belief that it makes the writing better in the long run.

These flash entries show sensitivity to environmental concerns, the nature of form, light, time, the power of change, and the awesomeness of consciousness, awareness, aliveness, the phenomenal interface with the world and with the universe.

Go on, then, set this flock of Sevenlings free, open the book, read, and watch them fly and soar; look, up in the sky, it's a murmuration of Sevenlings.

116 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 28, 2013

About the author

The first hurdle this writer had to clear was embracing the notion: "I am a writer; a writer is what I want to be, and what I was meant to be." That one was fairly easy, and has been cleared, sometimes self-esteem falters. Second was following through, and doing it--just doing it, that's all there is to it; we want it to be more than that, unfortunately. He's still working on that one. There's starting to be a trickle of water out of the dam. Third, he had to face the terrifying process of actually putting something out there. He started shipping 'stuff' with Perturbance, and there's definitely more to follow. Fourthly, he's continually mystified and confounded by the process of selling the 'stuff'. All he's really looking for is some brave soul to step out from the pack and be the first to check out something new. Who will be that first. Point of ponderance: J. K. Rowling was once an unknown. Just saying. Fifthly,(is that a word?), or finally this writer is a generalist, and that means he writes about what is interesting, educational, and enlightening. Where he got his start was with poetry, so there'll be a lot of that, plus nonfiction, fiction. You never know, stick around, check it out. He's looking for readers, and friends and literate conversation. He does not mean that to sound like a personal ad. Namaste.