In Descending Order
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I wrote “Descending Order” some years ago — a format experiment I was quite pleased with — and, after receiving a stack of editors’ rejection letters, decided that its unorthodox orientation might’ve played a part in the difficulty of getting it published. That’s the comfortable excuse, anyway. There’s always the possibility that it’s simply not a successful poem. I prefer to think that its four (vertical) lines impart something of the wide language of desire, even if the voice speaking isn’t one that the reader already knows.
| 4. a d i s h o f v i n d a l o o a n d s a f f r o n r i c e | 3. h e r p a l e t h i g h s i n a s y m m e t r i c a l m o t i o n | 2. t h e s l a t e o f d i m i n i s h i n g d a y l i g h t | 1. e v e r y t h i n g e l s e i c a n n o t r e a c h t o t o u c h |
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I wrote “Descending Order” some years ago — a format experiment I was quite pleased with — and, after receiving a stack of editors’ rejection letters, decided that its unorthodox orientation might’ve played a part in the difficulty of getting it published. That’s the comfortable excuse, anyway. There’s always the possibility that it’s simply not a successful poem. I prefer to think that its four (vertical) lines impart something of the wide language of desire, even if the voice speaking isn’t one that the reader already knows.
Did you send it to Beloit Poetry Journal?
ReplyDeleteThey just did an issue with experimental forms like this; minimalism and texture in language. They published authors in English, French, German, and Spanish. (If I remember correctly and I believe I do).
Some of their issues are posted as PDFs online.
http://www.bpj.org/PDF/V17N1.pdf#zoom=100&page=18
http://www.bpj.org (the homepage of their website).
My favorite from that issue they did is Claus Bremer's piece and a close second lead is Ian Hamilton Finlay's work (which, in the French, I could understand easiest).
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