Notes on Poetry
by Justin Goodman
Fissured Tongue Series Vol VII | May 2026
by Justin Goodman
Fissured Tongue Series Vol VII | May 2026
"The Fieldwork Scroll [final section]," Owen Brown, on Emily Wolahan's chapbook Fieldwork. Acrylic and pen on Duralar, 14 x 32 in., 2017
Notes on Poetry
for Thuja plicata, western red cedar,
called “the tree of life” by the Kakawaka’wakw
for Thuja plicata, western red cedar,
called “the tree of life” by the Kakawaka’wakw
|
1st the poem is a -scape. Sound, Land,
E. It’s its entirety. Not altogether pleasant because organs slant rhyme the body and are not always collaboratively aesthetic. The poem is self-care because it is bodily. And what makes beauty is managing noise pollution and knotweed following the guide- lines of the -scape. If the poem falls apart, It falls apart. Do you mourn supercontinents Or the irascible clack of pterosaurs? Falling and breaking is part of their descendants’ flight pattern. Stop and admire the roadkill or the internet equal, a comment section: transverse death’s petrichor the symbiote. The poet is a True Leveller. As such, 2nd rhymes with 1st. Act builds into the theory. The poem is the poet growing on nar-rows |
|
About the Author
JDG (they/them) is a writer based in Brooklyn, NY and a member of the New Haven Writers' Group. Their work has been published, among other places, in Cordite Review, The Pinch, and Prairie Schooner. You can find more of their work at JustinDGoodman.com. About the Work
I’ve always had a fascination with Ars Poetica--in a sense, poetry writing its own memoir--which is, itself, an extension of my lifetime anxiety about mortality. Naturally, with fixation on perishing comes the need to explain the enduring aspects of the mortal. These lines are preliminary “notes” on the communal, structural, and embodied aspects of perseverance, the poem itself vying for structured, communal embodiment. About the Process
Stephen Crane described his poems as “lines.” I’ve always vibed with this understanding of poetry as the interlocking of threads as if at a loom. It’s one thing to see in the fabric of an idea the poem, and another to bend the fabric together into a wearable form: that’s how I write, weaving from the space of a page a place for the reader’s eyes to follow. [Insta @ZekeoftheWeek] |
***
|
About the Artist
Owen Brown was born in Chicago. He lived for many years in San Francisco, he now lives in Minneapolis. His works are in collections in this country and abroad. He has been the recipient of various awards and residencies; most recently he was a guest artist at the Spinnerei in Leipzig, Germany. "The Fieldwork Scroll is based on a long poem by Emily Wolahan which I interpreted as being partly about the world refugee crisis." Brown writes, "Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking. The source of my practice is the world with all its beauty and confusion--nature, so alien and alluring, the social, equally baffling but no less wonderful, and the uncomfortable friction between that, and our internal interpretations. This world seems to carry on as if there aren’t a million reasons to be shocked--life eludes easy understanding or conclusion: what are we seeing when we really think about it and how did we miss it before?" |
