Readings always add a dimension to text otherwise lacking when the author's voice has never been heard, and this even when the text is already transferring a residual power. In my own case, I'm thankful for having had the opportunity to have heard many poets read, but most especially in the last several years here in Asheville, Eileen Myles, Lee Ann Brown, and Lisa Jarnot. Anyway, having heard them brings a greater dimension to their work when I now encounter it as text, as I am now able to recall their voices and presence, and accordingly I even more readily seek out and read what they've written. It's like I just can't get enough.

And so it happened that I was reading Lisa Jarnot where I could find her work online after having heard her for the first and only time, and Lee Ann Brown for the second, last winter out in the former dining room of Black Mountain College (now known as Camp Rockmont), when I came across her "Pigeon Collage" and then proceeded to write several variations or adaptations or whatever they are. This activity on my part, I suppose, might have been triggered by my finding out about Pom² at this same Black Mountain recall event, since this is exactly the kind of appropriation the editors of this publication encourage, and seeing that I know Ethan Fugate as well (used to live around here), and he happened to be at this event as one of the organizers and one of three editors of Pom².

In any case, here's one of those:

Pig College

Savage unlit behest
of the bin-driven swine
enliven fly squeal and hog

spirit swill nigh
haphazard brood sow
raindrops and farmers and sty

walk and don’t waddle
smudge moonlit rib rack
tandem chop clacker and tusk

puddle blunt staple rut
back scratching red maple
echo arc autumn and moan

bog this reminder
big flight bayonet
barrelling into the brain

slack lasso neck porker toast
bacon stake couple three
belly swell bile and thrust

After writing several of these, I wondered what to do with them, wondered what the hell I was doing, and have been sitting on them since, and I suppose this blog is as good a place as any where they might briefly flash into the light before once again fading. They never hold still anyway, as each time I see them they undergo another change.