Jerome Rothenberg

Poems and poetics

Rae Armantrout

Four Poems from 'Entanglements,' with a note by the author

[The poems, below, appeared two years ago in Armantrout’s small book Entanglements, published by Wesleyan University Press and still readily available. The author’s note that follows was written specifically for Poems and Poetics, as an opening and guide to her remarkable and always mind-bending “physics-inspired writing.” (J.R.)]

[The poems, below, appeared two years ago in Armantrout’s small book Entanglements, published by Wesleyan University Press and still readily available. The author’s note that follows was written specifically for Poems and Poetics, as an opening and guide to her remarkable and always mind-bending “physics-inspired writing.” (J.R.)]


Running

Jerome Rothenberg, with Javier Taboada

From 'UN LIBRO DE LAS VOCES' (forthcoming)

The following are the opening pages of Un Libro de las Voces (A Book of Voices), scheduled for publication early next year by Mangos de Hacha in Mexico, D.F. and the Universidad de Nueva Léon in Monterrey.

[The following are the opening pages of Un Libro de las Voces (A Book of Voices), scheduled for publication early next year by Mangos de Hacha in Mexico, D.F.

Rochelle Owens

'Everlasting Duration,' in memory of George

George Economou (1934–2019)
George Economou (1934–2019)

You are sitting down

to a late lunch

in my castle on a hill

 

while a jazz trio plays

You are sitting down

to a late lunch

in my castle on a hill

 

while a jazz trio plays

 

then suddenly

a chemical reaction

takes place —

 

Javier Taboada

'Three visions of Toño,' translated by Cole Heinowitz

[In celebration of our work together coediting the transnational assemblage of North and South American poetry from origins to present, in progress and scheduled for publication by University of California Press, Im posting here these three connected poems from Javier Taboadas most recent gathering.

Joel Newberger

'Bamidbar' (In the Desert) from HEXATEUCH, 2019

[What follows is a section of Joel Newberger’s elaboration of the Bible’s first five books (Torah in Hebrew, Pentateuch in Greek-derived English), in what Robert Kelly succinctly calls “Newberger’s imaginative disclosure of the multitudinous meanings of the Five Books so rightly called of Moses.”  Presented below, then, is what the English Bible knows as The Book of Numbers, but named in the old book itself as Bamidbar: “In the Desert,” or closer to my own concerns “In the Wilderness.” And Kelly further: “This is a book of recovery, adventure, shock, high comedy, tenderness. The Bible will never seem the same again, thank God. And one privilege of his Hexateuch, is that it does a good job of contributing to the vital revolution in religious studies leading to a fresh and altogether anti-patriarchal awareness of Judaism and Christianity as one religion, not two … and understanding how they are linked by a shared eschaton.” That Newberger’s is a brave and important new poem as well is also to be noted. (J.R.)]

[What follows is a section of Joel Newberger’s elaboration of the Bible’s first five books (Torah in Hebrew, Pentateuch in Greek-derived English), in what Robert Kelly succinctly calls “Newberger’s imaginative disclosure of the multitudinous meanings of the Five Books so rightly called of Moses.”  Presented below, then, is what the English Bible knows as The Book of Numbers, but named in the old book itself as Bamidbar: “In the Desert,” or closer to my own concerns “In the Wilderness.” And Kelly further: “This is a book of recovery, adventure,