Seeds Sown for John Taggart

Object: A group composition to be distributed in time and space &
Rationale: “there are things to do together and things to do by ourselves”

Players: nine poets gathered in a workshop reading Is Music

Melody: Cantus Firmus: a motif, a melodic pattern or refrain line, over which changes occur:

“to un-name the beasts throw out the name of money”

 “to rise and speak a green remonstrance”

 “to stain within the definition of silence”

 “to join a diversified assembly”

 “the voice alone is company but not enough”

 “you were waiting alone in the room for the train”

 “bitter search and ironic chatter it began where the other had left off”

 

Harmony: “an additive structure of new vocabulary”

Eye: “there is an eye demand … one of the functions of this unresting cadence is to defeat the silent reading eye”

Line: “a relatively long line that moves by a continuously recurring but not repeating cadence” & Length: a roving poem of 12–16 lines

Openings: “the poem must contain a perceptible pattern of openings, composed silences”

Analogy: “the model ought not to be the ecstatically still saint, but the moved dancer … & thus I am drawn to the poem as a woven scarf with many openings through which light enters”

Theme: to speak against “falling silent” (Celan): “… there can be no doubt. The question is how the poem is to be returned to enacted speech.” & “there will have to be responsibility to a community which, in part, the poet has helped come into existence”

Goal: “the goal still remains transformation”

— all quotations taken from John Taggart, Peace on Earth (Berkeley: Turtle Island Foudation, 1981) and “Dance,” Songs of Degrees: Essays on Contemporary Poetry and Poetics (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1994). 

 

Seeds Sown for John Taggart

To un-name the beasts throw out 
the name of money

 

the man of power

to stain within

 

the definition, the definition

of silence

 

the man of power

that rests

 

you were waiting alone

in the room for the train

 

the definition

the proposition through silence

 

the man of power

that rests

 

the man of power

 

/ Lincoln Greenhaw

 

 

 

You were the you waiting alone in the room

for the train. Look how plurality has made you

 
inside of you. Your space is new;

 

never seen this you before. You

joined a diversified assembly of skin,

 

called it room.

 

/ Mickey Kenney

 

 

 

The voice alone is company but not enough

and you must stop it being quite so poorly-conceived

to un-name the beasts throw out the name of money

without the anchor of company, of money the voice

alone the voice is not quite enough but money

to un- the name the throwing of the anchor, the beasts

you must, to quite to stop their poor-conceiving accompany

their voice, company if it’s alone if it’s a beast if alone

but not quite alone, if it’s money but not company an anchor

thrown quite like a beast to pasture and if you money

the quiet voice it’s company enough, if you un- the beast you

stop it, the beast, being un- and conceived poorly the voice

alone the voice is quite enough it must you quiet you

must the voice you anchor, un-company un-moneyed

 

/ Kaelyn Riley

 

 

 

you are waiting alone in the room for the train 
and the waltzing silence of one star’s light

to rise and speak with a green remonstrance

 

to speak of earth in the silence of stars

is to wait alone in a darkened room to wait

for the waltz to rise and speak out of light

 

(to speak in green tones)

 

when the voice alone is company but not enough

you wait in silence to waltz as a rise to speak

with a green remonstrance

 

 alone the train,      a waltz

 
/ Joanna Doxey

 

 

 

the voice alone is company but not enough

you were waiting alone in the room for the train

 

waiting alone for you the voice in the room

waiting for you alone in the room in the train

 

the voice alone in the train waiting alone

is not company enough for you alone in the room

it began where the other had left off

 

waiting for you alone in the train where the other

in the room had left off but not enough

you were waiting for the voice it began

 

the voice waiting alone for you it began

in the room where the other had left

you alone in the train but not room enough

 

/ Anamika Dugger

 

 

 

The voice alone                                    is company but not enough

 

to dispel            the silence of ringing and breath and beat

 

or tide and full eclipse                        the silence of disappearing

 

 

 

platforms and snow            just starting to stain the concrete

 

dark gray            to stain within the definition                 of silence.

 

The moon follows in bright silence                        bound to revolve

 

 

 

and reflect like my eyes                        in panes            or your eyes

 

when we rise and speak or strain            within the definition

 

of silence.            The voice alone company                   but not

 

 

 

enough to stir of silence                        oceans                 or sooth the ringing

 

 one voice doesn’t mask. I saw my breath when Earth hid

 

 its moon you were waiting alone in the room for the train.

/ Rachel Linnea Brown

 

 

 

the name alone       a record of money

 

 money the stain of beasts

 

 

 it began where the other had left off

 

 bitter search            ironic chatter            the voice

 

 alone is no company            not enough

 

 

 

 you were waiting alone in the room for the train

 

 the train being not enough            unnamed the beasts

 

 of money            set down the bank

 

 

 

 there is an eye demand       a green remonstrance

 

 to stain within       definition of silence

 

 a room where the other left off

 

 

 

 voice alone is company enough       but to join

 

 a diversified assembly       to join a room

 

 perceptible pattern of names     rise

 

 and speak a green       green definition of silence

 

/ Matthew Cooperman

 

 

 

to stain within the definition of silence 
panes     ocean panes      panes      ocean panes

         to strain

 to see through the rain      ocean rain      raining

                                                       glazing down the sides

                                                                      to the green moss

                                     too sodden

 

 to rise and speak with a green remonstrance

 sift the grassweeds for seeds and space without sound

 the round of rain     ocean waves     rain      ocean waves

 no waving or wavering in the bitter search and ironic chatter

                                                                     it began where the other had left off

                                   left a stain

 

/ Hannah Holler Blair

 

 

 

you were waiting alone in the              room for the              train 
to join a diversified assembly

 

 

 the voice alone is company but not         enough

 

 to join itself in                  joining            itself

 

 

 in a room was the            train and the clock        and the bench

 

 and

 

                  something itself

 

 was something                 itself

 

 was what you were

                                             waiting

 

 for waiting

                           to join a            diversified assembly

 

/ Sarah Louise Pieplow