contents
next
back
The moment not subsumed [into a schematic structure], hence instance of ... synthesizing the structure. So not to have the work resolve at the level of the "field" if this is to mean [a uniplanar surface],... the structure itself is pulled into a Mobius-like twisting momentum. In this process, the language takes on [a centrifugal force that seems to] trip it out of the poem, turn ... gaps and jumps ... space within shifting parameters, .... completing new gels.   - from "Semblance," by Charles Bernstein. Postmodern American Poetry: a Norton Anthology (1994), p 758


the mome rath not perfumed
hens insist on
synchronizing the rupture
sonata's hefty words
devolve on the levee
as if to feel delicious ptomaine

ruptured selfish pulley
dents amoebas
like twitching moments

humming the sprockets
languid Texans
rip a two-tufted preemptor

gasps and bumps
of Saint Swithin's hefty paramours
deplete two hells.

The Constraints