From Trance Notebook #2 [nerdy questions about exact pitch] by Wayne Koestenbaum

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend April 3, 2014   From Trance Notebook #2 [nerdy questions about exact pitch]   Wayne Koestenbaum

sell me a clip-on bow-tie or a mock fringe chapeau worn on the collarbone—a new style of “shoulder hat,” a cape to protect your shoulders from rain and chill and to prevent the wearer from sliding (like Mickey Mantle) into a third gender __________ now I’ve reached the “clinker” zone of perforated opportunities __________ —perforated appurtenances ____________ but then Edith Piaf suddenly thrilled me __________ a newly discovered Venezuela, a view— ____________ a rendre compte, a liar on the corner (thirsty corner) of 23rd and 9th, a gazelle, a rendezvous chapel __________ (a chaplet of daisies around my pleurisy brow)—         Copyright © 2014 by Wayne Koestenbaum. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “I’ve kept a diary, writing in it virtually every day, since 1976; beginning on November 30, 2012, I started keeping instead a series of ‘Trance Notebooks,’ as a way to transform my journal into a higher pitch of ceremony, an occasion for intensified, unmoored consciousness. Now I’m distilling the results into a sequence of assemblages; here’s a piece from the second of these unfettered concoctions.” —Wayne Koestenbaum   Wayne Koestenbaum is the author of numerous books of poems and essays including My 1980s and Other Essays (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013). He currently teaches English at the City University of New York Graduate Center. Most Recent Book by Koestenbaum   My 1980s and Other Essays (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013) "Museum Guard" by David Hernandez "Often I Am Permitted to Return to a Meadow" by Robert Duncan "Panels for the Walls" by Cedar Sigo Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038