A Formal Feeling Comes 1998
A Formal Feeling Comes: A program celebrating multi-formalism
Debra Bruce, Annie Finch, John Frederick Nims, Paulette Roeske, and Cin Salach
Beginning of the A Formal Feeling Comes broadside series.
Buy the A Formal Feeling Comes broadside series⇒
he smells like leather and mint and the El that shot
him through the city. Now he slips
his headstrap off, his black patch. But not
for them–the ones who heaved at him and swung
their taunt: Let’s see what’s under there.
– Debra Bruce, “The Fitting”
is the sound of my loud carrying life a knell
far across your small ocean? Do you share
the secret that the months keep hidden there?
– Annie Finch, “Three Generations of Secrets”
Glossies of Eden? The slim beached curled
Between rocks and the frill of foam–that’s when
There’s thunder of tunnels and the underworld.
– John Frederick Nims, “from the rapido: la spezia-genova”
You have given me
too much: two pearls, two moons ascending–
luminous, miraculous,
like your two hands as I see them in dreams.
– Paulette Roeske, “Too Much”
This is what I was afraid of:
This paper this though lines
dividing white space lines dividing
nothing.
This exhaustion this futility
this game or promise.
– Cin Salach, “specifically”
