Trillium Book Awards Author Reading 2015

Geology, Thinking, and a Tent

Submitted by juliejoosten on April 25, 2015 - 8:10pm
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As Jan Zwicky’s Wittgensteinian “The Geology of Norway” kept and keeps circling through my mind and body, I remembered Liz Howard’s gorgeous poem, “Thinktent,” which also works with, among other things, thinking from/about/with Wittgenstein. “Thinktent” is from Howard’s debut book Infinite Citizen of the Shaking Tent (McClelland and Stewart, 2015).

So today, more admiration and gratitude for writing with and of bodies, Wittgenstein, ferality, beauty, outrage, and focus, and all with a startlingly wild exactitude.

Here is the first section of “Thinktent” (it will make you want to read more and more, again and again—)

THINKTENT

I am my world. (The microcosm).
-- Ludwig Wittgenstein

Hospitality: the first demand
what is your name?
the city bound me so I entered

to dream a science that would name me
daughter and launch beyond
grief, the old thoracic cause

myocardium: a blood-orange foundry
handed down by the humoral
anatomists and to not be

inside my own head perpetually
not simply Wittgenstein’s girl
but an infinite citizen in a shaking tent

The views expressed in the Writer-in-Residence blogs are those held by the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Open Book: Toronto.

Related item from our archives

Date
Wed July 13, 2011

POEMS FOR EYES AND EARS

View more items filed under “Poem” in our Open Book Archives.
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Submitted by rodfrasers on July 13, 2011 - 8:29am

POEMS FOR EYES AND EARS

Every poem implies two creative acts: one by the poet, one by the reader. Put another way, the poet performs one creative act; the reader, many.

Plentiful examples can be found on Reely's Poetry Blog and Reely's Audio Poems, also findable as Reely's Poetry Pages. They are owned by Valerie Smith, a New Jerseyan who lives in Houston, Texas and has a day job in a law office.

I hope the above clues will allow you to find Reely’s. No doubt to the inconvenience of some, I vowed to myself not to supply links in my own blogs. I’m vain enough to want people to concentrate on my words, and not go haring off in all directions. Indispensable as the Web may be, it is a kind of flypaper that creates its own flies.

Julie Joosten

Julie Joosten is originally from Georgia but now lives in Toronto. She holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers Program and a PhD from Cornell University. Her poems and reviews can be read in like starlings, Lemon Hound, Lit, Jacket 2, Tarpaulin Sky, the Malahat Review and The Fiddlehead. She recently guest edited an issue of BafterC, a journal of contemporary poetry. Her first book, Light Light, was shortlisted for the 2014 Gerald Lampert Memorial Award, the 2014 Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry, and the 2014 Goldie Award.

You can reach Julie throughout the month of April at writer@openbooktoronto.com

Go to Julie Joosten’s Author Page