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Unread 04-23-2012, 10:22 AM
Orwn Acra Orwn Acra is offline
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Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: NYC
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I wonder have many here have actually read Eunoia. It's a fantastic work and definitely formalist -- more constraints than a sonnet, certainly. I've met Bok and he's very nice and told me I had great style, so I suppose I'm biased. Here's an excerpt from Eunoia's A chapter:

Hassan can watch can-can gals cha-cha-cha, as brass bands blat jazz razzmatazz (what a class act). Rapt fans at a bandstand can watch jazzbands that scat a waltz and a samba. Fans clap as a fat-cat jazzman and a bad-ass bassman blab gangsta rap -- a gangland fad that attacks what Brahms and Franck call art: a Balkan czardas, a Tartar tandava (sarabands that can charm a saltant chap at a danza). Bach can craft a Catalan sardana that attracts l'Afghan chantant a l'amant dansant. A sax drawls tantaras (all A-flats and an A-sharp): fa-la-la-la-la.

You'd have to be deaf to not hear all the internal rhymes and shifting rhythms word play. And it's far too ridiculous and funny ("that attacks what Brahms and Franck call art" takes jabs at all the people dismissing Bok's work) to be "introverted, impossible verse" to quote a critic below.
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