I'll have to get a copy of that Williamson collection, Gregory. I can see that a poem like the sonnet of his you posted in this thread could have quite a different feel in context.
Well, as I was tossing and turning unable to sleep last night, I thought of another contemporary poet who has worked with the language that's the subject of this thread: Richard Burns, the British poet I reviewed for
Semicerchio (a mag. that Gregory edits for, folks). His collection
The Manager (2001) is a book-length dramatic monologue in the voice of an executive who works for a multinational corporation. Burns uses the fiction in part to explore current idioms and jargon, as well as various dissociated mental states that go along with contemporary life. I liked this book a lot. I'll type some in below to give a flavor of the whole. Burns (also known as Richard Berengarten, by the way) calls the form he uses here "verse paragraphs." One of the things that strikes me about Burns's way of doing it is that the form allows him to go all over the place, free associate, disassociate. Also, the dramatic monologue framework gives the material (at least, in the course of the whole book) pathos.
Quote:
Boarded the Twin Com and the look on her face said Heaven. Strapped her up front next to me and gave her a pair of phones. Everything A OK. We're cleared to taxi OK.
Wind at ground level 15 knots. Around zero three zero and gusting a bit. Visibility OK. Three knots at three and a half thou. But I go through the checks and would you bloody believe it
There's a drop of over 200 on the port mag. Completely out of parameters and I'm not taking chances with her aboard. So back we go to the shed . . .
VFR and once we're past the Needles it's Cavoc all the way. Look there's our shadow on the foam-flecked waves. Like a day in early June and I ease her into auto. At Ortac 50º North we join
The Mile High club . . .
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and:
Quote:
There go the dead again. Wailing. Constantly I hear them. Even when not listening. Even this side the partition wall.
Giggling in the office during coffee break. Conversing on the tube at the other end of the carriage. Beneath your voice on the phone.
In a meths drinker's snore from a bench on Platform 8. Whispering through the stadium under the crowd's roar. Crackling through gaps.
In The Ultimate in CD Hi-Fi Integration.Despite metal particle coating lasers and microchips. Like a horde of Hollywood extras
In a multi-million epic . . .
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and (this last one using the form and typeface of a fax):
Quote:
Sir Keith Lawdon Dubai
From: Rex Harmer <rex.harmer@prospect.com>
To: Sir Keith Lawdon
Dubai<fassbinder.suite@galaxyhotel.com>
Sent: 1 March 2001 09:34
Attach: brunofax.doc
Subject: Bananas
Hello Keith,
Sorry to trouble you with this but to judge by his fax (see attachment) Bruno appears to have gone bananas. Will try to contain problem but may need to consult you for directions. Can you send contingency instructions.
Thanks. Rex.
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