Firecracker Soup (original Introduction)

INTRO

(original)

        Writing is an act of life for a poet. His improvised airs are page breaths. It's not for me to know what not writing is since I'm always being written with. The pauses are that: pauses, and then I write, my right place and time only once for that esteemed occasion. What a relief to surprise myself -- only the makeup of myself with all my severe limitations screens the joy. Or perhaps makes me ordinary. A release into semi-guided fun of my own essential one and only tongue, wagging a new tune that goes till done and not to be mangled with rehashing but is the sacred text of my Goddamned condition. It's always a score a reading aloud at time of writing, a recital – no, a concert of words--hell no, sentences, scores, a going high, a take, a progression, an undulating song, with tips: they say performance. In front of an audience it repeats. And now a book.

        The farther from the left margin a line or word begins the higher the pitch in delivery. The bigger the space inside a line, the slightly longer the pause. The word with a single underlined letter is emphatic of course. Line endings are a pause, however slight. And any directions, usually italicized, to the right of the poem is part of it: what needs to be done or donned, a fact arisen at the time of the poem-writing.

         I am writing to get to a different place from where I began, where it feels better, some kind of musical word clarification through pun and performance of the airs laid down. Mysterious muse-ic cycle of the Earth, what little bit of it I know: think only of gifts someone might enjoy and even read aloud a time or two. /2May89

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                 "Writing is an act of life for a poet            whose improvised airs are a page breath. For me the words

      speak through pores"

We didn't use this introduction in the publication of the book in 1990, but now in reflection it may have some value for those interested in my poems. I remember Philip Whalen telling me that he was surprised that others would value his "scribbles" since it would do him just fine if someone someday would read a poem of his and get something from it.

"The trouble with poetry is, there are too many tap dancers," I remember his saying . .

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Well, gosh, I was a tap dancer in my early teens, but I value the pure breath of poetry that knows few boundaries and the freshness of ever new dance continues to engage and intrigue . . .

love to all, and I'm ever grateful to Cinco Puntos Press for publishing this book.






larry goodell
/24nov2012