Pneumatic Antiphonal

by Sylvia Legris

Paper Book, 2013

Status

Available

Tags

Publication

New York : New Directions Publishing, 2013.

Description

Part of our revived "Poetry Pamphlets" series,Pneumatic Antiphonal is a fun, humming, bio-physiological word-whizzing flight into birdsong penned by young Canadian poet, Sylvia Legris -- her first publication in the U.S. An excerpt: The theory of corpuscular flight is the cardinal premise of red birds carrying song-particles carrying oxygen. Erythrocytic. Sticky. Five quarts of migration.

User reviews

LibraryThing member stillatim
Take one volume of the Brittanica on bird physiology; one volume on respiration; one volume on romanticism. Chop coarsely and combine in a pudding bowl. Serve warm.

When people say they don't like poetry, I imagine books like this are what they have in mind. What to do with lines like

"Seaside is
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obsessive syneresis/ ... glairy/ like the white of an egg. Breath tripping up in a slippery dipthong./ The causeway a separation of sun and albumen. Long muscle/ of the neck the line where swash meets swallow. Pool-noodling/ uprush."

Sure, I get it. Legris is bringing new life to the tired bird-song/poetry comparison by mixing in the jargon of physiology, which is full of polysyllabic monstrosities and wonders. But unless you already know the meaning of these fairly obscure words, why on earth would you pick this text up? You're not going to look up every slippery dipthonged marvel, and even if you do, half of the lines are constructed around puns that are infuriating when they're not obscure.

No, if you do come to this, it will be for the same reason that people listen to birdsong: it gives the appearance of intention, but any intended meaning is hidden from us entirely--and there probably isn't any anyway. But it sounds mysterious, otherworldly, just out of our grasp. As more me, I like bird-song just fine. But I *really* like Messiaen's compositions based on bird-song. I like these poems, but like poems that mean something more.
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Language

Local notes

New Directions Poetry Pamphlet #4. Non-circulating
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