Issue 1.2
Fall 2021
Rusty Morrison
Reflection
This is one of a series of poems that I am writing in seven-syllable segments. A limitation in the form can speak to me about how much I let myself perceive the limitations I inflict upon myself, versus those that are unavoidable in my life. By using a constraining form, I don't just write about limitation, I live inside limitation in the work and then see how I handle it. I experience limitation as event, not aftermath.
​
Ann Lauterbach points out that the “convergence of subject matter with form releases content.” The form of seven syllables per segment can cause a contentiousness in my use of syntax that forces me to diverge from my more expected trajectories of thought, and so it exposes a content with more contextual resources than I’d had access to.
Prop up an Ironing Board
Prop up an ironing board. Let its featureless face be
your mirror. Rub its silence on your cheeks as rouge until
they disappear. Now you’ll brave tearing strips of skin from your
tongue to set loose in wind. What’s meant is never found rejoins
Benjamin. He knew the glass stairs that crack as you descend.
“Shatter” is your frequency. Find there the zone surrounding
the intoxication wrote Benjamin where ground is silk.
Rusty Morrison is co-publisher of Omnidawn (www.omnidawn.com) & her five books include After Urgency (won Tupelo’s Dorset Prize) & the true keeps calm biding its story (won Ahsahta’s Sawtooth Prize, James Laughlin Award, N.California Book Award, & DiCastagnola Award). Her recent Beyond the Chainlink was finalist for the NCIB Award & NCB Award). She is a recipient of a Civitella Ranieri fellowship and a recipient of other artist retreat fellowships. She’s currently a fellow, awarded by UC Berkeley Art Research Center’s Poetry & the Senses Program. She teaches and she gives writing consultations. Her website: www.rustymorrison.com.
Rusty's Recommendations
​
authors/books I'm excited by:
ATLANTIC DRIFT: an Anthology of Poetry & Poetics
Cleopatra Mathis: AFTER THE BODY
Arthur Sze: SIGHT LINES
Kazim Ali: INQUISITION
​
all may seem radically different from each other... but I feel it's important to read widely, and wildly.