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Normal.dotm 0 0 1 705 4024 University Health Network 33 8 4941 12.0 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} AG: (to Student) – Anita (sic) – do you have your poem?Student: Anita?AG: We were working on a poem before today, that was a long-lined poem, somewhat like this, in this form. Thanks. It’s a similar form, but now what I wanted to get into was some of the techniques of the form, or some of the technology of it, or, partly, the rhythm in this form, and how it is done most succinctly by me, or, after the examples of (Guillaume) Apollinaire, who also wrote a long-lined poem, in French, and Walt Whitman (and before that Christopher) Smart). Twentieth-century French Surrealists have (also) used a long-line form. (And) It was something that I’ve seen in people’s work here (at Naropa), which I’d like to exemplify, by showing you what we did with that poem this afternoon.It’s called “Letter to Brett in Taos”“I miss you like sliced bread, like peach kafir, like a Florentine at a French bakery. I miss you like saliva, like dirt under my nails, like gums bleeding, like a fly on my knee in meditation, like shitting into two gallons of water and then flushing it. I miss you like sitting on the second floor of this house with paved streets outside watching it hail, beat, scram all over the place. I miss you like the dead Dutch Elm outside on the front lawn, like the sprinkler shooting across the green lawn. You shoot in me like that, like the dirty kitchen here, the dishes in the sink, the phone ringing, the subscription magazines that the mailman brings. I miss you like these raindrops falling in mud puddles on the sidewalk, rain seeping into the wet grass ground, my knees crossed, my zafu, my heavy sleep.”That’s the first section. Then begins another section“Echoes your name the rain on the blue mailbox, the rainwater running down the curb, the rain is warm on my bare feet, the flash of lightning cut, seen through a moment and is gone. Echoes your name, love, in the moving avocado leaf by the window, break overhead the thunder, your name, love, slow biker, coast downhill, your sound in the pedals, in the chill breeze through the window. Clash, thunder rumbles over it all, car motor in street starts up, thunder reminds me the echo of head, I smell the smell of you on my pillow, the echo of your mind rumbling through the distance between us. Rain fills the gutter here, my ears hear thunder over the next hill, next buttock, it rumbles over there. Here we are, rain filling our gutters, sounds filling our rooms, you are in this all, calling from the next hill, running down the gutter, gutter rain, rain gutting our gutter, running down the city street fast, water catches a glimpse off the chrome from the VW, fast, water catches leaves, Maple, Ash leaves, catch fly fast down the gutter, you are in this, love, turn penny over in my pocket, all sides of you are in this. I address this to you, love, music sound fills your room, thoughts wave out in echoes as far as the adobe walls and I know the limits. I am in Boulder, you are in Taos, the rain is echoing nothing so much as itself. I miss you like that.”Well, I was interested in the form because I’m used to that form and I’ve worked in it, worked with it. But also, I thought this was really long-winded