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    Diana Adams Theater of the Tongue 978-1-934289-96-9 """Yoke me to a waterfall"" and just try to keep me from the poems that call out from the THEATERS OF THE TONGUE. Diana Adams gathers the inexplicable from farm animals and gardens, theaters and rivers, culture and the professions, time and her staircases, walking us through this planet's Vena Cava with ""Death's guest"" in a carefully-carved effort to show us another way, her way, rich with human cells, ""earthsmells"" and ""air's soft sugar"" until we too melt into her paged complexities, nodding an innate yes to the sense that steals us from the security of the simple into views blooming in uncertainty and pregnant. ""Fundamentally, we need diversity, we need others because it pleases us, awakens our senses and the senses are life."" –Segalen —Amy King, author of I'm The Man Who Loves You and Antidotes for an Alibi Diana Adams book, Theaters of the Tongue , gives the reader a fascinating canvas of words, some words best described as word food. The reader is treated to lines like “salmon are lead by bells inside.” Then Adams playfully and sympathetically reshapes Frankenstein into a post-modern monster “un Shelley'd “ by the poet. Her vision is earthy, horrific, and mystical; her language, crisp and visual as though a visual artist had rewritten her vision into a poetry. When I read a book of poetry as fascinating and well crafted as Theaters of the Tongue , I feel as though I have received a insights into an imaginative universe, reconstructed for the mind and the Word—and indeed I have. —Mary Kasimor author of silk string arias and A Pure Bowl of Nothing The title of this brilliant book by Diana Adams points simultaneously at her commitment to the senses and to language.. Her poems are filled with imagery of taste and smell, the most intimate of the senses. The reader has breakfast with Frankenstein and shares many other meals where the menu is rich and strange. At the same time, the poems stage such experiences in the theater of language, where every word has its dramatic role. The Joy of Cooking merges with The Joy of Speaking in a book destined to be as well-thumbed as a great cookbook. — Bert Almon, winner of the Writers' Guild of Alberta Award for poetry in 1995 and 2008 " Diana Adams is an Alberta based writer with work published in a variety of journals The Laurel Review, MiPOesias, Shampoo, Pindeldyboz , Poemeleon, Del Sol Review, Perihelion, Bayou, Apostrophe, and Spire. She is a poetry editor for Del Sol Review, and her first book of poetry 'Cave Vitae' was published this spring by Plain View Press.

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    Diana Adams Theater of the Tongue 978-1-934289-96-9 """Yoke me to a waterfall"" and just try to keep me from the poems that call out from the THEATERS OF THE TONGUE. Diana Adams gathers the inexplicable from farm animals and gardens, theaters and rivers, culture and the professions, time and her staircases, walking us through this planet's Vena Cava with ""Death's guest"" in a carefully-carved effort to show us another way, her way, rich with human cells, ""earthsmells"" and ""air's soft sugar"" until we too melt into her paged complexities, nodding an innate yes to the sense that steals us from the security of the simple into views blooming in uncertainty and pregnant. ""Fundamentally, we need diversity, we need others because it pleases us, awakens our senses and the senses are life."" –Segalen —Amy King, author of I'm The Man Who Loves You and Antidotes for an Alibi Diana Adams book, Theaters of the Tongue , gives the reader a fascinating canvas of words, some words best described as word food. The reader is treated to lines like “salmon are lead by bells inside.” Then Adams playfully and sympathetically reshapes Frankenstein into a post-modern monster “un Shelley'd “ by the poet. Her vision is earthy, horrific, and mystical; her language, crisp and visual as though a visual artist had rewritten her vision into a poetry. When I read a book of poetry as fascinating and well crafted as Theaters of the Tongue , I feel as though I have received a insights into an imaginative universe, reconstructed for the mind and the Word—and indeed I have. —Mary Kasimor author of silk string arias and A Pure Bowl of Nothing The title of this brilliant book by Diana Adams points simultaneously at her commitment to the senses and to language.. Her poems are filled with imagery of taste and smell, the most intimate of the senses. The reader has breakfast with Frankenstein and shares many other meals where the menu is rich and strange. At the same time, the poems stage such experiences in the theater of language, where every word has its dramatic role. The Joy of Cooking merges with The Joy of Speaking in a book destined to be as well-thumbed as a great cookbook. — Bert Almon, winner of the Writers' Guild of Alberta Award for poetry in 1995 and 2008 " Diana Adams is an Alberta based writer with work published in a variety of journals The Laurel Review, MiPOesias, Shampoo, Pindeldyboz , Poemeleon, Del Sol Review, Perihelion, Bayou, Apostrophe, and Spire. She is a poetry editor for Del Sol Review, and her first book of poetry 'Cave Vitae' was published this spring by Plain View Press.

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    210 views14 pages

    Theaters of The Tongue by Diana Adams Book Preview

    Uploaded by

    BlazeVOX [books]
    Diana Adams Theater of the Tongue 978-1-934289-96-9 """Yoke me to a waterfall"" and just try to keep me from the poems that call out from the THEATERS OF THE TONGUE. Diana Adams gathers the inexplicable from farm animals and gardens, theaters and rivers, culture and the professions, time and her staircases, walking us through this planet's Vena Cava with ""Death's guest"" in a carefully-carved effort to show us another way, her way, rich with human cells, ""earthsmells"" and ""air's soft sugar"" until we too melt into her paged complexities, nodding an innate yes to the sense that steals us from the security of the simple into views blooming in uncertainty and pregnant. ""Fundamentally, we need diversity, we need others because it pleases us, awakens our senses and the senses are life."" –Segalen —Amy King, author of I'm The Man Who Loves You and Antidotes for an Alibi Diana Adams book, Theaters of the Tongue , gives the reader a fascinating canvas of words, some words best described as word food. The reader is treated to lines like “salmon are lead by bells inside.” Then Adams playfully and sympathetically reshapes Frankenstein into a post-modern monster “un Shelley'd “ by the poet. Her vision is earthy, horrific, and mystical; her language, crisp and visual as though a visual artist had rewritten her vision into a poetry. When I read a book of poetry as fascinating and well crafted as Theaters of the Tongue , I feel as though I have received a insights into an imaginative universe, reconstructed for the mind and the Word—and indeed I have. —Mary Kasimor author of silk string arias and A Pure Bowl of Nothing The title of this brilliant book by Diana Adams points simultaneously at her commitment to the senses and to language.. Her poems are filled with imagery of taste and smell, the most intimate of the senses. The reader has breakfast with Frankenstein and shares many other meals where the menu is rich and strange. At the same time, the poems stage such experiences in the theater of language, where every word has its dramatic role. The Joy of Cooking merges with The Joy of Speaking in a book destined to be as well-thumbed as a great cookbook. — Bert Almon, winner of the Writers' Guild of Alberta Award for poetry in 1995 and 2008 " Diana Adams is an Alberta based writer with work published in a variety of journals The Laurel Review, MiPOesias, Shampoo, Pindeldyboz , Poemeleon, Del Sol Review, Perihelion, Bayou, Apostrophe, and Spire. She is a poetry editor for Del Sol Review, and her first book of poetry 'Cave Vitae' was published this spring by Plain View Press.

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    of 14

    Theaters of the Tongue

    by Diana Adams

    BlazeVOX [books]
    Buffalo, New York

    Theaters of the Tongue by Diana Adams Copyright 2008 Published by BlazeVOX [books] All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without the publishers written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews. Printed in the United States of America Book design by Geoffrey Gatza First Edition ISBN: 1-934289-96-5 ISBN 13: 978-1-934289-96-9 Library of Congress Number: 2008938096

    BlazeVOX [books] 14 Tremaine Ave Kenmore, NY 14217 Editor@blazevox.org

    publisher of weird little books

    BlazeVOX [ books ]
    blazevox.org
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    Raising the Dead Eating my fish stew, you wiped off your shoulders as if they were coated in bog & loam. As if your life had ended, the fish caught in Hades, & you were preparing to tumble down the rough ladder into something much darker than all of this, when without any cajoling your animal ascended (I feel it at your cheekbone. There, touch it, can you feel it too?) you drank the whole bottle, unlocking hot doors to the winds of lust This should be enough to blur all our edges, summon a boat full of angels loaded with levers, scissors & string. We'll fashion some kind of pulley to hook at your elbows & fly you out of that bed.

    11

    Boat Without Sides No phones allowed. The driver reeks of frankincense and has small rat hands. I haven't met you yet, everything's colder than expected. It could be winter but for flowers in the water. What's worth remembering lies at the edges. The river is cluttered with water-striders, salmon are led by bells deep inside. Our porter is pouring pinot noir tonight. We will connect over clams and rice. Dance in my room if you wish, let wanderlust primeval us.

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    Fish Plate I gift the allure of hetaera: curve figure, chalk face, milk eyes. Plump trout decorate delicate plates in a cloak of cardamom, not one miscast. A full party arsenal, yet how to catch calm? By not trying, minnows thin with approach, eels ribbon to bottom ocean. At the end no one stays to tide me, I'm left with stains on cloth, cold clatter of knives. The ground closes all gaps: unswept guests roll beneath a scatter of ash.

    13

    To Do Store lacquered arms in chest. Assemble champagne maze. Push chairs to harmonize (follow the curve of eggs). Paint screen a rare automotive green. Silver ice. Chop dogs. Place shrimp in hip baskets (or if time permits, pit bleak olives). Pick-up your monkey a little bit. Defrost coffin. As guests arrive bleed them outside.

    14

    Papyrus Nothing grows in April. we wake [ we encounter ourselves [ ] hotels falling into a lake. We conversed, [ you explained it with feathers, ] Animals crouch, rubbing their little engines.[ ] people leave without a window [ black cherry ] and swoony manners. It used to be one over another, now dry absence wealthy woman [ ] lack [ ankle-bracelets ]tightly packed in oil ] quick sparrows knocking at ] .

    15

    Snails, Worms, and Other Losses She alternates her weather, a manager of energies. A breeze to pull summers cord, thunder-trombonists to wake a bear from his web of walls (wet snouted, gluing fall to spring for salmon). Lightning for old men with trembling chins painting apples. She shoulders up worms, combs out stray snails, prepares a table: fugitive olives, tangles of grapes, sharp beer, buxom mushrooms. Bat-psalms, packs of crickets rub-rub-rub mauve evening. All this to lure you nearer.

    16

    Salt Garden Witches hate salt. Dry fingers mix limp lettuces, hot vinegar mars their arms. As salt men scrape the seas deposits lullabies form and fatten, motherliquor floats in oval ponds. Saliva, tears: salts so clever, sly. Salary: traded flat for gold. Outcrops of rock salt are icebergs of earth, pillars. Ocean fish shift in their beds. I look over my shoulder, walk kitchen planks, to season my marine with mineral essentials.

    17

    Weathers 1.Verdigris Sea-veined, a new green beneath crisscross nerves, long legged storms carry barbs, if you had a horse it would cower. You choir unaccountably despite a patina throat. Trees split, dendritic patches crust on torso and thigh. Little bluestems and jewel lichen inch closer, moon.

    18

    2. Barnacles A deck of debris, and a shake like macaroni. Whatevers unstrung you flips upstream, stronger. Blood is an iron boat, chug chug, to the interior city, the swerve of your view worming waters, one hook to pass the time another to interpret it.

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    3. Rust Metals feathers, unmeant, the colour witchs tights, collapsed sheds, and scabs. Remnants of fire and rain. The Swallower of Shine. Crystallized disaster, maniacal particles. A shifting bed.

    20

    Smoke Vita Fingers unmarry their tips, each nail fixes in orbit, reds a far castle, each plume emitted miles long: crypts and branches, ice-sliver feathers of dress. Evanescent: rise, spread, retreat, depart. On the tongue a chestnut horse with me on it: in your dream is the dream where I dislodge a hymn, premonition to a more grim music: fears of being damaged, trepidation at important intersections, smoke obscuring all your stops.

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