A poem to inspire mailart?

[Rebecca Guyver]

A poet-friend of mine sent me a collection by Anna Adams.  This poem seems so relevant to all we do in mail art/ visual poetry, trashpo, etc... I keep reading it love the way it sounds and thought some of you might like it too:

BLURB

 

Think of caseworms in their streams

     gathering stray bric-a-brac –

     sandgrain, leafscrap, broken stick,

to disguise their tender forms:

 

Binding tesserae of trash

     close, to make a carapace –

     intricate mosaic face –

covering near-naked flesh.

 

Think of poets in the street

     finding unconsidered snatches –

     phrases overheard – for patches

to be stitched into a coat

 

That close-fits transparent thought.

     They obsessively construct

     intellectual artefacts,

Babel-towers to support

 

Flickerings of inner flame,

     shielding it from unkind winds,

     circumstances, obtuse minds,

housing fire in name on name –

 

Images purloined from Dream –

     using what they hear, touch, see,

     to embody mystery.

Poems swim upstream through Time,

 

Keeping in the present tense,

     hearing still the ever-young

     poets of archaic tongue

making one harmonious sense.

 

Permutations of the rhymes

     work like genes in DNA

     keeping poetry OK,

constantly renewing themes

 

in contemporary dress:

     Death and Love, and Love and Death,

     Poets’ truth, till our least breath,

sings our dole of consciousness.

 

Anna Adams: Green Resistance NEW AND SELECTED POEMS

(1996: Enitharmon)