January 14, 2006

Chuck Stebelton, Circulation Flowers (Tougher Disguises, 2005). 75 pages. $14.95.

I keep returning to the poem "Scritti Politi"(33). The first two lines bring the heat:

The pained expression was heard as a sample.
This edition lets the aging process again.

Evocations of a stalled culture, not so much the anxiety of influence but boredom with, the fact that given the poem's set of givens it's the book, this book, that has the power of agency. The choice of the verb heard as opposed to read (we read editions, right?) posits a mini-argument about the oral nature of poetry. And the open question as to whether the Qolethic audience in fact processed the opening sound correctly. The end admonishes us in a leaf-for-the-forest kind of way: "Strange friend,/ it is light out. Our perfection gets in the way."

Circulation Flowers has paid off with every re-reading.