Poeta Doctus

Aside from the pages of little magazines and those of certain, indulgent anthologies, by poems really first made their way in the world in the form of chapbooks. I hadn’t yet published a full-length trade edition, when I went on a “European tour” in 1996, reading in Munich (twice), Heidelberg, and Amsterdam, two self-published chapbooks, Gloze (1995) and On the Phantom Air Ship Mystery (1995), my calling cards.

Joachim Utz, the sponsor of my reading at Heidelberg University’s Anglistiches Seminar, observed that my chapbooks reminded him of William Blake’s. This new category of post takes its inspiration from his remark. “Hell’s Printing House” will showcase my chapbooks, describing them, detailing their contents, linking poems that have already been published at Poeta Doctus, and presenting a new recording of one of their poems.

It is hoped these posts fill the lacunae between full-length collections, assuring those (apparently) few (and valued) readers who follow my production with interest that I am hard at work, going my own direction, at my own pace, trusting those intrigued might be charmed enough to tarry along….

Melathalassemia is another of those chapbooks binding poems for a performance. I forget now who kindly invited me to read, though I do seem to recall it was winter. Perhaps the season prompted my collecting the sections from March End Prill that concerned melancholy (supplemented by two miscellaneous poems on the same theme, “Corpomancy” and “Hymn”).

The title is a coinage, intending to signify, roughly, “Black Sea meanings,” invoking the “black blood” of melancholia and Ovid’s exile in Tomi, underlined by the subtitle’s naming these poems “tristia.” I was especially fortunate to have this chapbook designed my Maurice Roy.

None of these poems have been shared here at Poeta Doctus. Melathalassemia gathers nine poems from March End Prill along with the two mentioned above. The poems from March End Prill are

• “A Cut to Bear Night Thought”
• “Black milk…”
• “Born…”
• “Soul inanimate…”
• “Black blood…”
• “Anatomize…”
• “Aren’t there any cookies…”
• “dustmice taken…”
• “imagine snorkeling…”

“Hymn” (one of the two poems not from March End Prill) is taken from a text composed daily over one lunar cycle sometime before 1999. When I shared it with some members of the Hungarian-language Arkánum group, one remarked of this particular text, “That could be a hymn!” hence the title. His recognition of the text’s being at all poetic I take as sufficient blessing to share, here. I read this poem (presently filed away in a folder titled “Carmina Nongrata” on my computer), below.

Next month: In Canis Major (Summer 2009).