“(Water/Places/A Time)” is the opening fragment from a longer journal poem. I promised myself that I would write down at least five lines per day for one week. Often these lines did not immediately identify themselves as poetry. They would first emerge as theory, translation, diary, gossip, etc. In this fragment, I am comparing the daily writing styles of Joanne Kyger and Larry Eigner, two Bay Area poets who were seemingly obsessed with remaining on the pulse of the present moment.•
This poem appears in the Summer 2021 issue of Alta Journal.
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Larry
Eigner’s
words
like golden
flies
stuck in
a loom—made
to fall
with sudden
strumming
they sound, separate
distinct
raining
down upon
pavement
the date
no
longer needed
to slow
us down
Joanne’s
work
is a charge
from a poet
the ideal
powder gun
a bulletin
Larry
seems
an uninterrupted
path
from the
station
bits of
diamond heights
and looking
down
