A Thank You Cleave by Dennis Kelly

Dear Phuoc-Tan,

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Well, well—thank you very much.

For posting “The Pact”—on The Cleave.

“The Pact” pretty much—says everything.

Everything I know—about The Cleave right now.

Which isn’t much—I keep it minimal.

I keep the baggage light—I let the Spice flow.

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I want to let your—Cleave idea “gel” in my mind.

To give it time—to do what it wants to do.

It always seems—to surprise me.

With something Spontaneous—and NEW.

That’s what Pound said—“Make it NEW, baby.”

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Making it NEW is easy—if you trust your Intuition.

It’s best in the morning—with a cup of coffee.

With a cat on my lap—and my Fujitsu tablet.

Glowing in the dark—in my bedroom womb.

With the Cleave-stream—flowing thru me.

Thru my sleepy—wake-up cerebellum…

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I’ve made this Pact with Pound—like Pound & Whitman.

The New Sentence in my head—the New Line on the screen.

Sometimes the stylus—can’t wait to get going.

The graceful horizontal slide—of words left to right.

Cleaving it with hyphens—letting the diastic flow go free.

Then the best part—letting the Cleave speak to me…

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Letting the 2 verticals—crawl up and down the page.

Like cicadas climbing—up the World Tree

Three Voices talking to me—the Spoken Word inside me.

Saving it on a memory stick—plugging it in later.

Editing the manuscript—on my Roll-top desk laptop.

Each morning—I make this Pact with the Word.

And the Word—says Cleave Me Baby!!!!!

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The Pact by Dennis Kelly

“I make a pact with

you, Walt Whitman”

—Ezra Pound

i make a pact—with you

ezra pound—my fascist father

bollingen prize—badboy poet

pig-headed—pisa prick

st. elizabeth—prisoner of zenda

poet—of the new woode

you broke it—that whitman Line

now it’s—time for cleaving

once—again

time for—commerce

words—between us

—based on Ezra Pound’s “A Pact,” Personae (1926)

The Stylist: Cleave translations by Dennis Kelly

The Stylist
—Cleave-translations from
Ezra Pound’s Personae (1926)
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1 perfection
2 stylist
3 risqué
4 metro
5 words
6 vice
7 lily
8 valentino
9 eyes

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perfection
(previously published: here)

—based on “Salvationists”
Ezra Pound’s Personae (1926)

the stylist

           the stylist—unpaid, uncelebrated
    beneath saggy roof—seeking shelter
        words on paper—receive him
     placid uneducated—exercising his talents
without sophistication—writing
    while his mistress—behind creaky door
            makes love—cooks feasts for him

—based on “Beneath the Sagging Roof”
Ezra Pound’s Personae (1926)

risqué

    they say—risqué
 my cleaving—canzonetti
   composing—four A.M.
listening to—her music
seeing diana—nude in her bathtub
     bathing—blushing
  delectable—in the delicate
    sunlight—skylights
        thru—castalian spray
 the granite—cliffs of helicon
   gathering—about me my
        dice—weak knees

—based on “Ancorda”
Ezra Pound’s Personae (1926)

metro

the apparition—of these faces
  in the crowd—pennies
          from—heaven

—based on “In a Station in the Metro”
Ezra Pound’s Personae (1926)

words

           words—words
  manila folders—giving the illusion
order everywhere—actually chaos rules
          my den—library knows
       the truth—jungle words
            gone—amok

vice

       sarah palen—amorous
thus have the gods—elaphantine
 republican voters—republican votes
       blessed you—allowing you
           my dear—to rule in vice

—based on “Phyllidula”
Ezra Pound’s Personae (1926)

lily bart

       flawless—aphrodite
     thoroughly—beautiful
tableaux vivant—goddess
    your posing—concerns me

—based on “Ladies”
Ezra Pound’s Personae (1926)

valentino

   9 adulteries—12 liaisons
64 fornications—a rape
        nightly—how you brag
      valentino—my friend
      seemingly—so loud
     effortless—and sexy
        while I—on the contrary
     never talk—I’m shy about
           love—romance
 being recently—father of twins
   accomplished—at some cost
     four times—cuckolded

—based on “The Temperaments”
Ezra Pound’s Personae (1926)

eyes
(previously published: here)

—based on “The Seeing Eye”
Ezra Pound’s Personae (1926)

Dennis Kelly’s further thoughts on Cleave poetics

CLEAVE POETICS For Phuoc-Tan, Diana, Laurie and Jennifer

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How to write a Cleave poem?

Write the horizontal poem first.

Cleave the poem into 2 vertical poems.

Cleave with hyphens—using your intuition.

The vertical poems are the zen payoff.

They’ll read choppy somewhat but intelligent.

The gestalt one feels is unique because it’s yours.

It’s your horizontal poem to begin with.

But the 2 vertical poems are spontaneous.

Like Mac Low’s diastic impromptu method.

Except the cleave method is quicker.

It’s more spontaneous and otherworldly.

Because it’s you confronting your double.

Your poetic doppelganger in the NOW.

The left hand & right hand poems are one.

They’re not discrete poems.

They’re the surprise Bingo that happens.

The left and right poems aren’t stitched together.

Hunting and picking for combos that fit…

Cleaving one poem into two—that’s the trick.

Not stitching two poems into one.

What I want is surprise, joy and wonder.

My way gives the poet a double-whammy.

Cleave collaboration for me is Translation.

Translating Pound’s Personae, for example.

Pound put his Anthology poems together for a reason.

They were his Imagist Manifesto.

He jump-started the Modernist Movement.

Eliot and Joyce did too. The three of them.

With Personae, The Waste Land and Ulysses.

But Pound did it somewhat differently.

Thru small discrete poems—rather than Long Poems.

The Waste Land = Long Elegy

Ulysses = Long Love Lyric Irish Fairy Tale

Pound wanted to embrace & extend the Past.

Eliot and Joyce as well… each did it differently.

Personae (1926) was Pound’s American Tree (Silliman).

LangPo Poetry grew once Silliman’s Anthology (1986) came out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Silliman

Personae is a thin little volume—an easy read.

The American Tree is thick—many machines on Ix.

Better than those on Richese?

How to start a Cleave Movement?

Call it CloPo or maybe CleavePo?

How about an Anthology?

An Anthology is like a Baseball Park.

Build it—and they will come.

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perfection

now—my little cleaves

let us—speak perfection

show—simplicity

let us—elegantly

tell—our little story

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—based on “Salvationists”

Ezra Pound’s Personae (1926)

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(“Come, my songs,

let us speak of perfection—

We shall get ourselves

rather disliked.”)

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Now let us show—let us tell.

Let our little cleaves speak perfection.

Simplicity—elegantly telling a story.

Each story—extemporaneous.

Each story—impromptu.

Each story—imbued with ad lib.

Each story—ours to show & tell.

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dennis kelly 9/23/2008

Submissions: Dennis Kelly

Cleave ‘Translations’ from Pound’s Personae (1925)

______cleavages

__is it poetry—or just a game

____creating—beautiful cleavages

these elegant—crossword puzzles

___three-way—entertaining

___labyrinths—mazes?

_______de jour

__scattered—fragments

not knowing—day to day

_tomorrow’s—menu

______split—pea soup

____cleave—de jour

____________mac low

_________—for laurie elaine

_________i studied—aleatoric poetry

___botticellian splits—mac low’s diastic

______doubling back—seed to source

carefully capitalizing—the key letters

___to form the name—diagonally down

_____a pretty effect—but I got bored

____not enough tho—give me estrangement

___cleaving is more—narratological

_not just two texts—seed & source

but three new texts—folding into one

_________origami—surprise kit

____official poetry

__light-hearted—i woke up

___in the wold—nonchalantly

_the magnolias—blooming

____stifled me—faint of breath

smothered me—the stench

______rotting—official poetry

___________anthology

_____________go—cleave-born book

________tell them—diamonds flake

______down there—where sapphires

____________burn—liquid emeralds fume

rubies red as blood—flow like lava

___________deep—down inside me