The Country Autumns

By Clark Coolidge b. 1939 Clark Coolidge

But it could not be brought to see what it

could be brought. And the leaves are

away again, teamed. A parent at the

last and a parent in the middle. And

as stones I thought it right.

Two plates, and on the other side all the

forest pieces. The clock says stay.

The books lower the earth, and in gardens

flat stones spin. The volume was of waiting.

Today is today, until the preposition taken up.

Next to the tree sways.

The sky in pieces the leaves part the

leaves piece together. To and from a hand

given all directions. The bark comes from

below. Takes from the books of the moves under

the sky. Speaker holds up the talks held last.

Motors the dust and the yellow syllables.

A slant on which was never here or

only partly.

Source: Own Face (Green Integer, 2000)

Biography

Born and raised in Providence, Rhode Island, experimental poet and jazz musician Clark Coolidge has been connected to both the Language movement and the New York School. His poetry utilizes syntactical and sonic patterns to engage, and generate, meaning. In a 1968 poetics statement, he noted, “Words have a universe of qualities other than those of descriptive relation: Hardness, Density, Sound-Shape, Vector-Force, & Degrees of . . .

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