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Count the Ways
Gary Glazner’s slam take-off on Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s famous sonnet (+ more readings in EBB & the American Objectivists)
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There once were Objectivists, great thinkers who could take a step back -- all hail Rakosi, Zukofsky, Reznikoff, Oppen(s)! Now, we have Slammers. And why? Because whenever you step back you are in another zone requiring 101% activist engagement. Write poems and stop buying things, the economy falters, halters, and poetry is a better economy anyhoo. Ask our Southwest Museletter correspondent, Gary Glazner, who knows that any poem can, with a simple twister two, become Slam Material. Ibid, to wit:

HOW DO I SLAM THEE?

How do I slam thee? Let me count the ways.
I slam thee to the depth and breadth and height
My score can reach, When feeling out of slight.
For the Ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I slam thee to the level of everydayness
Most quiet need, by sum and candlelight.
I slam thee freely, as folks strive for Right;
I slam thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I slam thee with the passion put to use
In my old briefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I slam thee with a slam I seemed to lose
With my lost points,--I slam thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and, if Goddess choose,
I shall but slam thee better after sudden Haiku death tie breaker.


      Elizabeth “All Tens” Barrett “So What” Browning

© 1999, Gary Glazner

Remember the original EBB sonnet,
How Do I Love Thee”?


MORE ON ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING: THE AMERICAN OBJECTIVISTS:



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