THE RECITATION OF FORGETTING by FRANCK ANDRE JAMME

CARRIE HUNTER Engages

The Recitation of Forgetting by Franck André Jamme

(Black Square Editions, New York, 2003)

A list of things that are real.

A vulture, weapons, a verdict, snake,

other people, a She. Dialogue.

There is body and there is though. An Us,

sand, 3 hills, palace, a city on fire.

Not a dialogue, only ever the She’s speech.

Semitones, also colors. blood, syllables,

skull, arm, hand, listening, eye. The world.

The road, ledge, chasm, a man walking,

a spiral, a waiting room, eyes, mouth,

spots, the sky, gold flies,

another voice speaking, onlooker, breath,

flowers, days, river, a prince, his head,

his mind, an angel, passerby, flowers, sand,

city, the women, necks, chariots.

Squares, wind, shivers, insects, sheaves,

steps, breath, a wound, a bedroom, ship

channel, signs, sun, kettle, sky,

chains, dawn, dreaming, eyelids, night

skies, lands, rocks, flowers. Roofs,

domes, peacock, the colors blue, ocher,

seagreen, the morning, star, silence,

things, road, stones, an incline. A hermit,

tongue, a body, eyelid, stone,

cloud. A man. A woman. A bird,

a tree, a letter, a stag, sky.

mouths, a red thread. A world.

Colors gray, sienna, blue, gold.

A monster, his forehead, a child,

a king, smoke, air. Water, a drum,

fire, a pearl, bird, hand, distance,

blade, an eye, bowl, questions.

Sky, birds, thunder, air, a lamp.

Clouds. Trident, drum autumn, a

passage, an apparition. Fire, smoke.

They, singing, dancing, wind. Words.

Dust, sky. Dream. She. Threads,

necklace clamp. Waist, neck, an hour,

air, time leaves, the lake, tree

bark, her left hand, blue, belly, bosom.

A halo, the master, hats, things,

tasks, foreheads, smugglers, highway,

face, hand, footsteps, a stone, the earth,

the gold boxcar

*****

Carrie Hunter received her MFA/MA in the Poetics program at New College of California, and edits the chapbook press, ypolita press. She has published chapbooks with Cy Gist Press, Dusie, Arrow as Aarow, and Lew Gallery Editions. Her full-length collection, The Incompossible, was published in 2011 by Black Radish Books. Other work has recently appeared in NAP, Metazen, Delerious Hem, and Amerarcana. She lives in San Francisco and is currently working on an MA in TESOL.