“Fred Wah: A Floating Space” by Stephen Bett

Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Fred Wah: A Floating Space” by Stephen Bett. Due to its formatting, this poem is only available as an image.


Fred Wah: A Floating Space

By Stephen Bett

 nv  s  ble 
tr  ck 
five   6   seven   nine and ten 
     its a trap.
 
Pictograms from the Interior of B.C.―Fred Wah (with nods to Creeley’s numbers)   nv  s  ble 
naught for the eyes 
behind any danse’s russe 
a floating space     (no axes 
 
tr  ck 
trans-ekphrastic, no dots 
to connect, no juiced up 
berries in this vine-line 
 
five  6  seven  nine and ten 
by the numbers then     One and 
one and one  /  Make a picture 
two things  /  one and one 
rolls back into itself       (… but  
 
     its a trap. 
Trompe l’oeil frame(d)  /  two things, 
four things  /  one and three 
this dream pops too, rubble freed

Copyright © Stephen Bett

Previously published in Broken Glosa: an alphabet book of post-avant glosa (Chax Press 2023). First appeared in Poetry Pause on September 29, 2020.

Stephen Bett is a widely and internationally published Canadian poet with 25 books in print (from BlazeVOX, Chax, Spuyten Duyvil, & others), his most recent being Broken Glosa, from Chax Press. His personal papers are archived in the “Contemporary Literature Collection” at Simon Fraser University. His website is StephenBett.com


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