“Fred Wah: A Floating Space” by Stephen Bett

September 23, 2024

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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