What Is Poetry (a twelve-tone poem)

September 16, 2013

Susan Holbrook’s poetry books are the Trillium-nominated Joy Is So Exhausting (Coach House 2009), Good Egg Bad Seed (Nomados 2004) and misled (Red...

trite yap show
rosy twit heap
posterity haw
a wept history
it’s yawp rot, eh
a wisher potty
a power shitty
a whitey sport

hi! try wet soap

poetry is what
whips yo tater
pets it awry, oh
oh, twisty pear
two hearts yip
it’s paw theory

ear whist typo
ape with story
or what ye spit
or what yeps it
throaty wipes
or what I types

Susan Holbrook’s poetry books are the Trillium-nominated Joy Is So Exhausting (Coach House 2009), Good Egg Bad Seed (Nomados 2004) and misled (Red Deer 1999), which was shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award and the Stephan G. Stephansson Award. She teaches North American literatures and Creative Writing at the University of Windsor. She recently co-edited The Letters of Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson: Composition as Conversation (Oxford U P, 2010).