What I'm reading

A poet-friend of mine sent me a collection by Anna Adams.  This poem seems so relevant to all we do in mail art/ visual poetry, trashpo, etc... I keep reading it and thought some of you might like it too:

BLURB

Think of caseworms in their streams
     gathering stray bric-a-brac –
     sandgrain, leafscrap, broken stick,
to disguise their tender forms:

Binding tesserae of trash
     close, to make a carapace –
     intricate mosaic face –
covering near-naked flesh.

Think of poets in the street
     finding unconsidered snatches –
     phrases overheard – for patches
to be stitched into a coat

That close-fits transparent thought.
     They obsessively construct
     intellectual artefacts,
Babel-towers to support

Flickerings of inner flame,
     shielding it from unkind winds,
     circumstances, obtuse minds,
housing fire in name on name –

Images purloined from Dream –
     using what they hear, touch, see,
     to embody mystery.
Poems swim upstream through Time,

Keeping in the present tense,
     hearing still the ever-young
     poets of archaic tongue
making one harmonious sense.

Permutations of the rhymes
     work like genes in DNA
     keeping poetry OK,
constantly renewing themes

in contemporary dress:
     Death and Love, and Love and Death,
     Poets’ truth, till our least breath,
sings our dole of consciousness.

Anna Adams: Green Resistance NEW AND SELECTED POEMS
(1996: Enitharmon)