I recently received a box of an array of newly published pamphlets and chapbooks from Ottawa's above/ground press. One of them is a collaboration between the two well-known poets: Perth, Australia-based Andrew Burke and Perth, Canada-based Phil Hall. It's a really nice chapbook with a glued cover image (I think each cover is different), a bright orange fly leaf and a line drawing that resembles a rubber stamp, and could be a rubber stamp, on the title and end pages. There are fifteen short, minimal poems riffing on a tenth century Japanese poet. The suite is at once kind of dainty and perky. It's called Shikibu Shuffle.
The introductory page reads:
"Happy fate brought a poet from Perth Western Australia and a poet from Perth Ontario Canada together in 2009.
Then Andrew had a heart attack and was queued up for life-saving surgery.
With nothing to do but wait, kept alive by sprays and medical potions - to distract himself - Andrew agreed to work with Phil on a collaboration.
Andrew suggested the Japanese court poet Murasaki Shikibu (973-1014); her 5-line form might be a place to start.
Phil was thinking of Ornette Coleman: two quartets facing each other and going at it (1960).
We wrote in 5s back and forth, then shuffled our silence-inducing cacophony into 10s, then improvised from there...
Andrew's operation was bumped once, and then happened. He's fine.
The shuffle served its purpose, and now surprises and delights them both."
3.
I watch my chest
rise and fall in the mirror
nature in the raw
nothing I see or think
means anything to me
then I plan to tell you about it
and into each dull thunk
like lemon on fish
comes flugelhorn
a faint zing
11.
Talking to the air
I break cobwebs
on the line
cello kite fishing
making lurid
the net result
while hammock hook shines
sun holds motes float
