Andrew K. Peterson


Sequence excerpted from The Adorable Details

Gradual Progress → Increase

[ending “yes”

from the stars. Black mirrors became astrological    melted, possibly
even overshot, but combined with   an interior, an informal
dinner party or   a bluebird, a diversion that contradiction
offers.    does not move with its proper motion.   Put
my finger on, being reducible to     a body is
easy to refuse, but to accept the necessity of
a thing    in waking hours we are subject to
the word P O N D S sprayed on the wall    to attract

the stars as they accomplish   what mirrors do not
in silence    the answer to that question is yes

*
[beginning “because”

because of a love without beauty or    the sleeper
who crosses the madness of      a sentence I have
yet to offer       being for the other, I will
call disquiet, the threatened gaze, the black mirror between
the grip and what is seized      small fires and
milk and every building    wearing matching gingham shirts and
posing with mistakes and truths resembling each other, all
vital statistics of being called a citizen. birthday parties

you’re outside looking in   the article below my skin
is always waiting   needled, asleep with little painted roofs

*
[beginning “on every threshold”

on every threshold a waiting that is     their doubling
is also doubled by another    won’t escape me through
the sentimental window    with eyes full of water to
drink   we stared at the map and listened   toward
the turning / to materialize / that change    of the divine
and a rendering of   this damaged still life, importing
or rearranging   the fact of tragic repetition, each time
it lives, it will have no garden   to hear

what the sainted children wrote    to argue and woo,
to lend itself to everything, to everyone and no one

*
[beginning & ending “Don’t”

Don’t know. Don’t know, don’t know, don’t– did not–
know. how to explain this. Trace (the tracing of
a difference) could know (    ) that you can’t (    ) control the
suffering. What pearls are there to cast to    know.
Don’t know, don’t know, don’t know.   No longer visible
to anyone, property of a mirror and a song.
Beauty is a doubling of something doubled up already:
ruin. At the origin comes ruin; ruin    as you’d

make a movie backwards. to what difference between the
presence and absence: know, don’t know, don’t know. Don’t.

*
[beginning “like”

like the cries of birds, shrill, metallic. Niagara Falls,
the way of the world. My humanity is on
Hawthorne’s back. A naked shadow of the benignly obscene
naked neighbor in the naked window / across the window
in the bedpost glow, a hand cuff. Okay, I
imagined that but still it makes a poem sexier
like the words camelback milkshake like the words like
the cries of birds, shrill, metallic. So what’s it

you want to carry again into the future of
choice? what you don’t know may hurt somebody else

*
[beginning “what”, ending “abundance”

what are you but a drifting crowd?    The war
is entering its last phase (not soon enough that
it would make any difference) maybe I don’t want
to find out that life isn’t going to be everything
enough. Probably enough. Or too much. Oh, still I prefer
regret to how to sleep; the bird-and-flower-genre to
circular losses. (missing) all the universes to probability, tracks.
I continue, after all, & the consequences. Blake said,

“enough, or too much.” wild larkspurs to blued shades
without palaces, money. without castles, ruins. abundance, more abundance

---

A METHOD

Throw I-Ching hexagram. Each line will have particular bearing upon how poem
               sequences are constructed: 1st line determines # of poems per sequence; 2nd line
               determines # of lines per poem; 3rd line determines # of words per line; 4th line
               determines # of sources per poem; 5th line determines # of words per 'source
               cluster'; 6th line PLUS the final hexagram # EQUALS which page # each word
               cluster comes from
Adding the values of each line with a CHANGE determines the increment of change for
               subsequent poems in sequence.
The total # of changing lines determines a final stanza to be added to each poem in the
               sequence.
The name of each hexagram thrown and its subsequent change will determine title for
               each sequence
The number of sequences in this book has been determined based on the value of a
               separate single throw of three coins: the value of which is 9.
An additional rule on sources: (a) each subsequent poem in a sequence should have at least
               one source replaced by another (b) each new sequence will retain one source from
               the previous sequence

SOURCES

Gradual Progress → Increase

Acker, Kathy. Hannibal Lecter, My Father. Semiotext(e) Native Agents Series, 1991.
Batchen, Geoffrey. Burning with Desire: The Conception of Photography. The MIT Press, 1999.
Breton, Andre. “Free Union” trans. By David Antin. Quoted in Dean Young’s The Art of
               Recklessness: Poetry as Assertive Force and Contradiction. Graywolf Press, 2010.
Buzzeo, Melissa. For Want and Sound. Les Figues Press, TrenchArt: The Surplus Series, 2012.
Cahun, Claude. Disavowals. The MIT Press, 2007.
Caws, Mary Ann. The Surrealist Look: An Erotics of Encounter. The MIT Press, 1999.
Celan, Paul. “Glottal Stop”, quoted in Wolfson, A Dream Interpreted Within a Dream:
               Oneiropoiesis and the Prism of Imagination. Zone Books, 2011.
Cole, Norma. Mars. Listening Chamber, 1994.
Collom, Jack. “The Process of Opening Gifts.” From Open the Door: How to Excite Young People
               About Poetry. Ed. by Dorothea Lasky, et al. The Poetry Foundation/McSweeney’s Books,
               2013.
Edwards, Steve. Martha Rosler: The Bowery in two inadequate descriptive systems.
               Afterall Books, 2012.
Flanagan, Owen. The Bodhisattva’s Brain: Buddhism Naturalized. The MIT Press, 2011.
Jourda, Françoise-Hélène. “Aside”. from The Architect Reconstructing Her Practice. Edited by
               Francesca Hughes. The MIT Press, 1998.
Kirkham, Pat. Charles and Ray Eames: Designers of the Twentieth Century. The MIT Press, 1998.
Maillet, Arnaud. The Claude Glass: Use and Meaning of the Black Mirror in Western Art. Trans.
               by Jeff Fort. Zone Books, 2009.
Myles, Eileen. “Children’s Poetry.” From Open the Door: How to Excite Young People About
               Poetry. Ed. by Dorothea Lasky, et al. The Poetry Foundation/McSweeney’s Books, 2013.
Ribemont-Dessaignes, Georges. “Disillusioned Manifesto”. Quoted in Dada in Paris, by Michel
               Sanouillet. Trans. By Sharmila Ganguly. The MIT Press, 2009.
Richter, Dagmar. “A Practice of One’s Own: The Critical Copy and Translation of Space.” From
               The Architect Reconstructing Her Practice. Edited by Francesca Hughes. The MIT Press,
               1998.
Roethke, Theodore. “First Class.” From Open the Door: How to Excite Young People About
               Poetry. Ed. by Dorothea Lasky, et al. The Poetry Foundation/McSweeney’s Books, 2013.
Schalansky, Judith.“Tikopia”, from Atlas of Remote Islands. Trans. by Christine Lo. Penguin
               Books, 2010.
Seraji-Bozorgzad, Nasrine. “Diversion.” from The Architect Reconstructing Her Practice. Edited
               by Francesca Hughes. The MIT Press, 1998.
Wolfson, Elliot R. A Dream Interpreted Within a Dream: Oneiropoiesis and the Prism of
               Imagination. Zone Books, 2011.
Young, Dean. “The Decoration Committee”. Quoted in his The Art of Recklessness: Poetry as
               Assertive Force and Contradiction. Graywolf Press, 2010.

Andrew K. Peterson is the author of two poetry collections, some deer left the yard moving day and Museum of Thrown Objects (both published by BlazeVox Books). His chapbook bonjour Meriwether and the rabid maps (published by Fact-Simile Press in 2011) recently appeared in an exhibition on poets’ maps at The University of Arizona’s Poetry Center. He co-edits summer stock, an online poetry journal, and lives in the Boston area.
 
 
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