Poems for the Game of Silence

by Rothenberg, Jerome

• ISBN13: 9780811214612
• ISBN10: 0811214613
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-11-17
• Publisher: New Directions

Summary

"I look for new forms and possibilities," writes Jerome Rothenberg in Poems for the Game of Silence, "but also for ways of presenting in my own language the oldest possibilities of poetry going back to the primitive and archaic cultures that have been opening up to us over the last hundred years." It is this combined sense of mystery and authenticity, in words and new structures that approach archetypal chant, that informs his poetry. First published in 1971, this volume brings together a selection of Rothenberg's early groundbreaking work: a wide range of experimental forms, both written and oral, set beside renderings of Native American, Australian, and other primitive songs, as well as the ancestral poems exploring his own origins that look forward to his later poetry.

Table of Contents

Program One (1960)
from White Sun Black Sun
A Little Boy Lost	p. 4
The Night the Moon was a Spider	p. 5
Invincible Flowers	p. 6
A Poem for the Weather	p. 8
Three Landscapes	p. 9
The Stationmaster's Lament	p. 10
from between
Words	p. 14
Women and Thieves	p. 16
A Side of Beef	p. 17
Poems for the Hell of Hungry Ghosts	p. 20
The Seven Hells of the Jigoku Zoshi	p. 22
The Journey between Summers	p. 43
The Counter-Dances of Darkness	p. 47
Program Two (1964)
from Sightings and Further Sightings
Sightings I-IX	p. 56
The Old King	p. 69
The Sabbath Queen	p. 70
Hell	p. 72
The Witnesses	p. 74
from a Steinbook and More
A Valentine, No a Valedictory for Gertrude Stein	p. 80
Lorca's Spain: a Homage	p. 81
Some Notes for a New Series of Poems to Celebrate the American Revolution (1776-1976)	p. 82
How She Would Hurt Him, a Narrative	p. 85
Red Easy a Color	p. 87
from Conversations
Conversation Six	p. 90
Conversation Seven	p. 91
Conversation Ten	p. 92
Conversation Thirteen	p. 93
Conversation Fifteen	p. 94
from the Gorky Poems
The Pirate II	p. 96
The Diary of a Seducer	p. 98
The Water of the Flowery Mill II	p. 100
The Betrothal	p. 102
Agony	p. 104
The Orators II	p. 106
Child of an Idumean Night	p. 109
Charred Beloved	p. 113
Portrait of Myself with Arshile Gorky and Gertrude Stein	p. 115
Program Three (1968)
from a Shaman's Notebook
The Annunciation	p. 124
A Shaman Climbs up the Sky	p. 125
Lily Events	p. 129
Gift Event II	p. 131
Garbage Event	p. 130
Sea Water Event	p. 132
Sightings: Kunapipi	p. 133
from Shaking the Pumpkin	p. 137
The Flight of Quetzalcoatl	p. 145
from Soundings: the 17 Horse-Songs of Frank Mitchell
The 12th Horse-Song of Frank Mitchell (Blue)	p. 154
The 13th Horse-Song of Frank Mitchell (White)	p. 157
from Narratives and Realtheater Pieces
A First Narrative	p. 162
Praises of the Bantu Kings	p. 163
Further Praises	p. 166
Praise Poems for the Old Coalition	p. 167
"Nero" from the Lives of the Caesars	p. 168
Realtheater Piece Two	p. 171
from Poland/1931
"The Wedding"	p. 176
The King of the Jews	p. 178
Satan in Goray	p. 180
The Beadle's Testimony	p. 183
Soap (I)	p. 185
Soap (II)	p. 186
The Mothers	p. 188
Portrait of a Jew Old Country Style	p. 190
The Brothers	p. 193
The Murder Incorporated Sutra	p. 195
The Student's Testimony	p. 199
Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved.