This installment of the PEN Poetry Series, selected by Ana Božičević and Amy King, features an excerpt from Kim Rosenfield’s Lividity, which was recently published by Les Figues Press.

 

from Lividity

 

In terminating, we have the agreeable task of warmly thanking everyone, anew, for reinvesting the proof of their confidence and for aiding us with their council and their suggestions.

We give to you, in large measure, the renovation and extension of out battery of micro-conversations and of our illustrated system of vocalized consonants.

THE BRUTE MATERIAL OF WORDS. THE BRUTAL MATERIAL OF WORLDS. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS:

Because air is chased through lungs, the vocal chords vibrate and liberally escape through the mouth. The sound produced is a vowel.

This is also the vowel pronounced by a large open mouth behind language that is very kissy.

F  a   r

Can you hear it’s grave and guttural character?

• Your mouth will be completely shut at a pre-determined point.
• You will press against an obstacle (implosion).
• You will brusquely and explosively rapture the obstacle.

This obstacle will be opposed to your open mouth and to the exit of air that we all partake of.

It’s also that the passage through which the air exits the mouth is only retraced to a pre-determined point, as if the exit of air doesn’t ever find a resting point but is simply frenetic.

The expired air can then sound like a noise of rubbing.

For f and v for example, the recalcitrant letters are formed by the superior incisors pushing on the interior lip.

For s and z—this endpoint of language comes very close to touching the hard palace.

It is extremely easy to mark a vibration present or absent.

It will suffice for all this to be pronounced in groups of sounds.

Pa, ba–ta, da–fa, va—etc.

And the hand placed on the language confirms this vibration.

Position of the mouth for liberty               Position of the mouth for the bottle

One says clearly, analogous to the French, “liberte” and “legume.”

(Before language, we reveled in the verdant hard palace.)

The point of language could be against incisive superiority. The air sordid with the cost of language and how it cools down, like a flacon of liquid.

We meet the debut of these words:

Love. Look. Liberty.

Examples: calling, jelly, etc. These don’t present the least bit of difficulty for the French.

And someone very somber might say: the point of language puts us in the same position as lightning.

 

Once a week, the PEN Poetry Series publishes work by emerging and established writers from coast to coast. Subscribe to the Poetry Series mailing list and have poems delivered to your e-mail as soon as they are published (no spam, no news, just poems). We hope you like the pieces we find as much as we do, and pass them on.