Charles Plymell’s extraordinary chapbook Tent Shaker Vortex Voice has just been released in a fourth printing by Bottle of Smoke Press. In a new prefatory essay to the long poems “We Heard the Game Lord Speak …” and “Planet Chernobyl,” he writes that he has “drawn upon Lucretius and Loren Eisley,” along with “many great thinkers from Darwin to modern atomic theorists” as well as Shakespeare. The Bard “indeed may have versified his amalgamated chemistries of connotative & denotative meanings in his sonnets and plays to foil his critics, while Lucretius may have lain latent from his critics because of faulty flowery translations by poets through the centuries.” The entire Prolegomenon is itself a stunning piece. Read it here. Plymell, who recently turned 87, is the author of two dozen books of poetry and prose.
I think that the PROLEGOMENON is a rather fine piece of literature and a fascinating read.
My thanks to Charles for writing it and my thanks to Jan for posting it.
I quite agree with Lee-Nova – a remarkable bit of writing. Once heard the voice remains a presence forever,
is three a quorum? count me in.