Pleasure is the subject of Lee Ann Brown's poetry. Pleasure in the craft and anti-craft of poem making. Pleasure in the vocalizing and harmonizing of voice and text–speech and writing. Giddy recombinings. Flirtatious collaborations. Irreverent anagrams. To paraphrase Lee Ann's version of her own poetic genealogy: enthusiasm is the mother ("We are the daughters of enthusiasm"), excitement the sister ("Where are my excitement sisters"). Sappho, Emily Dickinson, and Gertrude Stein are among the many innovative godmothers who grace her work with their influential kisses. As a woman writer myself, I am grateful to Lee Ann for the way she unabashedly connects gender to knowledge. In her poems, knowing is knowing as a woman. Knowledge is pleasure. The life of the mind is refreshingly erotic. What was once deemed too trivial here shines.
 
Polyverse is the very apt title of Lee Ann Brown's first collection of poems, which won the New American Poetry Prize and is forthcoming from Sun & Moon Press this fall. Bringing together many styles and schools of thought, from the Metaphysical to the Language poets, it will establish her as one of the most adventurous, confident and interesting of today's experimental writers. A poet deeply intoxicated with language, yet one whose high energy makes her aware of the limits of the merely literary. Or as one of her poems puts it: "Words / weren't enough for her. / She often made / high cat cries / and danced hard / on the blue carpet."
E. E.

 

Bodies Can Move This Way

Very fast like a car or waterfall 
Absence gap for stored-up music 
Evidence for the stolen nonce 
Your trick is all to the good

Our planetary hour
takes jumps 
Drop it doesn't mean stop

The fixed will fly perpetually 
in the blue hour some light reading

Silk nets are strongest 
Morning glories grow best in poor soil 
Music maker Fire tender

Photos stones 
The air sign to burn
Time your desire and circumstance

 

Resistance Play

All I need is a little resistance 
to come 
to terms

All I need is to read you 
And see how our poems differ 
where they intersect

then fill in the blanks 
for a new poem

Small daily 
resistances insist 
on the 
corrosion of conformity

Re sister your self 
as also an act of kindness to the others 
who enjoy you

You who you pleasurably
enjoy your register of pleasure you

 

After Sappho

So many people 
advised me against you.
How glad I am 
we could not resist.

 

Cafeteria

Ice Tea 
Cream corn 
Fried okra 
plus one meat

 

Pledge

I pledge allergy to the flail of the United States of Amigo. 
And to the reputation for which it stands, 
one national park, under godmother, indivisible, 
with lice and kabob for allegiance.

I pledge allegory to the flagellant of the United Statistic of Ammunition. 
And to the reproduction for which it stands, one naughtiness,under good, indivisible, 
with lick and juvenile for anatomy.

I pledge allelomorph to the flagelliform of the 
United State-of-the-Art of American English. 
And to the repudiation for which it stands, one nationalism, under go-getter, indivisible, 
with library science and juvenile court for Alleluia.

On my hop, I will try 
to serve Godmother, my coup de grâce, 
and to live by the give-and-take scramble lawn.

On my hoodlum, I will try 
to serve goose, my coupon, 
and to live by the gladioli scrap heap laxative.

On my honors of war, I will try 
to serve go-go dance, my country music,
and to live by the gizmo scowl lawyer.

 

"A Bird Flew By With A Vowel In Its Beak"

It was A, and A says O!
And O says Yes! Taste and see 
What vowels have done to me. 
My Aunt's spider. Web dress. 
Easy living implies you. Even 
The blues sings "I."

Etymologies of a kiss. Silent fire. 
Also Algiers. Edge of a garment. 
Rivermouth. Vocables. Blood of the word. 
Grammar lessons its fits and starts.
Snatching chatter blows through the shifts. 
Unlike the sacred. Telling. Like it is.

The unoriginal angel. A scratched back. 
Willow mirrors deep song. The sound of her. 
The middle of her, empty to hold. Everybody 
can't be gotten away. Call and response. 
Repetio Delecto. A folio in loco. 
Notable logos stems euphony.

Simple economics denotes Rimbaud.

 

To Bed

We must to bed
kind to bed 
kindly go to bed now 
we must go to bed now 
Please will you get in the bed 
I'm in bed now and want you 
with me in the bed now 
Where are you oh you're in 
bed now if I go to bed 
you'll be there too 
and that would be 
the kindest thing 
to the bed now 
to bed

 

No Melpomene

Re: Lone poem, pen nomme 
Pommel pope poop 
Olé, Olé, Ol' Pop Pomp

Pelé mope 
Mono men pole, lop me 
One pen open poem

Peel 'em: 
La Pomme, pome, pommelo

Moon pone molé