Lux Hexas Circumventas by Charlotte A. Schatz
Daniel Carden Nemo: First of all, I’d like to congratulate you on this wonderful book, which succeeds in treating the page as an art space through word-built graphics, images, and typography that, together, do much of the conceptual work. Is the visual/syntactic design an invitation to meaning-making?
Diane Sahms: Thank you for your comments about my new book. Yes, hopefully the visual / syntactic design invites the reader into meaning-making.
Architecture / Topography (as form) is the driving force in the arrangement of these visual poems on each page. The poem in its truest essence dictates its form, shape, and appearance on the page much the same way that visual art does to an artist. Poetry can appear visually as Art’s minimalism, POP ART, conceptualism, abstract expressionism, realism, surrealism, concrete, et cetera, and in some cases as combinations.
I am particularly interested in poetic language as it relates to music, color, art, philosophy, life, etcetera. The emotional aspect of all artistic symbols seemingly blends together into a language, into a shared human experience. Hopefully, the reader will see each poem in this collection [of letters / words / symbols / language, as language / as well as the arrangements of visual imagery / text / graphics - constructed from Word 2016 / paintings (in the public domain) / my photographs] and have the awareness that the poem knows that the reader is looking at it (like art) and reading it, even
judging it, as one does with subjective works of art. All things being well, there should be an aliveness (active awareness) between the reader (viewer) and the poem (being viewed/read). The intention of each poem is that it will be met in a shared poetic space of consciousness between reader and poet. That being said, the exact same poem can hold an entirely different meaning for two different readers.
DCN: You say “archite|x|tural awareness” is the poem being aware of itself on the page. Did the layout choices, such as spacing, type, font, color, change or rearrange the meaning of the poems?
DS: This 9th book, of an octopus: an architectural awareness of words, has taken on a life of its own. Originally, it was organized under a different title and in a strict grid form, totaling 52 poems: 26 poems with uppercase titles: A-Z, and 26 poems with lowercase titles: a-z. I had been working on it for several years—editing, organizing, reorganizing—then a “shift” in consciousness occurred.
February 2024, while asleep and dreaming, I awoke, journaled, and sketched out “WORD ART / SET OF 5” poems, which appear on pages 98-102 of my book. That changed everything! This was the year of my (October) retirement, which coincided with a sense of liberation in my life and in my poetry. These newer poems had a sense of aliveness and every older or former poem (or set of poems) transformed or evolved into a reimagined / re-imag(e)-ned awareness of itself on the page.
The square format (8.5 X 8.5) of the book suggested by my publisher, Carbonation Press, created a whole new way of looking at each poem’s spacing on a square-shaped page. This allowed longer lines, gradations and formations of text, and a more centered, enlarged placement of photographs and paintings. Initially, my idea to colorize started with the “WORD ART” poem, “1. RAINBOW,” (the seven colors of the rainbow), and spread throughout the rest of the book’s deliberate utilization of colorized words, graphics, photographs, and paintings.
Therefore, and to answer your question, in a majority of instances, the new layout of each poem on the page(s) did change the meaning(s) and fostered a new way of thinking about words and images and the reconstruction of each poem’s appearance on each page. Furthermore, the grouping of the poems— specifically the awareness of each poem’s inclusion and/or exclusion—was carefully scrutinized to ensure each piece could stand alone while contributing to the collection’s overall totality.
Lastly, this major shift in my poetry followed a notable shift in my consciousness, and maybe more in line with what Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist Carl Jung labeled as the evolutionary, lifelong psychological process known as “individuation.” This actually happened to me in my poetry, as well as in my lifelong quest to become my truest self, or currently the best version of me, separate from external and societal expectations. This is very liberating for a woman poet, who has been writing for almost 30 years, with eight previous collections that are nothing like this new and experimental art experience, contained in this, my latest, ninth collection.
DCN: In the blue sequences, disappearance is a type of procedure: words thin out until color and repetition carry the field. What does chromatic repetition reveal that explanation isn’t able to?
DS: In the poem, “—of a blue doll’s transparency on earth, part 2 (as the follow-up poem to part 1), I deliberately arranged the chromatic repetitions of the visual word blue (including blueless, bluish, blueueueue) as a visual and complementary arrangement and as a direct correlation to the placement of the word blue in part 1 of its linked poem.
Part 1’s philosophical-narrative text is told through the eyes of the adult-child, who is looking backward into time and into her inexplicable life (figuratively), as an orphaned and misunderstood child. The transparent doll is the speaker’s persona: the unseen, invisible child. The poem is driven by self-discovery and inquiry, shaped by the color blue's visual resonance and by the narrative (through the passage of time) of the blue doll’s losses and gains. Looking back through the eyes of an adult and questioning time, survival, and the incorporation of shadow into light, there is an internal search to find balance.
Concerning the poem, “—of a blue doll’s transparency on earth, part 2,” and the evolution of the doll into a rational adult, with the chromatic repetition of the colorized word “blue,” the reader should revisit the set-up of the transparent doll and transcendent adult/speaker by rereading the last stanza of its former linked poem,
“—of a blue doll’s transparency on earth, part 1;” page 39 - last page of the poem, as follows:
on earth.
A stigmata for the child to carry
in the palm branch of arms,
of hands, of time’s reaching
upward into endlessness
of suffering / blue / sky
as in hidden patches of blue
sown into and through
cloudy gauze of a holey fabric
as in clouds, as in patches
of blue sewn into climate
as in life’s tattered blanket
as in a blue-white-shroud
which covers the fallen
on fallen earth.
And the equivalent lines “—of a blue doll’s transparency on earth, part 2;” pg. 43 – last page of the poem:
blue
blue
blue
blue
Part 2’s chromatic repetition resonates the speaker’s acceptance (rather than resistance) to childhood’s stigmata and transcends childhood and then marital sufferings into the white cloudy gauze of a holey (holy) fabric as in clouds and/or the white spaciousness of each page filled with patches of blue (the literal word blue) sewn into climate of time itself. The blue patches of a transcendent, omnipresent sky seen only through life’s sufferings or clouds. Blue doll’s transparency on earth lives on, in its transcendence and on the white canvas of part 2’s four pages (part 2 echoing the former, part 1) in a more freeing, stylized arrangement, allowing the reader to view the image of the word (blue) itself from different visual perspectives. I believe the colorized word blue mirrors the deeply emotional mood of this piece. Perhaps this is the best present moment for the adult/speaker, and maybe the final resolution: that is, coming to terms with the passing of the speaker’s life, as best told by the color blue.
Lastly, the famous Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s quote from Table Talk concerning poetry is the best words in the best order. Well, I have embraced and honored this mental state of mind and have expanded out of his statement of not only ‘words’ in the best order, but their delineation or deconstruction and in this case the word blue, as visual imagery and as text.
DCN: In “—TIME,” you stage the cliché of boxing time and then scatter the box across the page. How do you know when time in the poem is measured, and when it becomes a space the reader has to travel across? Where do you want the reader to feel time break?
DS: Paradoxically, Timelessness is the key. The word “Time” in lowercase letters in the third line of the poem (as it appears on the page) is never in a box! Time sits humbly at the top of all the numbered boxes.
“Time is” (through implication) timeless, here, at the beginning of the poem and above all of the numbered (1-9) boxes within the poem. The poem progresses using boxes as images, numbers, and words to bring the reader to boxless number 10, reiterating an idea of timelessness.
As the poem travels across the space of the pages, the reader, too, has traveled with the poem’s sequential movement. That is, the boxed, capitalized words: OUT, OF, THE, BOX, leave the boxes one at a time (boxes 1.,2.,3.,4.), until all of the four words (OUT, OF, THE, BOX) orbit outside of box 5. Then each of the four orbiting words (OUT, OF, THE, BOX), one by one, fall consecutively out of the orbit of their respective boxes (6.,7.,8. ) until the words completely disappear. Box 9 is entirely empty, inside and outside (that is, of words), and there is just an empty box.
Then, visually, all words are completely unseen and unboxed in number 10: invisible, unrestrained, totally free on the white canvas space of the rest of the page. That is, there is no box in the tenth space under the number 10, because Time, the lowercase “word,” and its idea/concept of being boxed never actually applied to Time. (For that matter, neither did the cliché.)
The poem challenges the reader to evolve with this idea or to evolve out of the old, familiar cliché; and possibly into a spatial/spiritual/transcendental dimension (even an unnumbered 11); and paradoxically not to waste time, but also not to take time too seriously either. Nonetheless, Time is, as far as the poem is suggesting, Timeless, and is not boxed in on itself, rather it is and always has been OUT OF THE BOX.
DCN: Several poems are after paintings and photographs. How does ekphrasis change when the page is a rival frame?
DS: From a poetic perspective, I view ekphrasis as a reinterpretation or a reimagining of visual art pieces and/or photographs. My two poems, after Henri Rousseau’s The Sleeping Gypsy and The Dream, were not chosen as “rival frames,” rather as parallel existences, as different perspectives, which may (or may not) complement the meaning of these paintings.
My poem,”—of La Bohémienne endormie,” after Henri Rousseau’s The Sleeping Gypsy, took several years to complete. The backstory: My great-aunt Mildred lost her baby, Lucy Mae, and never had any more children. As a child, I lived in close proximity to my Aunt Mildred’s house and played with her great-niece, Crystal, whom Aunt Mildred was raising. Crystal was one of 10 children, and Aunt Mildred, at 67 years old, lived alone and agreed to raise her from infancy. In their home, a highly polished table held a pair of preserved, bronzed baby shoes that belonged to Lucy Mae. This minimalistic home was like a quiet tomb, as Aunt Mildred didn’t speak much, napped often, and never spoke of Lucy Mae. Crystal told me about the shoes.
In later years, as a mother of three children of my own, I often thought back to Crystal and Aunt Mildred. Many drafts of poems about Aunt Mildred’s loss were written and never finalized until I viewed Rousseau’s The Sleeping Gypsy painting at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, coupled with a request for a “lion poem” for an anthology. Then it all came together, and it was the coming together of these events (one-by-one and over time) not as rivals to the painting, but as complementary components, which made up the whole of my poem, dedicated in two parts in memory of (i.) Aunt Mildred & (ii) Lucy Mae.
Briefly, my other poem —"of jungle jungle-ling,” after The Dream, doesn’t rival Henri Rousseau’s other painting either; rather, it reinterprets Rousseau’s very last painting of his lifetime in an imaginative, sexual, erotic way. The nude model on the divan is of his mistress, Yadwigha, whom he knew in his youth but never married. Perhaps, right before his death, this painting’s imaginative fantasy blended his memories of her with the erotic, exotic elements contained within his painting. Like many artists and poets, he may have viewed life as a dream, and in his final dream painting he thought of Yadwigha.
I played with the rhythmicality of the words’ jungle-ling, as follows--
jungle-ling, jungle-ling, jungle-ling for
everything magical and…mystical and…and…
and…primitively maddening, dissolving into dream.
—and alluded to their resonance and semantic satiation. Also, “and…and… / and… primitively maddening” is the movement of words sexually climaxing, as well as the climatic end of Rousseau’s satisfying life, satisfied “dream’s” correlation to the poem’s ending: “dissolving into dream.”
DCN: In the mirror work, you end with reversed text—reading becomes reverse/perverse/inverse. Is the backwardness a pun on transparency, or a demand that the reader re-enter the poem from the other side?
DS: reverse = yes / perverse = no / inverse = yes.
The backwardness is not a pun on transparency, rather a request (not a demand) for the reader to re-enter the poem from the other side. I never demand anything from a reader, but I am hopeful that the reader will re-enter the poem from the other side.
The reverse text can literally be read normally in a mirror and that’s the clue and/or cue for the reader (if they so choose to or want to delve deeper) to experiment with the experience of working with the poem’s reverse text, reflection, monologue/dialogue, even the inner essence of its thoughts.
There is a hint for one to work with their own reflective opposite (shadow) and bring it into their reflective presence (light) or vice versa, to incorporate a reversed self into a present self. Nudging a reader into musings of balance. Reflectiveness on both sides (inner and outer) will hopefully help one to embrace their whole self: body, spirit, and mind, and not to get trapped in narcissistic thoughts.
“No narcissistic afterglow will grow from these rooted musings. |
“.ƨǫniƨum bɘƚooɿ ɘƨɘʜƚ moɿʇ woɿǫ lliw wolǫɿɘƚʇɒ ɔiƚƨiƨƨiɔɿɒn oИ
DCN: In “—of +he in+ersect+ion of +rees,” the plus signs both wound and stitch the words—win+er, no+hing, ma++ers, the poem literalizes interruption in the word-body. Do these interventions create hesitations that impose and eventually become an act of thinking?
DS: In this poem, “—of +he in+ersect+ion of +rees,” the intent of the “crosses” / “+++” / “ł ł ł” is to look at the point of view of the wounded speaker – to stitch together and philosophically rationalize their experience; and to look at the intersections of their thoughts: vertical (upward and downward) and horizontal (eastward and westward). By musing someone else’s point of view, a reader has the ability to accept or deny another person’s claims and/or the bearing of their cross: upright or tilted.
DCN: I feel that the pain and grief found in the lines is routed through typographic play and conceptual framing, but how do you balance emotion with formal play?
DS: It varies with the nature of the poem.
In my poems of “pain and grief,” I hide nothing in typographic play or conceptual framing. For example, a very painful poem for me is “—of stark realism,” which has a photograph of lungs (or no lungs) from a person who has “pulmonary fibrosis.” There is no play or conceptual framing in this photo or in the poem itself, which compares dying to a final boxing round, coupled with the last sorrowful mystery (the crucifixion) of the rosary. The “Notes” reveal that this poem was written “For my Aunt Peggy, Margaret Lee Fullerton, 1947–2021," whom I watched die of this horrific disease.
However, I do use “typographic play and conceptual framing,” yet I use it clearly in the defense of women concerning the negativity of “societal labeling,” as in women as prey or as the lesser (than equal) sex. Some of these empowered and ironic poems are: “—of —of blanket octopus --of;” “—of Scorpius;” “—of an alien woman;” “—of image: ɘǫɒmi ʇo;” etc.
For example, in the poem, “ —of —of blanket octopus --of ,” the blanket octopus is a caped amphibian, a strong female life form in the animal kingdom, and one of the most extreme cases of sexual size dimorphism living in the open ocean. When she unfurls her iridescent webbed blanket, it can appear to predators to be up to 6.5 feet. The tiny males, who mate with her, measure less than 1-2 inches.
Further, she can camouflage herself from all predators by changing colors; hence, this poem can be read in changeable ways, which is why I constructed it in assorted colors and shaped it into an eight-armed octopus. She, a survivor, fends off predators and possesses “three hearts.”
“—of Scorpius,” a female scorpion has a naturally broader and more robust body than a male scorpion and under UV light appears larger, as stated by the speaker in the final lines of the poem:
night vision & Scorpius immerses
me in feminine glow to throw off
predators. Body’s giant light
receptors increase my protective
appearance, by a thousand times.
DCN: The poems in the book are imagined as projections and, also, as objects on the page. How do you mediate the cinematic flow and the stilled, inspectable moment of print? Which pieces do you think move most like film?
DS: All “Six Sections” of this book of poems were arranged so that each individual poem could stand alone as a single frame, with the exception of three poems, namely, “—of womanly;” “—of Aerial | Arial | Ariel” and “R. Red, a trio at the end of the spectrum.” These two-page poems are better read in a continuous/cinematic flow.
With that being said, the long poems in Section 2 “L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E Game;” Section 3 “Mirror | ɿoɿɿiM;” and Section 4 “Deadly | Crossing” are best read in the visual continuity of a cinematic flow.
In these sections, if all the frames/poems (making up the entire poem) are read across consecutive pages in a continuous flow, this will support deeper interaction and a more fully realized meaning through continuous movement. However, nothing would be lost if a reader/viewer wants to read/view each page of a long poem as a single frame, i.e., as a separate part, which ideally makes up the whole.
DCN: You describe building poems from letters and symbols, colors and graphics, like instrument-making. Do you see method as generating style rather than expressing a preexisting style?
DS: Yes, I see method as generating style like instrument-making, which requires a heightened sense of consciousness, of sound, of research, and of visual craftsmanship, with a focus on resonance, wit, permanence, and playability.
DCN: It seems to me you position this as a next step in experimental poetics, building on modernist linguistic invention but also reworking it, asking for a shared space of consciousness between reader and poem. Where would you most want this work to live? What would be the ideal first-time reader situation for it?
DS: I would want my work to live everywhere. A first-time reader should leaf through all of the pages of my book: —of an octopus: an archite|x|tural awareness of words. Next, they could read / browse the “Introduction,” and possibly the “Notes,” to get a grasp of my methodology. Lastly, they could settle into the familiar space of a selected poem of interest, whereby they can bring their own unique thoughts/ideas, and/or something of their own beingness/essence to the selected poem’s existence on a page(s). This aligns with what I meant in my “Introduction,” as follows:
“The intention of each poem is that it will be met in a shared poetic space of consciousness
between reader and poet. Every poem is subjective, meaning it exists as subject-object and
therefore, must be met in a viewer-reader’s poetic zone and/or realm of being, existence.”
Diane Sahms: Thank you for your comments about my new book. Yes, hopefully the visual / syntactic design invites the reader into meaning-making.
Architecture / Topography (as form) is the driving force in the arrangement of these visual poems on each page. The poem in its truest essence dictates its form, shape, and appearance on the page much the same way that visual art does to an artist. Poetry can appear visually as Art’s minimalism, POP ART, conceptualism, abstract expressionism, realism, surrealism, concrete, et cetera, and in some cases as combinations.
I am particularly interested in poetic language as it relates to music, color, art, philosophy, life, etcetera. The emotional aspect of all artistic symbols seemingly blends together into a language, into a shared human experience. Hopefully, the reader will see each poem in this collection [of letters / words / symbols / language, as language / as well as the arrangements of visual imagery / text / graphics - constructed from Word 2016 / paintings (in the public domain) / my photographs] and have the awareness that the poem knows that the reader is looking at it (like art) and reading it, even
judging it, as one does with subjective works of art. All things being well, there should be an aliveness (active awareness) between the reader (viewer) and the poem (being viewed/read). The intention of each poem is that it will be met in a shared poetic space of consciousness between reader and poet. That being said, the exact same poem can hold an entirely different meaning for two different readers.
DCN: You say “archite|x|tural awareness” is the poem being aware of itself on the page. Did the layout choices, such as spacing, type, font, color, change or rearrange the meaning of the poems?
DS: This 9th book, of an octopus: an architectural awareness of words, has taken on a life of its own. Originally, it was organized under a different title and in a strict grid form, totaling 52 poems: 26 poems with uppercase titles: A-Z, and 26 poems with lowercase titles: a-z. I had been working on it for several years—editing, organizing, reorganizing—then a “shift” in consciousness occurred.
February 2024, while asleep and dreaming, I awoke, journaled, and sketched out “WORD ART / SET OF 5” poems, which appear on pages 98-102 of my book. That changed everything! This was the year of my (October) retirement, which coincided with a sense of liberation in my life and in my poetry. These newer poems had a sense of aliveness and every older or former poem (or set of poems) transformed or evolved into a reimagined / re-imag(e)-ned awareness of itself on the page.
The square format (8.5 X 8.5) of the book suggested by my publisher, Carbonation Press, created a whole new way of looking at each poem’s spacing on a square-shaped page. This allowed longer lines, gradations and formations of text, and a more centered, enlarged placement of photographs and paintings. Initially, my idea to colorize started with the “WORD ART” poem, “1. RAINBOW,” (the seven colors of the rainbow), and spread throughout the rest of the book’s deliberate utilization of colorized words, graphics, photographs, and paintings.
Therefore, and to answer your question, in a majority of instances, the new layout of each poem on the page(s) did change the meaning(s) and fostered a new way of thinking about words and images and the reconstruction of each poem’s appearance on each page. Furthermore, the grouping of the poems— specifically the awareness of each poem’s inclusion and/or exclusion—was carefully scrutinized to ensure each piece could stand alone while contributing to the collection’s overall totality.
Lastly, this major shift in my poetry followed a notable shift in my consciousness, and maybe more in line with what Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist Carl Jung labeled as the evolutionary, lifelong psychological process known as “individuation.” This actually happened to me in my poetry, as well as in my lifelong quest to become my truest self, or currently the best version of me, separate from external and societal expectations. This is very liberating for a woman poet, who has been writing for almost 30 years, with eight previous collections that are nothing like this new and experimental art experience, contained in this, my latest, ninth collection.
DCN: In the blue sequences, disappearance is a type of procedure: words thin out until color and repetition carry the field. What does chromatic repetition reveal that explanation isn’t able to?
DS: In the poem, “—of a blue doll’s transparency on earth, part 2 (as the follow-up poem to part 1), I deliberately arranged the chromatic repetitions of the visual word blue (including blueless, bluish, blueueueue) as a visual and complementary arrangement and as a direct correlation to the placement of the word blue in part 1 of its linked poem.
Part 1’s philosophical-narrative text is told through the eyes of the adult-child, who is looking backward into time and into her inexplicable life (figuratively), as an orphaned and misunderstood child. The transparent doll is the speaker’s persona: the unseen, invisible child. The poem is driven by self-discovery and inquiry, shaped by the color blue's visual resonance and by the narrative (through the passage of time) of the blue doll’s losses and gains. Looking back through the eyes of an adult and questioning time, survival, and the incorporation of shadow into light, there is an internal search to find balance.
Concerning the poem, “—of a blue doll’s transparency on earth, part 2,” and the evolution of the doll into a rational adult, with the chromatic repetition of the colorized word “blue,” the reader should revisit the set-up of the transparent doll and transcendent adult/speaker by rereading the last stanza of its former linked poem,
“—of a blue doll’s transparency on earth, part 1;” page 39 - last page of the poem, as follows:
on earth.
A stigmata for the child to carry
in the palm branch of arms,
of hands, of time’s reaching
upward into endlessness
of suffering / blue / sky
as in hidden patches of blue
sown into and through
cloudy gauze of a holey fabric
as in clouds, as in patches
of blue sewn into climate
as in life’s tattered blanket
as in a blue-white-shroud
which covers the fallen
on fallen earth.
And the equivalent lines “—of a blue doll’s transparency on earth, part 2;” pg. 43 – last page of the poem:
blue
blue
blue
blue
Part 2’s chromatic repetition resonates the speaker’s acceptance (rather than resistance) to childhood’s stigmata and transcends childhood and then marital sufferings into the white cloudy gauze of a holey (holy) fabric as in clouds and/or the white spaciousness of each page filled with patches of blue (the literal word blue) sewn into climate of time itself. The blue patches of a transcendent, omnipresent sky seen only through life’s sufferings or clouds. Blue doll’s transparency on earth lives on, in its transcendence and on the white canvas of part 2’s four pages (part 2 echoing the former, part 1) in a more freeing, stylized arrangement, allowing the reader to view the image of the word (blue) itself from different visual perspectives. I believe the colorized word blue mirrors the deeply emotional mood of this piece. Perhaps this is the best present moment for the adult/speaker, and maybe the final resolution: that is, coming to terms with the passing of the speaker’s life, as best told by the color blue.
Lastly, the famous Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s quote from Table Talk concerning poetry is the best words in the best order. Well, I have embraced and honored this mental state of mind and have expanded out of his statement of not only ‘words’ in the best order, but their delineation or deconstruction and in this case the word blue, as visual imagery and as text.
DCN: In “—TIME,” you stage the cliché of boxing time and then scatter the box across the page. How do you know when time in the poem is measured, and when it becomes a space the reader has to travel across? Where do you want the reader to feel time break?
DS: Paradoxically, Timelessness is the key. The word “Time” in lowercase letters in the third line of the poem (as it appears on the page) is never in a box! Time sits humbly at the top of all the numbered boxes.
“Time is” (through implication) timeless, here, at the beginning of the poem and above all of the numbered (1-9) boxes within the poem. The poem progresses using boxes as images, numbers, and words to bring the reader to boxless number 10, reiterating an idea of timelessness.
As the poem travels across the space of the pages, the reader, too, has traveled with the poem’s sequential movement. That is, the boxed, capitalized words: OUT, OF, THE, BOX, leave the boxes one at a time (boxes 1.,2.,3.,4.), until all of the four words (OUT, OF, THE, BOX) orbit outside of box 5. Then each of the four orbiting words (OUT, OF, THE, BOX), one by one, fall consecutively out of the orbit of their respective boxes (6.,7.,8. ) until the words completely disappear. Box 9 is entirely empty, inside and outside (that is, of words), and there is just an empty box.
Then, visually, all words are completely unseen and unboxed in number 10: invisible, unrestrained, totally free on the white canvas space of the rest of the page. That is, there is no box in the tenth space under the number 10, because Time, the lowercase “word,” and its idea/concept of being boxed never actually applied to Time. (For that matter, neither did the cliché.)
The poem challenges the reader to evolve with this idea or to evolve out of the old, familiar cliché; and possibly into a spatial/spiritual/transcendental dimension (even an unnumbered 11); and paradoxically not to waste time, but also not to take time too seriously either. Nonetheless, Time is, as far as the poem is suggesting, Timeless, and is not boxed in on itself, rather it is and always has been OUT OF THE BOX.
DCN: Several poems are after paintings and photographs. How does ekphrasis change when the page is a rival frame?
DS: From a poetic perspective, I view ekphrasis as a reinterpretation or a reimagining of visual art pieces and/or photographs. My two poems, after Henri Rousseau’s The Sleeping Gypsy and The Dream, were not chosen as “rival frames,” rather as parallel existences, as different perspectives, which may (or may not) complement the meaning of these paintings.
My poem,”—of La Bohémienne endormie,” after Henri Rousseau’s The Sleeping Gypsy, took several years to complete. The backstory: My great-aunt Mildred lost her baby, Lucy Mae, and never had any more children. As a child, I lived in close proximity to my Aunt Mildred’s house and played with her great-niece, Crystal, whom Aunt Mildred was raising. Crystal was one of 10 children, and Aunt Mildred, at 67 years old, lived alone and agreed to raise her from infancy. In their home, a highly polished table held a pair of preserved, bronzed baby shoes that belonged to Lucy Mae. This minimalistic home was like a quiet tomb, as Aunt Mildred didn’t speak much, napped often, and never spoke of Lucy Mae. Crystal told me about the shoes.
In later years, as a mother of three children of my own, I often thought back to Crystal and Aunt Mildred. Many drafts of poems about Aunt Mildred’s loss were written and never finalized until I viewed Rousseau’s The Sleeping Gypsy painting at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, coupled with a request for a “lion poem” for an anthology. Then it all came together, and it was the coming together of these events (one-by-one and over time) not as rivals to the painting, but as complementary components, which made up the whole of my poem, dedicated in two parts in memory of (i.) Aunt Mildred & (ii) Lucy Mae.
Briefly, my other poem —"of jungle jungle-ling,” after The Dream, doesn’t rival Henri Rousseau’s other painting either; rather, it reinterprets Rousseau’s very last painting of his lifetime in an imaginative, sexual, erotic way. The nude model on the divan is of his mistress, Yadwigha, whom he knew in his youth but never married. Perhaps, right before his death, this painting’s imaginative fantasy blended his memories of her with the erotic, exotic elements contained within his painting. Like many artists and poets, he may have viewed life as a dream, and in his final dream painting he thought of Yadwigha.
I played with the rhythmicality of the words’ jungle-ling, as follows--
jungle-ling, jungle-ling, jungle-ling for
everything magical and…mystical and…and…
and…primitively maddening, dissolving into dream.
—and alluded to their resonance and semantic satiation. Also, “and…and… / and… primitively maddening” is the movement of words sexually climaxing, as well as the climatic end of Rousseau’s satisfying life, satisfied “dream’s” correlation to the poem’s ending: “dissolving into dream.”
DCN: In the mirror work, you end with reversed text—reading becomes reverse/perverse/inverse. Is the backwardness a pun on transparency, or a demand that the reader re-enter the poem from the other side?
DS: reverse = yes / perverse = no / inverse = yes.
The backwardness is not a pun on transparency, rather a request (not a demand) for the reader to re-enter the poem from the other side. I never demand anything from a reader, but I am hopeful that the reader will re-enter the poem from the other side.
The reverse text can literally be read normally in a mirror and that’s the clue and/or cue for the reader (if they so choose to or want to delve deeper) to experiment with the experience of working with the poem’s reverse text, reflection, monologue/dialogue, even the inner essence of its thoughts.
There is a hint for one to work with their own reflective opposite (shadow) and bring it into their reflective presence (light) or vice versa, to incorporate a reversed self into a present self. Nudging a reader into musings of balance. Reflectiveness on both sides (inner and outer) will hopefully help one to embrace their whole self: body, spirit, and mind, and not to get trapped in narcissistic thoughts.
“No narcissistic afterglow will grow from these rooted musings. |
“.ƨǫniƨum bɘƚooɿ ɘƨɘʜƚ moɿʇ woɿǫ lliw wolǫɿɘƚʇɒ ɔiƚƨiƨƨiɔɿɒn oИ
DCN: In “—of +he in+ersect+ion of +rees,” the plus signs both wound and stitch the words—win+er, no+hing, ma++ers, the poem literalizes interruption in the word-body. Do these interventions create hesitations that impose and eventually become an act of thinking?
DS: In this poem, “—of +he in+ersect+ion of +rees,” the intent of the “crosses” / “+++” / “ł ł ł” is to look at the point of view of the wounded speaker – to stitch together and philosophically rationalize their experience; and to look at the intersections of their thoughts: vertical (upward and downward) and horizontal (eastward and westward). By musing someone else’s point of view, a reader has the ability to accept or deny another person’s claims and/or the bearing of their cross: upright or tilted.
DCN: I feel that the pain and grief found in the lines is routed through typographic play and conceptual framing, but how do you balance emotion with formal play?
DS: It varies with the nature of the poem.
In my poems of “pain and grief,” I hide nothing in typographic play or conceptual framing. For example, a very painful poem for me is “—of stark realism,” which has a photograph of lungs (or no lungs) from a person who has “pulmonary fibrosis.” There is no play or conceptual framing in this photo or in the poem itself, which compares dying to a final boxing round, coupled with the last sorrowful mystery (the crucifixion) of the rosary. The “Notes” reveal that this poem was written “For my Aunt Peggy, Margaret Lee Fullerton, 1947–2021," whom I watched die of this horrific disease.
However, I do use “typographic play and conceptual framing,” yet I use it clearly in the defense of women concerning the negativity of “societal labeling,” as in women as prey or as the lesser (than equal) sex. Some of these empowered and ironic poems are: “—of —of blanket octopus --of;” “—of Scorpius;” “—of an alien woman;” “—of image: ɘǫɒmi ʇo;” etc.
For example, in the poem, “ —of —of blanket octopus --of ,” the blanket octopus is a caped amphibian, a strong female life form in the animal kingdom, and one of the most extreme cases of sexual size dimorphism living in the open ocean. When she unfurls her iridescent webbed blanket, it can appear to predators to be up to 6.5 feet. The tiny males, who mate with her, measure less than 1-2 inches.
Further, she can camouflage herself from all predators by changing colors; hence, this poem can be read in changeable ways, which is why I constructed it in assorted colors and shaped it into an eight-armed octopus. She, a survivor, fends off predators and possesses “three hearts.”
“—of Scorpius,” a female scorpion has a naturally broader and more robust body than a male scorpion and under UV light appears larger, as stated by the speaker in the final lines of the poem:
night vision & Scorpius immerses
me in feminine glow to throw off
predators. Body’s giant light
receptors increase my protective
appearance, by a thousand times.
DCN: The poems in the book are imagined as projections and, also, as objects on the page. How do you mediate the cinematic flow and the stilled, inspectable moment of print? Which pieces do you think move most like film?
DS: All “Six Sections” of this book of poems were arranged so that each individual poem could stand alone as a single frame, with the exception of three poems, namely, “—of womanly;” “—of Aerial | Arial | Ariel” and “R. Red, a trio at the end of the spectrum.” These two-page poems are better read in a continuous/cinematic flow.
With that being said, the long poems in Section 2 “L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E Game;” Section 3 “Mirror | ɿoɿɿiM;” and Section 4 “Deadly | Crossing” are best read in the visual continuity of a cinematic flow.
In these sections, if all the frames/poems (making up the entire poem) are read across consecutive pages in a continuous flow, this will support deeper interaction and a more fully realized meaning through continuous movement. However, nothing would be lost if a reader/viewer wants to read/view each page of a long poem as a single frame, i.e., as a separate part, which ideally makes up the whole.
DCN: You describe building poems from letters and symbols, colors and graphics, like instrument-making. Do you see method as generating style rather than expressing a preexisting style?
DS: Yes, I see method as generating style like instrument-making, which requires a heightened sense of consciousness, of sound, of research, and of visual craftsmanship, with a focus on resonance, wit, permanence, and playability.
DCN: It seems to me you position this as a next step in experimental poetics, building on modernist linguistic invention but also reworking it, asking for a shared space of consciousness between reader and poem. Where would you most want this work to live? What would be the ideal first-time reader situation for it?
DS: I would want my work to live everywhere. A first-time reader should leaf through all of the pages of my book: —of an octopus: an archite|x|tural awareness of words. Next, they could read / browse the “Introduction,” and possibly the “Notes,” to get a grasp of my methodology. Lastly, they could settle into the familiar space of a selected poem of interest, whereby they can bring their own unique thoughts/ideas, and/or something of their own beingness/essence to the selected poem’s existence on a page(s). This aligns with what I meant in my “Introduction,” as follows:
“The intention of each poem is that it will be met in a shared poetic space of consciousness
between reader and poet. Every poem is subjective, meaning it exists as subject-object and
therefore, must be met in a viewer-reader’s poetic zone and/or realm of being, existence.”
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Diane Sahms, native Philadelphian, former Ms. Roxborough, three times city gymnastic champion at Roxborough High School, is the author of nine poetry collections, most recently, —of an octopus: an archite|x|tural awareness of words, Carbonation Press, 2026. She was awarded first place in Judith Stark’s Poetry Contest; Partisan Press’s Working People’s Poetry Contest; and received a poetry grant from AEVentures Foundation. Published in North American Review, The Northern Virginia Review, Abstract Magazine TV, Sequestrum Journal of Literature & Arts, Chiron Review, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Pennsylvania Literary Journal, The New Verse News, #Ranger Magazine, Amsterdam Review, addanomadd, the Zen Space, & elsewhere. She’s Poetry Editor at North of Oxford, worked as Contract Specialist for the United States government, and as a high school English teacher. Resides in Northeast Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (USA), where she raised three children and is a grandmother.
Diane Sahms, —of an octopus: an archite|x|tural awareness of words (Carbonation Press, 2026)
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