"Old Beneventan Melodies in a Breviary" and "Sonnet en mb" (Poems)

These poems demonstrate innovative advances in traditional form. They are visually innovative pieces that exert a concern for a concrete poetic that is sonically derived, and with a genesis rooted in form.

The first sequence, “Old Beneventan Melodies in a Breviary,” begins its formal unfurling in a piece of found material—a notation of old Beneventan Melodies. The poem is composed using linguistic transcription of these signs in relation to their formal position on the stave, and thus combine the sonic and the visual origins of the found material. The form of the notation on the score has been transliterated and reconfigured linguistically; its territory re-mapped.

The second sequence is a sonnet ‘after’ Mallarme’s ‘Sonnet en Yx (Ses Purs Ongles…)’. Formal repetitions of ‘mb’ cascade visually down the page to emphasise the materiality of language. Via the visual, it is hoped that one never forgets that there words are also sounds. The visual and the sonic are inescapably entwined. The second part of the poem is a cut-up composed of a type-written version which serves to extend the boundaries of the poem as it spills over into new intra-textual territory.

Both sequences are concerned with the merger of old and new: the first ‘Beneventan’ form is a transliteration from ‘Old Melodies found in a breviary. The resultant poem is formally and linguistically innovative. The second sequence is a sonnet which is re-mapped visually to draw attention to the physicality of language. The typewritten section emphasizes a bringing together of old and new in the tools of process.