I don't know if Stan Carey came up with the idea of the "bookmash," but I picked it up from him, and think it's a pretty great source of accidental or chance poetry. Of course, the accidental/chance nature of stuff like this "poetry" (not always so great for its actual artistic value) must be taken with a grain of salt, because, indeed, it's pretty friggin' easy for the discoverer (or, as it were, author/poet) to arrange the titles or labels in whatever way works best--or least badly. What I think is truly great about this kind of art, however, is first that the photographer (an attribution more appropriate, perhaps, than artist or poet) has to make do with the phrases available to him, and better, second, that there is, to those familiar with the source materials, immediately implicated meaning and connotation built into the poem by the authors of the works whose titles form the lines of the poem. Cool!
Anyway, Mr. Carey posted a new one on his blog, "Sentence First," today, and I think it's my new favorite:
Anyway, Mr. Carey posted a new one on his blog, "Sentence First," today, and I think it's my new favorite:
-- and arranged by Mr. Carey thusly:
Black Hole, the long falling
Darkness peering, portable darkness --
Tidal dreams, grotesque dreams,
The holy door on Green Dolphin street.
