no ball of light

A poet who wrote attractive lines and phrases that never would cohere into the force of a poem.

welcome emptiness

How I enjoyed these ‘open field’ poems; especially welcome were the blank spaces in between phrases and fragments.

notes and chords

If language is our instrument, the words and phrases are our notes and chords.

[This cannot be a new thought.]

pancaked structure

There were some good phrases in the poem, but they seemed like distressed cries coming from a collapsed building

cracks in the wall

6
cracks in the walls
black spells
flayed phrases
unfortunate poems

—Alejandra Pizarnik (1936-1972) from "Los Pequeños Cantos," translated by John Martone, from Damn The Cæsars (Vol. 5, 2009)

salvage operation

I could salvage only a few words and phrases from the wreckage of the poem.