Loop

Author Essay

Loop has much to do with the play of poetic forms, some of which are re-worked traditional forms, such as the corona (crown) of sonnets, or the villanelle, and some of which are invented forms: for instance, “Möbius Strip.” I find that playing with form allows me to play with ideas; it is because I can look at the world aslant by using an unusual form that I can often take hold of an idea in a unique way. These forms invariably loop back on themselves, as is the case with the corona of sonnets, in which the first line of the first sonnet becomes the last line of the last sonnet. In “Möbius Strip,” as well, there is a clear looping around to the beginning in terms of form. But it is more than that for me: it’s also a case of looping around, or circling around, an idea in order to examine it more fully, so it’s a bit like turning a stone around in the hand.

There are a number of poems in Loop that are deeply attentive to the natural world, and others that take a more political stance, but my concerns come together in that it seems necessary – indeed, more necessary of late – to witness the world in all its myriad possibilities. I suppose this opens out to include the possibility of the infinite in a long poem like “The Trailer Park,” which is, perhaps, a way of seeing a cosmos in a trailer park.