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    Valency by J. Michael Wahlgren Book Preview

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    J. Michael Wahlgren Valency 9781935402886 "What I like best about Wahlgren’s poetry in his satisfying collection, Valency, is watching each piece take shape. Like protons & neutrons collecting around a nucleus, the word shapes merge and form the most marvelous poems. I am also reminded of a quote from Julia Child about why she liked a good sandwich: because she knew the chef’s fingers had been all over it. In Valency, whether it’s in a common “…display of sky blue,” or in the inventive “…sandbox of lies,” the play of Wahlgren’s mind is like those fingerprints, touching here and there with the elusive spark which is the life of poetry itself. A wonderful addition to American poetry. —Andrew Demcak A luminous cascade of syntax —Brenda Iijima Valency is interactive and exigent, sub-atomic and transcendental, with language colliding magnificently at and on every level. Every poem in this bright, aching collection is electric, plugged into the human grid of love and heartbreak where what romantically matters is transformed, via Wahlgren’s highly attuned sense of sense, back into matter. Wahlgren is a sound-chemist, a rhyme-bonder of the first order. Like “gasps between bubbles,” his poems are heady, musical, and capture the un-captured, the most peculiar in between the lines of what’s “said.” Wahlgren doesn’t articulate perception so much as document reaction, and his reactions, boy, are they potent, do thrill. If Credo, the lyric story of Peter and McKenna doesn’t slay you, you are dead, and nothing will. —Nicole Mauro" "J. Michael Wahlgren is author of the collection of poems Silent Actor (Bewrite Books, 2008) as well as three chapbooks. He resides around Boston, Ma where he edits & publishes for Gold Wake Press. Valency is his second full-length poetry collection. "

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    Valency by J. Michael Wahlgren Book Preview

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    J. Michael Wahlgren Valency 9781935402886 "What I like best about Wahlgren’s poetry in his satisfying collection, Valency, is watching each piece take shape. Like protons & neutrons collecting around a nucleus, the word shapes merge and form the most marvelous poems. I am also reminded of a quote from Julia Child about why she liked a good sandwich: because she knew the chef’s fingers had been all over it. In Valency, whether it’s in a common “…display of sky blue,” or in the inventive “…sandbox of lies,” the play of Wahlgren’s mind is like those fingerprints, touching here and there with the elusive spark which is the life of poetry itself. A wonderful addition to American poetry. —Andrew Demcak A luminous cascade of syntax —Brenda Iijima Valency is interactive and exigent, sub-atomic and transcendental, with language colliding magnificently at and on every level. Every poem in this bright, aching collection is electric, plugged into the human grid of love and heartbreak where what romantically matters is transformed, via Wahlgren’s highly attuned sense of sense, back into matter. Wahlgren is a sound-chemist, a rhyme-bonder of the first order. Like “gasps between bubbles,” his poems are heady, musical, and capture the un-captured, the most peculiar in between the lines of what’s “said.” Wahlgren doesn’t articulate perception so much as document reaction, and his reactions, boy, are they potent, do thrill. If Credo, the lyric story of Peter and McKenna doesn’t slay you, you are dead, and nothing will. —Nicole Mauro" "J. Michael Wahlgren is author of the collection of poems Silent Actor (Bewrite Books, 2008) as well as three chapbooks. He resides around Boston, Ma where he edits & publishes for Gold Wake Press. Valency is his second full-length poetry collection. "

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    J. Michael Wahlgren Valency 9781935402886 "What I like best about Wahlgren’s poetry in his satisfying collection, Valency, is watching each piece take shape. Like protons & neutrons collecting around a nucleus, the word shapes merge and form the most marvelous poems. I am also reminded of a quote from Julia Child about why she liked a good sandwich: because she knew the chef’s fingers had been all over it. In Valency, whether it’s in a common “…display of sky blue,” or in the inventive “…sandbox of lies,” the play of Wahlgren’s mind is like those fingerprints, touching here and there with the elusive spark which is the life of poetry itself. A wonderful addition to American poetry. —Andrew Demcak A luminous cascade of syntax —Brenda Iijima Valency is interactive and exigent, sub-atomic and transcendental, with language colliding magnificently at and on every level. Every poem in this bright, aching collection is electric, plugged into the human grid of love and heartbreak where what romantically matters is transformed, via Wahlgren’s highly attuned sense of sense, back into matter. Wahlgren is a sound-chemist, a rhyme-bonder of the first order. Like “gasps between bubbles,” his poems are heady, musical, and capture the un-captured, the most peculiar in between the lines of what’s “said.” Wahlgren doesn’t articulate perception so much as document reaction, and his reactions, boy, are they potent, do thrill. If Credo, the lyric story of Peter and McKenna doesn’t slay you, you are dead, and nothing will. —Nicole Mauro" "J. Michael Wahlgren is author of the collection of poems Silent Actor (Bewrite Books, 2008) as well as three chapbooks. He resides around Boston, Ma where he edits & publishes for Gold Wake Press. Valency is his second full-length poetry collection. "

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    Valency by J. Michael Wahlgren Book Preview

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    BlazeVOX [books]
    J. Michael Wahlgren Valency 9781935402886 "What I like best about Wahlgren’s poetry in his satisfying collection, Valency, is watching each piece take shape. Like protons & neutrons collecting around a nucleus, the word shapes merge and form the most marvelous poems. I am also reminded of a quote from Julia Child about why she liked a good sandwich: because she knew the chef’s fingers had been all over it. In Valency, whether it’s in a common “…display of sky blue,” or in the inventive “…sandbox of lies,” the play of Wahlgren’s mind is like those fingerprints, touching here and there with the elusive spark which is the life of poetry itself. A wonderful addition to American poetry. —Andrew Demcak A luminous cascade of syntax —Brenda Iijima Valency is interactive and exigent, sub-atomic and transcendental, with language colliding magnificently at and on every level. Every poem in this bright, aching collection is electric, plugged into the human grid of love and heartbreak where what romantically matters is transformed, via Wahlgren’s highly attuned sense of sense, back into matter. Wahlgren is a sound-chemist, a rhyme-bonder of the first order. Like “gasps between bubbles,” his poems are heady, musical, and capture the un-captured, the most peculiar in between the lines of what’s “said.” Wahlgren doesn’t articulate perception so much as document reaction, and his reactions, boy, are they potent, do thrill. If Credo, the lyric story of Peter and McKenna doesn’t slay you, you are dead, and nothing will. —Nicole Mauro" "J. Michael Wahlgren is author of the collection of poems Silent Actor (Bewrite Books, 2008) as well as three chapbooks. He resides around Boston, Ma where he edits & publishes for Gold Wake Press. Valency is his second full-length poetry collection. "

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    of 12

    Valency

    J. Michael Wahlgren

    BlazeVOX [books]
    Buffalo, New York

    Valency by J. Michael Wahlgren Copyright 2010 Published by BlazeVOX [books] All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without the publishers written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews. Printed in the United States of America Book design by Geoffrey Gatza Cover Artwork by Sarah Schneider First Edition ISBN: 9781935402886 Library of Congress Control Number: 2010901638 BlazeVOX [books] 303 Bedford Ave Buffalo, NY 14216 Editor@blazevox.org

    \
    publisher of weird little books

    BlazeVOX [ books ]
    blazevox.org 2 4 6 8 0 9 7 5 3 1

    The Magic Of a lost lock of hair perfume An annual has perched upon my soil, I bloom: I make notes unique Different notes, keys: Dew is Growing up: a secret Code Dropping Pennies in a well, I ache for her acre. Her disappearing soul Blends with lemon To breed, stillness. We Could become an addition, To the hypotenuse, Of radical two. A lost lock of hair, Or a novice magician in tune?

    13

    Catch Leaning onto a tower as Pisa does, I caress these fingers: low five, Queen over Queen. Propinquity to fog, I am the lost boy in the paints, whose easel is fiddled (Across street lights) Am I sculptured fingers crossing awnings of deep green, to become one with Mother Natures machine? Or are you the droplet, whose outlet is a reminiscent breath?

    14

    Letter to J.S. Like a school of flowers, we march tar on our palms. I only know what you have given me: a bouquet of grasshoppers.

    15

    Goodbye Checkerboard We played Memory The flip of cards, a tossing, dishes In the kitchen Perhaps, It was a fluke: an electric switch. A two-pronged semi-colon without a destiny Maybe a turn of events Would smother the fire in your Battleship. Maybe you should get Clue. It was Colonel Mustard with the ketch-up container At the table. Explodes in conversation, an explosion Of stars coming to town again the first Time made little money. This time We are naming & charging a fee. Maybe it's a Mouse Trap; a Chute or Ladder. Maybe its a Get Out of Jail Free.

    16

    Chicago Molasses eyes, a cricket in disguise, the silence of the paints. At noon, in Chicago I corner myself in a gallery eye movement in a circle, a corn pod, A little dot in the corner, with sprouts. A train afraid to leave the station. The tingling sensation, of white blood cells, at work My retina, hidden hands, of a glass time piece As statements compose, a Michigan Mile, the organs silenced in the pale lights. A display of sky blue, with an invisible red wind, signaling to stop, and be absorbed by this white hole.

    17

    Little travel I hear through the hedge rows: There is a comfort zone for everybodys tone. I like to call it little travel. For mine, anyways. No need to compose a new symphony if it has already been written. No need for altercation of the notes, if the mirror stares you right back in the face.

    18

    Cat-Fish No sign of gossip coming through the vines. O catch the love below has exasperated the demons. The flock has begun to see the selfish world as dreams, flowing to one mouth, which speaks, I am holy, holy Om. The font is the size of Lilliput, sent afar to the distant sea, to part ways with the inner demons. What a seaman could catch, to begin a school to teach where to sit, like musical chairs. The stand-up bass, calling my nom de plume, a spell, cast like a cat-fish, whiskers squeezing into the hole in the wall.

    19

    Background music Your means: mere language Comment: I didnt mean to intensify or demean; you should know that from the scene. Music: The arpeggios dance within each other: Modern sex or something special. Waltz: Is there a clock around the block? Falling Action: A leaf. End: Death from the stares: the inability to think clear.

    After Joshua Clover

    20

    The Cove Without joie de vivre, a facade exists here in the deep bushes of dew. I am the dreariest of born-again rhythm circle me like Venus in the morning star light. I am a cup, an oval of great stature The wreckage of the ship, the helm cannonball. I am born anew from the counterculture. Flames in water; we salute the cove from which love came into being. The stem of the apple falls into the on-fire-bushes. Perhaps, the starboard is filled with crew. Perhaps, we are born anew. Let us begin again, as pirates, scoping out with maps, the hidden self Of this movement, we first cursed but soon enveloped.

    21

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