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    Anne-Adele Wight's new masterpiece Opera House Arterial is a fierce testimony of the power that one archetype alone can create––the Opera House. Part trickster, part behemoth, part lover, part spy, part friendly cadaver––like "sparrow bones in a cup." Or "a mug of phosphorus." Anne-Adele told me once about the Opera House and I was amazed. The Opera House, she said, has a mind of its own. It manifests and it delivers. If you read this book, you, too, will experience the Opera House in all its "metal breathing," all of its "spinal rattle... from deep within." And you will be a much more magical person as a result. ––Debrah Morkun Anne-Adele Wight’s marvelous Opera House Arterial, reminds us that the opera house is an omnipresent vaudevillian all-encompassing elegant cycle that both “throws us off course” and leaves us “unable to distinguish between myth and geography.” The musicality of these poems could easily fill a huge theater, Wight’s deft repetition echoing from balcony to balcony to orchestra pit. Like Gertrude Stein’s word portraits, these poems are language game and omniscient narrator, main road and irresistible detours. An opera house is an opera house is an “altar of snakes,” a “parade of orange umbrellas,” “a scrim of combines.” Everyone needs to read this book. Multiple times. Because “what the opera house does to your mind is” part oxygenated crystallographic page space part rhythmic heaven ballroom gait. Thank you, Anne-Adele Wight, for giving us this voice jeweled place. ––Erica Kaufman A converter to direct current from alternates, opera house is around and through us, moving without hints of electrostatic charge. It morphs from shape to species to forces of weather––in wind, atop mountains, between lovers and at the bottom of the sea. Does the opera house confer momentum on illicit affairs? Dionysian or Apollonian, you make the call. This book is a study exercise for an end of the world and the strange force that moves us through its traffic. ––Frank Sherlock Anne-Adele Wight’s Opera House Arterial pursues a critical mass of opera houses. Opera house to draw borders. Opera house to recognize neighbors. Opera house to perform and invent. Opera house to illustrate the elemental. In these poems, one’s own opera house is taken up in Wight’s invitation to “discuss and debate as a group exercise.” Wight takes seriously the work of setting the stages, orchestrating the scores, and cueing the voices. She does not forget to acknowledge their limits. ––Michelle Taransky Drawn to water, we chase ourselves as anything. So cities, or insistent return to the arteries––here, in Wight's work, bright red blood as music. There, the opera house again, planetary: poem as through street, getting you where you need to go. Roam this globe, astral debris. ––Ryan Eckes Anne-Adele Wight is an active member of the Philadelphia poetry landscape. Her work has been published widely and featured at many local venues. She is the author of Sidestep Catapult (BlazeVOX, 2011). The opera house has followed her around since 1983 and only recently agreed to show its faces. Book Information: · Paperback: 82 pages · Binding: Perfect-Bound · Publisher: BlazeVOX [books] · ISBN: 978-1-60964-118-4 $16 Pre-Orders Welcome

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    Anne-Adele Wight's new masterpiece Opera House Arterial is a fierce testimony of the power that one archetype alone can create––the Opera House. Part trickster, part behemoth, part lover, part spy, part friendly cadaver––like "sparrow bones in a cup." Or "a mug of phosphorus." Anne-Adele told me once about the Opera House and I was amazed. The Opera House, she said, has a mind of its own. It manifests and it delivers. If you read this book, you, too, will experience the Opera House in all its "metal breathing," all of its "spinal rattle... from deep within." And you will be a much more magical person as a result. ––Debrah Morkun Anne-Adele Wight’s marvelous Opera House Arterial, reminds us that the opera house is an omnipresent vaudevillian all-encompassing elegant cycle that both “throws us off course” and leaves us “unable to distinguish between myth and geography.” The musicality of these poems could easily fill a huge theater, Wight’s deft repetition echoing from balcony to balcony to orchestra pit. Like Gertrude Stein’s word portraits, these poems are language game and omniscient narrator, main road and irresistible detours. An opera house is an opera house is an “altar of snakes,” a “parade of orange umbrellas,” “a scrim of combines.” Everyone needs to read this book. Multiple times. Because “what the opera house does to your mind is” part oxygenated crystallographic page space part rhythmic heaven ballroom gait. Thank you, Anne-Adele Wight, for giving us this voice jeweled place. ––Erica Kaufman A converter to direct current from alternates, opera house is around and through us, moving without hints of electrostatic charge. It morphs from shape to species to forces of weather––in wind, atop mountains, between lovers and at the bottom of the sea. Does the opera house confer momentum on illicit affairs? Dionysian or Apollonian, you make the call. This book is a study exercise for an end of the world and the strange force that moves us through its traffic. ––Frank Sherlock Anne-Adele Wight’s Opera House Arterial pursues a critical mass of opera houses. Opera house to draw borders. Opera house to recognize neighbors. Opera house to perform and invent. Opera house to illustrate the elemental. In these poems, one’s own opera house is taken up in Wight’s invitation to “discuss and debate as a group exercise.” Wight takes seriously the work of setting the stages, orchestrating the scores, and cueing the voices. She does not forget to acknowledge their limits. ––Michelle Taransky Drawn to water, we chase ourselves as anything. So cities, or insistent return to the arteries––here, in Wight's work, bright red blood as music. There, the opera house again, planetary: poem as through street, getting you where you need to go. Roam this globe, astral debris. ––Ryan Eckes Anne-Adele Wight is an active member of the Philadelphia poetry landscape. Her work has been published widely and featured at many local venues. She is the author of Sidestep Catapult (BlazeVOX, 2011). The opera house has followed her around since 1983 and only recently agreed to show its faces. Book Information: · Paperback: 82 pages · Binding: Perfect-Bound · Publisher: BlazeVOX [books] · ISBN: 978-1-60964-118-4 $16 Pre-Orders Welcome

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    489 views14 pages

    Opera House Arterial by Anne-Adele Wight Book Preview

    Uploaded by

    BlazeVOX [books]
    Anne-Adele Wight's new masterpiece Opera House Arterial is a fierce testimony of the power that one archetype alone can create––the Opera House. Part trickster, part behemoth, part lover, part spy, part friendly cadaver––like "sparrow bones in a cup." Or "a mug of phosphorus." Anne-Adele told me once about the Opera House and I was amazed. The Opera House, she said, has a mind of its own. It manifests and it delivers. If you read this book, you, too, will experience the Opera House in all its "metal breathing," all of its "spinal rattle... from deep within." And you will be a much more magical person as a result. ––Debrah Morkun Anne-Adele Wight’s marvelous Opera House Arterial, reminds us that the opera house is an omnipresent vaudevillian all-encompassing elegant cycle that both “throws us off course” and leaves us “unable to distinguish between myth and geography.” The musicality of these poems could easily fill a huge theater, Wight’s deft repetition echoing from balcony to balcony to orchestra pit. Like Gertrude Stein’s word portraits, these poems are language game and omniscient narrator, main road and irresistible detours. An opera house is an opera house is an “altar of snakes,” a “parade of orange umbrellas,” “a scrim of combines.” Everyone needs to read this book. Multiple times. Because “what the opera house does to your mind is” part oxygenated crystallographic page space part rhythmic heaven ballroom gait. Thank you, Anne-Adele Wight, for giving us this voice jeweled place. ––Erica Kaufman A converter to direct current from alternates, opera house is around and through us, moving without hints of electrostatic charge. It morphs from shape to species to forces of weather––in wind, atop mountains, between lovers and at the bottom of the sea. Does the opera house confer momentum on illicit affairs? Dionysian or Apollonian, you make the call. This book is a study exercise for an end of the world and the strange force that moves us through its traffic. ––Frank Sherlock Anne-Adele Wight’s Opera House Arterial pursues a critical mass of opera houses. Opera house to draw borders. Opera house to recognize neighbors. Opera house to perform and invent. Opera house to illustrate the elemental. In these poems, one’s own opera house is taken up in Wight’s invitation to “discuss and debate as a group exercise.” Wight takes seriously the work of setting the stages, orchestrating the scores, and cueing the voices. She does not forget to acknowledge their limits. ––Michelle Taransky Drawn to water, we chase ourselves as anything. So cities, or insistent return to the arteries––here, in Wight's work, bright red blood as music. There, the opera house again, planetary: poem as through street, getting you where you need to go. Roam this globe, astral debris. ––Ryan Eckes Anne-Adele Wight is an active member of the Philadelphia poetry landscape. Her work has been published widely and featured at many local venues. She is the author of Sidestep Catapult (BlazeVOX, 2011). The opera house has followed her around since 1983 and only recently agreed to show its faces. Book Information: · Paperback: 82 pages · Binding: Perfect-Bound · Publisher: BlazeVOX [books] · ISBN: 978-1-60964-118-4 $16 Pre-Orders Welcome

    Copyright:

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    of 14

    OPERA HOUSE ARTERIAL

    ANNE-ADELE WIGHT

    BLAZEVOX[BOOKS] Buffalo, New York

    Opera House Arterial by Anne-Adele Wight Copyright 2013 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 Interior design and typesetting by Geoffrey Gatza First Edition ISBN: 978-1-60964-118-4 Library of Congress Control Number: 2012948670 BlazeVOX [books] 76 Inwood Place Buffalo, NY 14209 Editor@blazevox.org

    p ublisher of weird little books

    BlazeVOX [ books ]
    blazevox.org
    21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10

    Opera House Introductory


    Opera house loads itself like a gun unlicensed zero-sum critical

    opera house gives you a solar system to inflate and construct in buckets no-win sky venture now you see it slicing up the horizon access-denied birthday party typhoon now you dont opera house gives you sand where there isnt a beach reverses sea and sky so each ones creatures inhabit the other look out below if you stand under it angels become bladed clothespins this is what they call Sphinx riddle subduction wrong-headed charm arsenic spindle fateful twist where somebody waits with scissors. if you see it

    17

    Dark Energy Accelerates the Universe


    Sun maps itself over a street corner where vision crosses the line of opera house onscreen vector modeling expansion what physics does to your mind is a flannel shirt the best jewels in your collection are exploding slowly light from the opera house moves at its own speed bending the horns of space if it runs like a horse youre shaped like a saddle meteors fuel the construction industry were all made of sunset Milky Way an iron cogwheel alpha . . . omega . . . sandblast your cells fly apart filling you with space can you stretch around the opera house and see yourself? the usual commute brightness down leafy street is a supernova atoms race in their own directions runaway cattle opera house keeps moving in and out of existence dark matter isnt something we can take home and soak the best cells in your collection are exploding slowly what physics does to your mind is a solar wind omega . . . dark energy drives the opera house into your face ritual particles

    18

    Catch Me If You Can


    Catch me if you can Im the opera house nor mouse nor moose nor hoose Im species opera, variety rogue Im the opera house, catch me if you can Im gingerbread but not my balcony white sugar my pediment candied fruit carousel if you look hard enough opera house benediction hazard catch me if you can surprise bite into black pebble ionized context your own dumb luck release actinide panoply inside your mouth stone furiously opera house in circles in circles round blackberry bush angular momentum had nothing on this

    19

    Opera House Astronomical Critique


    When the opera house watched the Big Bang it said, Nothing will ever come of this. Was it right? Discuss and debate as a group exercise.

    20

    Dragon as Harbinger of Luck


    Opera house is the dragon head at the end of an alley dragon coming around the corner has an opera house face opera house at the end of the planet is a headless dragon all your good luck dragon spoor is a basket of opera house dragon head coming at you is the opera house disguised as cardboard red and gold cardboard is the opera house version of a dragon head. Opera house at the head of the planet is an endless dragon red and gold dragon is a cardboard version of the opera house cardboard head coming at you is the opera house disguised as dragon opera house at the end of an alley wears a dragon head dragon coming around the opera house has a face of corners all your good luck opera house is a basket of dragon spoor.

    21

    Forest Is a Casino Is Three Trees


    Opera house lines up trees in a slot machine throw us off course dense pack no light between leaves black on purple yellow on green opera house knocks out coordinates low comedy of treetops they look like poodles forest is a casino or a forest you cant see it for the trees orange on blue pink on scarlet brown on gray opera house comes to life gibbering in a backpack three trees dense as column inches theres no dense without white space three strikes land you behind bars forever but what counts is between trunks where the money hides opera house gives directions in revival frenzy while we tread circles all night get lost see who notices its the money its all the colors they paint money falling out of our eyes theres only white space all the money colors are hiding between trunks

    22

    Opera House Acoustics


    NASA chose the opera house to capture planetary music. Its acoustics were renowned for their purity. absence of air Patrons traded their season subscriptions for a program in transorbital freefall. Those with better seats could watch Saturns rings as they listened. frost arpeggio Some heard lemons singing, others the early-morning screech of spinach, others the satisfied hum of flowering cherry. chromatic scale Forty percent of the audience remembered hearing color instead of sound. When asked what color sounded like, they described a variously layered sequence. eventual fragmenting The opera house microphones had been tested repeatedly and declared fail safe. No explanation could be found for the lack of consensus. minor key magnetic echo

    23

    Recipe for a Solid Opera House


    Sometimes the opera house wavers more gel than marble strain through fine mesh to press out its liquid opaque iridescence your goal a touch of abalone micro-elastic antique hinge buffed with experience unique to paradise think of kissing through binoculars on a street of flowers and spite fences how long your eyelashes feel mashed against a lens directional crudity the best youve ever felt if not solid, re-strain evolution will do the rest. maintain equipoise

    24

    Amazonian Interstitial
    Opera house in steaming rain brushes the Equator with acoustic white sound waves catching on treetops patience rears like ice under a grate alights in riverbank red smear denial made manifest as a hatchet so much for your rainforest high swing promised boat sails upriver leaving you in opera house current best-laid plans and all that signage fall down besieged research doomed without your autonomic signal patience fractures like breakout ice from a calved glacier opera house interstitial Amazon pours through windows onto upper balcony all its equatorial horses let loose in song disjoint forest canopy venomous cradle

    25

    Soil for Peach Trees


    planting peaches in swampland where opera house buzzes like horseflies in a holding pattern never ripen Somethings going on with the peaches. They start strong but stay green and feel cold and hard as pebbles. branches tented with webs here trees will flourish where tigers walk out of a stream to the summons of jade opera house unperturbed vision The ground is coated with some kind of fungus. Cleaning it up does no goodit always comes back overnight. bitter in their bark trees will bear harvest under the hum of opera house durian breadfruit mangosteen only a cat preparing her boat for summer has such confidence Ive tried organic, inorganic, everything in between. Ive tried compost and municipal leaf mold. What next, a tree whisperer? spreading like around chaos mulch visit a man who calls himself Sunset East he specializes in baskets of smoke watch him become the opera house on a background of pink sky flushed peony

    26

    Opera House under Moon Bridge


    People shop online for bags of nails wear yellow masks at their wedding any price for skin-to-skin contact with opera house belly sailing under high-voltage power lines half seen through rain displacing City Hall fire hydrant among spices can we trap you under a curved bridge? you howl at us while gearshifting out of range plunging your claws in silt somewhere a promise of hematite herd us like ribbons blowing from a maypole sheep in upholstery colors wildlife rove gladly toward a salt lick simmering corona near the back fence.

    27

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