Over the years, I’ve had numerous conversations with other poets, and more than often, Simon’s name is mentioned. His poems are staggering in volume, unique in voice and perspective, jarring, earthly devoted, and remarkably lovely.
As a nod to his oeuvre, I constructed a poem, utilizing only the first lines of a Simon Perchik poem, including the title (also, a Perchik first line). Here is the entire poem:
They were reaching for their mother’s breath
Wherever I turn the air needs water
and in the dark my pillow, abandoned
stone, stone, stone, not a drop
again, the sky rubbing against my legs
all the pieces must be found, make
this cup half ecstasy, half adrift
With those hefty walls a bank
even this tree :a stranglehold
And the dead can’t wait, they crouch
as if its stream would slow
What a long way- they know
this bridge as if before its crash
(all words excerpted from Simon Perchik’s Hands Collected: The Books of Poems (1949-1999)
(only first lines used to construct entire poem, including title)
And today, April 8th, I read Simon Perchik for National Poetry Month:
Robert Vaughan reads Simon Perchik’s poem, * from Hands Collected – YouTube
When is the last time you took a train? Had an unexpected picnic? Read a poem that took your breath away?
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National Poetry Month: Simon Perchik from Hands Collected