A is for abjection in my Abject Alphabet project by me, the mad phonetician. “A Poem of Pears” is a homage to Robert Kroetsch and his “Sketches of a Lemon” and his book The Sad Phonetician , which I was privileged to hear him read alive. There are a lot of alphabet poems recently the most stunning from my own reading is is A is for Acholi by OTONIYA J. OKOT BITEK.The email link is actually right to the Wolsack and Wynn bookstore.
I despair ever writing the waves quickly enough to avoid being called an old codger, which rhymes with fuddy Duddy. Hopefully the Abject Alphabet, Always Breathe, Lookshowbook, and Listen Here! (Yup, that is four manuscripts, all in various provinces of composition), will slay me or the myth that I have passed my best before date, to rest!
BUT YAY FOR TODAY! I am still working on the list of people to thank and details on various platforms will follow.
I am pleased to release another short film in the alphabet series called Eat a Pear available with or without ASL.
The poem below explains why I have Murray Toews images of me as St. Augustine. And how pears were cast off by one unruly saint before he was sanctified. Abjection means “the state of being cast off.” Which h I have learned by way of Julia Kristeva, Enjoy the poem, enjoy the 2.33 minute short film!
by Murray Toews
P is for Pears
Thank cast-away pears
for the Confessions of St. Augustine.
One glorious summer night he was out
with a rowdy bunch of teen-aged Manicheans [1]
who spotted a tree full
of the ripe and luscious fruit
They stole all the pears, eating none carting them away in a barrow
down the hill to a pig pen nearby
they cast the pears before swine.
Augustine took his pleasure young, delighted
in theft and bad company, not in the pear
itself, but later, in confessing
it would appear.
[1] [ (Man-ic-ke-ans)] I like the stress on Manic; but forgot that ke ans is read as two syllables.