Poet of the Day: Christian Bök

[primeideal]

When I was asked to bring a short poem to a poetry class (by someone other than me), I chose "Vowels" by Christian Bök.

Born in Toronto in 1966 as "Christian Book," he changed his surname "to avoid unseemly confusion with the Bible." I discovered him through Eunoia, a book in five chapters, each only using one vowel. ("A law as harsh as a fatwa bans all paragraphs that lack an A as a standard hallmark.") You can read it for free here.

"Vowels" appears at the end of the book, and is also available on UbuWeb.



loveless vessels
we vow
solo love

we see
love solve loss
else we see
love sow woe

selves we woo
we lose
losses we levee
we owe

we sell
loose vows
so we love
less well

so low
so level
wolves evolve

Also recommended: String Variables, and Christian Bök's Twitter feed.

Comments

[alee_grrl]

This is one of those poems that took me several readings to really savor it. I was distracted at first by the lovely sound of the poem with its juxtaposed 'o' and 'e' sounds, and the versatility of just those two vowels. Then I had to go back and really look at the words. Bok's style (how to you add the double dots over his name?) is very condensed and rich.

[primeideal]

Personally, I just copy and paste to get the double dots. Some keyboard layouts probably have an easier way to do this (i.e. for other languages).

[alee_grrl]

Didn't even think to try copy/paste. Thanks. :)