from “Notes on the Enclosure of Spheres” by Amy Catanzano

If a note of music is the foundation for using a voice
the way a makeshift window uses a sky, then the voice must
contain some liquid flicker, some mist, some that is never
shaped.

The dawn inserted. I took my hand and kept speaking
of reasons. But something important was on fire.
Close to your chin where I was looking was this thing,
a patch; I couldn’t tell whether it was for an eye or a shirt.

Dear Developer
Dear Discovery
Dear Rosewood

duplicated, you are nearly the same as you are now: a
ripple in water past the outward edge of land, tracing its
own roots. I am the grid of my face: close up
and slightly jeweled.

***

Luminous language and breath-taking gestures everywhere in this book. Look, look, and look.

***

Jack Foley is a walking “maelstrom with a notch” of a force, a history, a dance, and one of the most all-encompassing literary intelligences it’s ever been my pleasure to meet. To hold these two books in your hands is to have a portable education in new and experimental literature–especially from the Bay area. James Broughton, Kathleen Fraser, Jerome Rothenberg and Pierre Joris answer Jack’s precise questions. Jack gives his take on the art of Ko Un, Sheila E. Murphy, Jake Berry, Cole Porter, Amy Evans McClure. And more. With Jack there is always “and more!” At the end of O Powerful Western Star, a CD features Jack and Adelle Foley “performing” a critical piece of Jack’s, which levers open the text in interesting and exciting ways.

Highly recommended.