For instances ("And noises have no other")

i

And many and made
the here. The on

as which is are, the water
on that I sails it.

A plating
like and made the.

They fling and
sadder own lilt.



ii

To of, in

A few dozen of the heart
were her other last ever:

One right, miss one right
in red through the

one; one day say
“flaw” ’fore. Far that

for this. Every other
in one, one, one.



iii

Wish to with,
to make is mingle. But means

of the other off was
feathers on. Two

might be to. All have-ons
and so a slow, a noise and bustles.

As so. The ear. That sound the less
weary language.




[Another of the “For instances” sequence (see below), this time based on a line from Gertrude Stein’s Before the Flowers of Friendship Faded Friendship Faded.

Stein’s poems serve as something of an inspiration — one of many — for my project, inasmuch as they constitute a “revisionary” reading practice. Her poems began life as deliberate mistranslations (Stein variously described them as “reflections,” “adaptations,” or “transpositions”) of Georges Hugnet’s Enfances.

Nevertheless, the relationship between Stein and Hugnet — and their respective poetic projects — is considerably more fraught with discord than I intend with my project here: Stein concludes the final version of her series, written indeed after their friendship had faded, by identifying herself as the author of not only the poems, but of Georges Hugnet himself. (See Ulla Dydo's account in Gertrude Stein: The Language That Rises, 1923-1934 for more detail.)]