I wrote my undergraduate dissertation on the English (post?) modernist poet, Tom Rawoth back in 1990 when he was midway writing his great sequence of filleted sonnets. It was then called Sentenced He Gives a Shape after the sequence's first line. The final set has 211 stanzas all slipping and sliding across discourses about writing, politics, death. But I like to think I might have inspired a line in the 107th. The lack of punctuation and the open washing-line structure of allusion, cross-pollination and inter-reflection make it a dizzying, groundless read. Just my thing.
107
apart from supporting
those summer letters
he learned or resolved
a trick of memory or style
fit for a dissertation
trying to embody a moral ideal
conscious political sentiment was rare
corresponding to logical propositions
moved in a direction
to be described later
on its own
conversation in the various senses
hangs on his absolutely morbid conviction
that he is certain he will die
108
the vast generic tumble
included a certain assumption
at regular intervals
traces of colour
minute increments of experience
jolted up an incline
into mexican night
every fragment rushed away
outlined against the white
flashlight's beam
samples of her blood
back in the car reversed
the pure design
of some big deal
109
wisdom not to be denied
from the sounds and smells
must be a better way
underground or wherever he goes
during that time
stylised practice
popped open
considered withdrawal windows
without further negotiations
depth perception was enhanced
the shiny puddle at her feet moved out of state
announcing to the world
what was phony to begin with