Michael Holmes Slangster

Before I cull from "(terra damnata)", allow me to set this up with a quotation from Walt Whitman

Slang, profoundly considered, is the lawless germinal element, below all words and sentences, and behind all poetry, and proves a certain perennial rankness and protestantism in speech.

(from "Slang in America" reprinted in Lapham's Quarterly Vol V, Number 2 devoted to the theme "Means of Communication")

And it just so happens we have found a found poem within Holmes's verse, or rather we have lifted elements many lines apart and resembling each other by the use of ampersand and placed them here reassembled for delectation because they are germinal and rank and are about perennial protesting. They are against not only forgetting but also the pain of remembering. The tools are simple:

mnemonics & telling-beads    neologisms & mantras
madwords & love & visceral stands

Just what is it they are protesting against? Missed opportunity is my best guess. Consider the title of the volume from whence this comes: james I wanted to ask you and consider further the brilliant epigraph quoting the author's nephew "i go cry now". Could this be slang from child's voice? It's all one word: igocrynow. A compound. And in so being a potent neologism.

And so for day 841
02.04.2009