Janice A. Lowe, “LEAVING CLE: Poems of Nomadic Dispersal” (Miami University Press, 2016)

“Poems of Nomadic Dispersal”

This latter phrase in the title of Janice A. Lowe‘s new book–LEAVING CLE: Poems of Nomadic Dispersal (Miami University Press, 2016)– has hung around me, following me through my home, around the rural town where I live and have not yet become fully accustomed. The insistence on “landing somewhere” has resonated with me. The notion of understanding that place enough to call it home has altered the way I see myself geographically. The poems themselves have hung around me, in their narrative, in their varied terrain of verse topography.

And then I heard the poet read her work, and the lines that had been trailing me rose up to eye and ear level. I understood the many levels on which these poems are operating.

my House was small her secrets

full of wildflower memory of Hungarian

table wines her backyard of mint

and rose breath singing through

humble cracks a milk chute

for bottles no longer delivered

her garage a sentry box

weary from Black sightings the

inevitable advance of Color

How fitting that this poet is also a musician, that the open-ended movement through states she sought to capture, is also expressed in the small rooms of a musical movement.

These movements, like poems, work separately, but need to be played in succession for the performance to be complete and for totality of expression. At the end of the interview, we feature one of these tracks. Of this process, Janice writes, “When Leaving CLE started to grow, to become an entity of text, the words of the book started to sing and drum. In getting out of the way of the music coming through, I’ve set four poems from Leaving CLE. Resistance Girl T is one of those insistent tunes. Am I composing a song cycle or musical? Parameters don’t matter. There will be more of whatever this flow is.”

Track Credits:

Resistance Girl T (6:02am)

Written, Composed and Produced by Janice A. Lowe

Keyboards and flute-Janice A. Lowe

Bass-Yohann Potico

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