Phil Hall ends “Adios Polka” the opening poem of Killdeer with the observation
there is nowhere to go off
but wordward
And so it is no great surprise that a line from earlier work (White Porcupine) comes to mind:
that is distance or history — histance or distory
whose play with the signifier exemplifies a kind of word work that mimics a natural process:
the idea dies
then the animal inside the idea
crawls out & clings
I want to signal here the delicate play that Hall’s poetry makes with line indentations. It creates a rippling effect down the left margin — it is more noticeable on larger runs of text than those quoted here. Not all the poems play with such lineation which makes it distinctive when deployed.
First character first, be it a blank space.
And so for day 906
06.06.2009