160

JH: Internalized, absorbed texts may be considered as either a part of the poet's personality (character?) or as another personality of the poet; in other words, either as a part of the poet's personality or as the poet, the one who writes the poems. Which would you say? I would say the latter. In writing many poems about Actaeon, I am able to write an Actaeon poem as naturally as I am able to write a journal entry or respond to your Antic View questions. Naturally, but not effortlessly, else I could write an Actaeon poem on demand, as I can answer a question on demand or write of the day's events on demand. An Actaeon poem is more poem than it is Actaeon. I consistently like your writing, for example, this gem, "Walk Down a Path":

Artful indolent cold spell in the reply version of where you are. Place mobile war chant on loud, exert word for posture, extend depth to the least surface.

Impulse beckons. That means your loan arranger has scads of destiny to replace your life. You are politically viable, with a laugh. Fading is an intense practice of widespread. Delete autonomy, it doesn't pay.

Easy exactitude when if comes to refrains. If you say it over, and add over, your days will arrive the space of menace. Do not misdoubt the cactus of seeming attribute.

A poem in the while commands a station in the naught. You were reasoning for a while, the while left home. Space is the detection of infinite, which fills the space between words aswork.

You are like a wind in words forever. So am I. So are the words that make forever.

****

Could you speak of this poem, please?
AHB: For quite a while you wrote of/about/concerning a Virginia that was something a person, something a place, something even a mindset. Your Actaeon poems seem to be similar in tactic and moreso. They seem to be written in sacred time, with actions and events (of Actaeon) caught (nympholepsy) in timeless radiance. It is not obsession from which you write but a sense of time's extent. My own poem above finds a frequent state for me where words seem formidable and timeless. I think I write wondering if words will work. All words could work, but they don't always. Or we (readers/writers/people) don't know how to receive.
You posted a link to Spanish translations of some Actaeons to Wryting-l. The translations include illustrations. I'll include the originals you supplied at the end of this post. Speak of the collaboration,
link: http://weeimage.blogspot.it/2014/02/acteon-by-jeff-harrison.html
originals:
Hunters, their valuation

If a hart, how was Actaeon a hunter? Who was Actaeon next to Hippolytus? Actaeon imbruted did not astonish the steeds of steady Hippolytus; no Actaeon rose from the sea. Artemis beheld, what Nimrod reshaped raised the name of Hydra, of Chimaera, of beast Nemean, Calydonian?
 ~
 Shepherds' Council

Hands that to roods have nailed paws lupine, and have nailed paws leonine, nail to cypresses wings cygnet, as Artemis holds cygnets dear, chaste Artemis Who disdains display even for vengeance, and holds vengeance dear solely upon discovery: this is had from Her nymphs when they hymn of Actaeon by Artemis imbruted, which change surely befell shepherds of late vanished to us.
 ~

Our Actaeon‏

 

Again disarranged, our Actaeon; a supernal's tooth, then our own. I am as many paces from this as from the moon. Actaeon had an Artemis; could we not have had a Circe, like those who served a wilier, luckier captain?

 

~

 

Actaeon still‏

 

Take my hand; I perish, maniac. Than a hart's stems I am more frail by far; my spirit will fail before I leave your fountain's side. Actaeon still, I cannot face another supernal, and several, and these supernals hounds.

 

~

Our Actaeon‏
Again disarranged, our Actaeon; a supernal's tooth, then our own. I am as many paces from this as from the moon. Actaeon had an Artemis; could we not have had a Circe, like those who served a wilier, luckier captain?
~
Actaeon still‏
Take my hand; I perish, maniac. Than a hart's stems I am more frail by far; my spirit will fail before I leave your fountain's side. Actaeon still, I cannot face another supernal, and several, and these supernals hounds.
~
Familiar Actaeon
The wings of cygnets were attached -- with cygnet, often, and without -- and by nail always; one nail per wing, one wing per cygnet -- cypress by cypress, but it takes deity to attach a deer to a vanished man.
~
Actaeon
Down the rain of all my days the deer steps.