before contemporary verse

meaning

was contained in a frame

solidified

by ruling rhyme and iamb. we feared

weaning

poems off their infant structure

defied

 

all comfort reason and tradition

raised

into being an unbound form of

word

doomed to non-meaning only to be

praised

by howling radicals with their

absurd

 

manifestos and dreams. all empty

space

must be filled and without order

without

a caging body what’s left to

embrace

who will cradle us close? just the

fallout

 

of empires, fragments of voices

chasing

the final line of a form now

facing

Freedom.∎

 

Words by Eleanor Harvey. Art by Dowon Jung.