A while back, Matt Turner shared a manuscript of his poems and I was knocked out by his offhand mastery of form, elegant compression of language, and the subtle web of interconnections that he wove over the course of the collection. It was hard to believe his poems weren’t better known and widely published. Matt has kindly put together a suite of 11 new poems to share exclusively with DC’s readers. These pieces showcase his fresh voice and experiences in China, and echo off each other in interesting ways. I hope you’ll enjoy them as much as I have.
-Jeff Jackson
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BED THOUGHTS
Useless trees.
White
airplane
velocity.
Stones. White
faces.
Prairie dogg-
ing. Trains
slower than
tractors.
DREAM OF ASCENDING THE TEMPLE OF HEAVEN
The President watches the city at play.
The stores of houses.
There's no Bus City. I’ve never heard of a Merchant City,
but the President's advisors climb the Temple of Heaven.
The Vice Premier creaks in the black dust,
the enemy, and the air cinches the pupil in his small eye.
His large eye is open.
Of course not large enough to see,
the dream eye looks around and sees it's across town
from the Temple of Heaven. But if the standing committee had known this,
their warnings would have been - muffled. Why say this?
The Temple is full of PA apparatus. The standing committee is
blocked - they're instruments the speakers aren't. And the speakers
also say the ascent is an expedition and play along.
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EULOGIES
RUINS
use a paragraph
strike any sticky words that hold the sense together
form new lines from the remains of the old sentences
DEBRIS IN THE SHADOW
first person writes a sentence
second person writes a second sentence that includes the words in the first person's sentence, but has double the amount of words
first or third person writes a new sentence, and the second or first person writes a sentence that includes the previous sentence's words, but with double the amount of words
second or first person writes a new sentence, and the third or second person writes a sentence that includes the previous sentence's words, but with double the amount of words (three couplets total)
HIDDEN MOVEMENTS
use or describe an action sequence
remove all verbs
organize according to sense
A SORT OF SONG
"There is no sunlight
We sleep in the bed
No one lives here
No one holds lease
And stays here
We sleep on the ground
Run through fire
We run on spleen
Lips wet, ha!
These lips are wet
No effort to conceal ourselves
We beg and wander loosely
I cry at the midnight sun one time only!
The sun is in the west
The sun's fire is only mine
I put on my pelt, my skin
I will not describe any more times
I will not fix your fence
I will run it through
You should close your lids
We are your burning dogs
You will be chilled at the end
Your ears will be stopped
This idea is hatched
Who does not woo his double?”
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MISCELLANIES
This is true: when spring comes, even the cold corners and moldy walls of the subway station, missing tiles, look as if they’ve finally, after a time of stagnation, become green themselves — but it is the case.
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This describes the scene, otherwise it was nothing: The oil-black floor has a reflection of the woman moving backwards across it, her back bare of her shirt, her shirt falling onto the floor, merging with its black reflection.
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Some say we should enjoy the rain, and our soaked boots. I don’t have an opinion on it.
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If I saw the flowers rotting on the sidewalk, it was a mistake. Neither did they fall to the ground.
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The autumn sunlight in the alley is my subject. I went inside and waited to take a picture. When I walked back downstairs the sun had moved and the picture was no good. I didn’t have a camera anyway, so no picture could have been captured - only the form of an “indeterminate image” (Lu Xun).
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Put it to bed: the petty interest in the athletic center in the China University of Petroleum, Changping campus. The sloped metal roof looks like an open zipper or an unstitched seam. A concrete cylinder props it up, and from below I look up.
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Set topic: they all came to take photos, and then lunch under the cherry blossoms at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. But the seasons turn on a pivot like the film roll.
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He believed in the Great Community (大同), and so the “Indologist” Ji Xianlin wore workers’ clothes out of modesty.
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INSPIRED BY BRUCE NAUMAN
You wrote Body Pressure
Do you want to hide in
the street from them (
palms in or out,
left or right cheek)
(Since I bought it
at that
barber shop we passed
from the bakery
to our apartment
to make coffee.)
*
The scene is - well
it’s in Zhejiang no I
haven’t been there
press
very hard and concentrate.
Nothing here to be dug up in a dig
may as well be an +on newspaper this
article look it up
press down.
*
If I buy a
window - no,
don’t look now,
you really hate to see this.
Why don’t we deposit
at the bank, why not,
fold it in the envelope
kiss the money hello.
“Pry it out of my cold dead
hands and don’t bother with
looking in
the paper even though it’s
odd we need a plane to get there
(so much excitement)
rock hard
scurry off to the
platform where arrival
*
(the image
of pressing
very hard)
◻︎◻︎◻︎◻︎◻︎
(1974)
So, Bruce, it is,
in general,
easy to say it,
hidden in
plain view.
(Run away.)
Into the iron house.
Do you see it? Funny
the width of
the wall is still there.
Funny
it vanishes;
no wall.
*
It’s raining
dogs and cats up here on
top of the mountain
and the mudslides pick up
the neighbor knocks
I read in the Hanfei that
the fool, A_____
pulls yr hair
takes boat to
*
(not able to touch with
my back, sagging
can’t exert this
back of yours
pressed together
here is the mark on
the wall, blame,
predict it as it
comes, the price
is rent.
After opening up your practice, you
called
but consider
body hair, per-
speration, odors
(smells). Every door can
be shut in the same manner that
the wood hammered +here “emblazoned”
to a crisp, all.
This may be said
to pose an exercise that
may be repeated over and over,
lionized
53rd & 3rd
is a place.
*
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TOURS
There’s little that’s out of place
or everything is out of place
in a photo of Pennsylvania that
shows football practice foreground
shows chimneys
Sometimes communism
depends, is it I against I or not
it’s incorrect what Oppen said
that after Williams there are so many
fakes slack off
isn’t that what we’re all doing
claims what’s going on
but the view
The craft of joinery:
there are contradictions like cutting yr thumb off
When you are trying to save time
get sloppy & don’t have SawStop
we’re all animals
FAKE
The knit of
the rug stiff
as the pearls
falling off
the necklace
and do not
smash on the
polished floor
The humid garden’s
wooden gate
rots wet white
blisters the
seal still stops
and begins:
all this land
here is his
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BUSH TERMINAL
shudders open
nets are cast down
fish sink
a shallows rift
snow rift
glass fluoresce on
ice stretch
cross country
drunken sleep
cross country
THURSDAY
the moss is wet
between the properties where
the old walls crumble
through portmanteau
sees the glitter
dogs resting below
the courier scrambles through
spring fatigue applies
and gloss dapples the scene
imagine waves
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FORTUNE TOLD (DREAM RED MANSIONS)
They walk leisure &
garden leaves have turned
already match leaf-on-sweater
passed over can the cousin
reincarnate as a stone
The MONK proceeds ahead
scabby hand-over-foot over rind
not yet matched the character
brought from afar it will
stutter from —
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Matt Turner was born in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1974. His family moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1984, where he carried on with an average life of going to public school, playing in rock bands, working as a dishwasher, etc. Throughout his twenties he traveled and moved frequently throughout the Unites States, even living briefly in Berlin. Formally trained in philosophy, literature, and Classical Chinese, he relocated to Beijing, at 30, in order to teach American literature at local universities. He is the author of Summer Clamshell Green, and the translator of Lu Xun's 1927 book of prose poetry, Wild Grass. His work has been included in Ancient Party: Collaborations in Baltimore 2000-2010. Recent writings can be found here; here; and here. He now divides his time, with his wife and dog, between Brooklyn and Beijing.
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p.s. Hey. Today the awesome writer Jeff Jackson aka d.l. supreme Chilly Jay Chill draws your attention to the work of poet Matt Turner, and, having gotten the early look privilege accorded to the one (me) who uploads the posts here, I can attest to the work's beauty and finery. Please spend some time today reading Matt's work, and it would be really great for the poet and for your guest-host Chilly/Jeff if you could spread some feedback of any kind their ways in the comments today. Thanks a lot, and thank you so much for the privilege to Mr.s Jackson and Turner. ** Nicki, Thanks, pal. Fuck those fuckers who think they have less interesting things to do. Fear is the enemy of greatness, duh. Ha ha, I'll 'go' if you go! Which you already are. Deal? I don't disagree with anything you said, but I'm so, so outside the system you're forced to work in. Still, I can totally imagine. ** Scunnard, Hey! Nice to see you, bud, and that does sound like a consuming switch. Is there any thematic or guidelines to the queer show you were requested to curate. Obviously, sounds like a cool thing, if you have the time. Shit, no, the essay, no, but I just pulled it up after reading your question, and I'll read it today. Sorry. This film stuff has all but completely eaten my brain's directive abilities. New with me has been mostly working on said film, which is cool, and now we're on a break re: the actual filming, which just means a lot more phoning and emailing and searching than hands-on doing, but it's a switch, at least. ** HyeMin Kim, Hi. Oh, yeah, emeralds are very cool, I think. When I was growing up, we had a rock polishing machine in our basement, and I was kind of obsessed with rock polishing for a while. Busyness is something I totally understand and sympathize with, for sure. ** Kier, Kier! I got that thing you sent me in the mail yesterday, and it is so incredibly amazing! Wow, I'm blown totally away to have it. There are no words. The package was like the ultimate geode. Thank you endlessly! Wow! 'Deliver Us from Evil' is a new horror film? I'll look for it, if so. I'll have to try to figure out what the French title is, although I guess the poster should be able to clue me in. My yesterday was a busy one. Zac and I had to get all the rented light and sound equipment we'd used last week back to the rental place, and then I helped him move the last of his stuff from where he was living to where he started living as of yesterday. Then I saw and said bye to my nephew. Then Z. and I went and looked at a bunch of possible locations for one of the scenes in our film that takes place in a music venue, and we found a tiny, great one, so that was good. Then I said bye to him 'cos he's off on vacation to the States for two weeks, and that was sad. Then I came home and crashed. No, my novel has been forcibly neglected for weeks, which has been a problem, but I'm determined to get a bunch of work done on it in the next couple of weeks before the film project starts kicking in full-time again. How was your Wednesday? And, again, thank you, thank you, thank you! ** David Ehrenstein, Curious to hear that new Morrissey, of course. ** Steevee, I'll be curious to hear how that doc is one you get to watch it. ** Sypha, Hi, James. I should go back and read some more Ligotti fiction one of these days. What I read seemed really interesting. I just have to forget some of the stuff he believes and pontificates about because I'm not so into that. One of these days I'll catch up on all this new TV that's preoccupying most of the people I know, and I'll put 'True Detective' early in the queue. ** Chilly Jay Chill, Hi, Jeff! Thank you so much for the post today and for introducing me to Matt Turner's work. Yeah, it's really something, and I both understand and share your admiration for it. The roll that CCM is on is kind of unbelievable. It's becoming the Grove Press of its time in its own, distinct way. The film goes very well, thank you. We've now shot three of the five scenes. The next two are the most ambitious and difficult to shoot, so there's a ton of preparation and finger-crossing to do. We shoot those scenes from mid-August until the second week in September, assuming everything falls into place as we hope. Yeah, I thought about the post possibilities re: her. I'm going to look into it this week. Wonderful to see you, my friend. Did you get good work done on your novel in the internet-free zone? ** Misanthrope, Hey. Well, on the bright side, I got to spend more time with my nephew than I have in years, as short as it was. Yeah, I understood what you meant about the books about writers writing, i.e. Roth and that sort of thing. True. Japan is so obsession-worthy. Having been there twice, I'm very in love with the place. Your nephew's friend sounds really cool. Sensitive people are the best. ** Bill, Thank you, Bill. Or, well, I would pass your thanks along to the guys themselves were there a way. Plastic tubes! Nice. I should do a plastic tubes post. Wow, what a no brainer. I'm on it. Would be ultra-sweet if you can posit that demo. Where are you going away to this time? If you told me already, it got lost in my fractured brain. ** Kyler, I'm not good enough to be either coffee and cigarettes. I think I could be soup, though. What's your favorite soup? Mine is split pea. ** Postitbreakup, Hi, Josh. Oh, I know. When my mom finally sold the house I grew up, and when I saw all my teenaged stuff erased from what had been my bedroom, the house became any house, which felt weird. Well, I don't think it's uncommon for long term couples to back off from each other to some degree at bedtime, or that's what I hear anyway. I'm good. Never taken ambien. I don't even know what it does. Well, I guess I sort of know after your kind of explanation. Good to see you, J-ster. ** Rewritedept, No, yesterday was super not a day off. (see: above description to Kier). Today should be a little offish. Yeah, don't lie down in the street or anything like that. I'm so sorry that you're hating almost everything right now. Being a grown up gets better once you get used to being a grown up and once the period where you weren't a grown up yet gets further and further behind you. Weird and probably really good how that happens. I hope your day is a shitload of a lot better than your yesterday sounds like it was, man. ** Right. Go read Matt Turner's poems please, or reread them if you've already read them. Thanks. As sort of predicted, I'm afraid you'll be getting rerun posts tomorrow and on Friday, but I think they're good ones, and I should be caught up enough to give you all newbies starting on Saturday. See you tomorrow.