Objects 2

by Russell Atkins

Atkins's fifth book, Objects 2, was published by the Renegade Press (Cleveland, Ohio) in 1963. Green paper covers over blue paper pages with writing paper insertion. Edition of 100.

26 pages, Chapbook

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Russell Atkins is a musician, playwright, and poet from Cleveland, Ohio, known primarily for his contributions to American avant garde poetry. Trained as a musician and visual artist, Atkins studied at Cleveland College, Cleveland Music School Settlement, Cleveland Institute of Music, Karamu House, and Cleveland School of Art.

His plays The Abortionist and The Corpse debuted in 1954. Following this, he founded Free Lance, A Magazine of Poetry and Prose in 1950 with his friend, Adelaide Simon, with the first issue containing an introduction by Langston Hughes. It attracted writers from all over the world, leading the now-defunct Black World to call it "the only Black literary magazine of national importance in existence." In 1959 Free Lance Press began publishing books. Free Lance was under Atkins leadership for more than two decades, and allowed Atkins to correspond with writers from across the country.

Atkins was one of the first concrete poets in the United States. Concrete poetry is a term for visual or shape poetry, in which the words on the page are arranged in such a way as to enhance a poem's meaning. He was also an innovator in poetic drama. [wikipedia]

Reviews

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

TEMPEST

's nightly subterfuge
someone is sitting restlessly
their hands stir dead of night
out) night's a-fledge
and gathering furious birds
in a commotion the leaves damp
when 'ts HARSHLY
that falls and WHO and WHO'S
about New England
windows!



ANXIETIES

Throw no more of Gothic, you lit night-leaves!
It suddens the hark of lone or lamp there:
No reaching for toward disheartening fat of all
Dismembered things under moon, going where?
Now cease hysteria around the awnings for God's sake
Like too late for some confounding fate
to be declared. Wherever I might be in all today,
leaves, leave my resigned a dare!

Anguish no more in the gust'd as though I
submit to a nosferatu'd lure.
That has long of ago been driven pure.

Leaves what I haven't done I have not!
Never mind, insinuating by furious racket.
The rose, the tear and the paycheck,
and then summarily
a strait jacket?



OF PHOTOGRAPH OF FLOOD

there rose hysteria'd thick
bluster'd from dusk
its furious weather:
like an apparition
too late come away
met the day, drear'd
to a baffled decay
as it shrank darkly
stress up of sea
collected twists all
summoned embroils
of thrall !
long lies a crash
a pity of towers
is by
 and the wept
streams in
waste

In a number of houses that faint light
(that most dismal kind of light)
went out by day and someone ill,
I thought, had failed at night
and the insidious, spectral
would wear away with some
one's call



ELEGY TO HURT BIRD THAT DIED
[Buried in a Matchbox]

I suppose you suppose that yon of little burial
Is non of? Rather it is of universal o'er
Unvast because it unvast looks?
Well, how wrong, sir. How it propounds
Means utter, confounds, evers,
Wee-rosed as it is, alas,

I suppose you suppose, as some,
It was one of the lone 
Who did thus? Ah yes,
As if one's boned
Skeletal'd in uneager sands
On shores undroned.

But we are other of 
"Little Birds," each undone
Laid in his "matchbox"
At last, at last no one.
Why if living bird dies
Should I not solemn him?

Bird you shall be wept
For too. I do. From dogs,
Children, the cat, we made
Hurried away. Fragiled
In hand - - I know then - -
Too frail a bloom.



TRAINYARD BY NIGHT

A THUNDER
then huge bold blasts bluff
hiss, insists, upon hissing insists
on insisting on hissing hiss
hiss s ss ss sss ss ssss s
ss ssss sss
when whoosh!
the sharp scrap making a fourth lap
with a lot of rattletrap
and slap rap

I listen in time to hear coming on
the great Limited
it rolls scrolls fold in fold
like the traditionally old

his meanwhile hiss
insists upon hissing insists
on insisting on hissing hiss
hiss s ss ss sss s
sss s s
s



X

'og tonight of F
terrible 'og, a lamp
was F and 'og its drear
um um came too
For hours F stood
'og made no sound
nor moved (some slow
could move if 'og
permitted Even
so, slow would
come upon F
until 'og turned to F
and thus
 Fog



NIGHT AND A DISTANT CHURCH

Forward abrupt up
then mmm mm
wind mmm m
 mmm m
upon
the mm mm
wind mmm m
 mmm
into the mm wind
rain now and again
the mm wind
 ells
b
 ell s
 b

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