from Novel Lines 101
by Stephen Bett
“101 alphabetical poems, each riffing on the opening line of a postmodern novel or metafiction.” — SB
Robert Coover, Ghost Town
T’thet hardass double-dealin shark over thar, the dodrabbid burglar whut operates this skin store. He’s the one whut give me this extry elbow and my own bones t’flop when I opened my big mouth after ketchin him with a holdout up his sleeve. The motherless asshole tuck us fer all we had, sheriff.
Nuthin like a hardass double-dealin literary career dedicated to combating reductive and linear thought Is there Ketchin us with a holdout Hidden, brown pocket When we’d thought we wuz poker face The first fantasmagorical postmod western (’ceptin Slinger, dufus!) Reads like a hallucination 1
1 Italicized review excerpts for Ghost Town, in order: TLS, Chicago Tribune, Philadephia Inquirer; “brown pocket:” asshole (Brit slang); Ed Dorn’s Gunslinger
William J. Craddock, Be Not Content:
A Subterranean Journal (1st Edition, 1970;
in memory of Liba Schlanger)
As our Psychedelic Saint, Doctor Tim, says. [But wait] It’s actually ‘turn on, tune in, drop out, freak out, fuck up, and crawl back’.
Another hallucination, perchance ? Or not — If you can remember, well you... bah bah bah Nothing ever hops entirely out of sight; freak-outs like bits of staying power You have to drop before you’re hit Crawling back, a matter of privilege admittedly (oof) Closing out the high C’s 2
2 A slight homage, too, to acid-dropping poet Ted Berriga’s magazine “C”— for a fascinating history of which, see Clay & Phillips’ A Secret Location on the Lower East Side: Adventures in Writing, 1960-1980; Liba named our favourite cat ever, “Acid”
Lydia Davis, “First Grade: Handwriting Practise”
(from The Collected Stories)
The full story: Were you there when / they crucified my Lord? / Were you there when / they crucified my Lord? / Oh! Sometimes it causes me / to tremble, tremble, tremble. / Were you there when / (turn over) / they crucified my Lord?
No, we were not there but our ligatures were a’tremble thrice On our knees Shred a first grade tear Scrambled together a First Aid Manual our stabilizers gone We tossed RICE (Praise the Lord) dissemble, dissemble, dissemble no more Oh! we said, dont discount further rehab protocols For which Pass the Loot & P.T.O. 3
3 For a sprain: Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation; for further reading on a more progressive Xtian theology, see the Westar Institute & Jesus Seminar Forum
Don DeLillo, Great Jones Street (opening lines)
Fame requires every kind of excess. I mean true fame. I mean long journeys across gray space. I mean danger, the edge of every void
Please turn over — re·face yourself your own sur·face, your grey- scale on its side Your infamy is an eternal kenophobic There were 39 shades of white noise behind your eyes (don’t go all numerology over this) And two home openers that went like oracles: Words, sentences, numbers, distance to destination Everyone wants to own the end of the world Another spook shelf-life inching close to voided — fame’s true edge 4
4 DeLillo evidently had 39 alternate titles for White Noise; & in italics, the opening sentence from two more DeLillo novels, The Silence & Zero K
Stephen Bett is a widely and internationally published Canadian poet with 25 books in print (from BlazeVOX, Chax, Spuyten Duyvil, & others). His personal papers are archived in the “Contemporary Literature Collection” at Simon Fraser University. His website is StephenBett.com.
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