of the barn-tethered
goat
his joy-besotted molars
cudding
brambles in blossoming
light
the rickety-hinged holler
opens
the
cauliflower
are rife with
it
min words | max heart
Philip Arnold
of the barn-tethered
goat
his joy-besotted molars
cudding
brambles in blossoming
light
the rickety-hinged holler
opens
the
cauliflower
are rife with
it
Philip Arnold's poetry draws from his experiences living in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. His poetry has appeared in The Iowa Review, Rattle, Midwest Quarterly, Sou'wester, Corbel Stone Press and Southern Poetry Review.
I’m distracted by ‘cauliflower’ (singular) followed by ‘are’. Is that an American thing?
Might be. Or a regionalism. Here we would say, for instance, “the rhubarb plants” or “the rhubarb” but not “the rhubarbs.” Speaking specifically in the context of singular/plural and plants of some kinds!
I absolutely love this poem. And the artist has such a beautiful tone to his voice!
Although Emily Dickinson gets a pass for her dashes, hyphens are a poem’s bane.
Only if capturing the way people actually speak is also a “bane” of poetry.
Microphones capture speech, hyphens don’t.
Sure they do. Punctuation is a natural part of representing speech in written form. It’s sad that you aren’t lucky enough to hear the music it’s making.