Play Air

This is to register my pleasure at reading Corina Copp’s new Belladonna chapbook, Play Air.

If I were anywhere near as megalomaniacal as some (qute mistakenly!) believe me to be, I might posit that the poetry in Play Air shows signs of my influence. But it’s far more likely that I read in Cori’s poems a kind of kindred sensibility.

Her writing lilts. It perambulates. It functions on a plane of cognition above and below logic. It’s so verbal that it’s almost pre-verbal, dreamy. On every page I find something that startles me in a good way, not in a straining-to-be-weird way. It feels weirdly “natural” — or naturally weird.

Random lines:

strained iridescent hares

“Ahoy, a long serene”

lone glee club in darkness,
Are You A Chorus?

Pillow meat, I say

…”Mmm” glance
over the eggnogg.

pink burst of smallish heat in my letters

Air + Nonsense = Endearing Sheets of it

tulle & half-red dilation

Plagues?
I always ask this. It means nothing since
who could impersonate a deer if I asked this?

It’s not procedural or researched or making any kind of strong statement that might stamp out its poetry. It’s subtle, but not ethereal floaty or evasive. It’s pitched for exactly what my ear wants to hear. It’s because her private language sounds an awful lot like my private language. Articulation. Thank you, Cori.