the new poets : part 2
Sheila E. Murphy's work has been published widely in books and magazines. A book-length collection entitled A SOUND THE MOBILE MAKES IN WIND: 50 AMERICAN HAIBUN has just been released from Mudlark, and is viewable at www.unf.edu/mudlark. Her FALLING IN LOVE FALLING IN LOVE WITH YOU SYNTAX: SELECTED AND NEW POEMS appeared from Potes & Poets Press in 1997. Sun & Moon Press will bring out LETTERS TO UNFINISHED J. as the winner of its 1996 Open Poetry Competition judged by Los Angeles poet Dennis Phillips. Murphy has been writing poetry and submitting work for publication since 1978. Her first appearance in print was in SALT LICK magazine, edited by James Haining.
Of the work appearing in ViewZone, Murphy writes:
"One satisfying way to
approach this work is to read the words aloud, and to try to hear them as
music, while paying little to no attention to the suspected meanings. After
accepting the sequence of sounds, listen again, this time allowing the play
between meanings as we know them and the sounds as sounds. The effect should
be one of dance, a cross between discovery and play.
"An important thing to recognize about these poems and many other works found
in contemporary writing is that literary efforts are NOT puzzles to be solved.
There is not (at least in my work) some 'hidden meaning' that we are supposed
to 'get.' Rather, there is a process, an event, perhaps even a complete
refashioning of what is here. It is entirely possible that the reader, by
adding in his or her perspectives, will help forward the work to a new plane.
"The work that I create is there to be enjoyed, not to make potential readers
feel inadequate or simply perplexed. It exists to open possibilities, and to
inspire the mind to work in a new way. Perhaps even to inspire the heart to
process more fully as well.
"Many of us have been programmed to assign the status of guru to a writer.
Accordingly, 'the audience' has inherited the role of
passive recipients of whatever the writer might provide. This model is
limited and limiting. I take a different view. In writing for the best
reader who will be available to me, I seek to engender further thought,
further feeling, rather than simply expressing my own. The process becomes
more than reciprocal. It involves and upward spiralling, therefore a
refinement.
"That said, my work certainly includes lyrical passages. But the intention of
the work, what it is trying to do, is much broader and deeper than that. The
challenge I have given myself and the one that I wholeheartedly accept
includes taking sounds and words and syllables and spaces and making them into
something that creates a vibration state that is heuristic. I want to inspire
myself and others to perceive differently, to create a different state of
mind. This means that simply painting a picture or telling a story can be
PART OF what is done, but that doing those things only would never be enough."
my globe my pinpoint generous my most
untitled poem #2
table a quintessence also a
untitled poem #3
autumn thought through spring
untitled poem #4
untitled poem #5
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