from Antediluvian Sonnets
Must I finish one ring before beginning
A third language as if pulsating words
Could wreathe themselves into amalgams
Decide between propulsive narratives and
Those which disintegrate before gaining
Or how to choose both at once in a work
Of prose sentences interwoven into a sequence
Which renders the obviousness of resolutions
Obsolete while still crystallizing a process
Invisibly as if to trace a line of capillaries
Or what travels through faint living vessels
That journey or trajectory made discernible
Not necessarily legible but lived like a frame
Seen through momentarily before dissembled
Laynie Browne is the author of seventeen collections of poems, three novels, and a book of short fiction. Her recent books of poetry include: Intaglio Daughters (Ornithopter 2023), Practice Has No Sequel (Pamenar 2023), Letters Inscribed in Snow (Tinderbox 2023), and Translation of the Lilies Back into Lists (Wave Books, 2022). Her work has appeared in journals such as Conjunctions, A Public Space, New American Writing, The Brooklyn Rail, and in anthologies including: The Ecopoetry Anthology (Trinity University Press), The Reality Street Book of Sonnets (Reality Street, UK), and Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology (W.W. Norton). Her writing has been translated into French, Spanish, Chinese and Catalan. She co-edited the anthology I’ll Drown My Book: Conceptual Writing by Women (Les Figues Press) and edited the anthology A Forest on Many Stems: Essays on The Poet’s Novel (Nightboat). Honors include a Pew Fellowship, the National Poetry Series Award for her collection The Scented Fox, and the Contemporary Poetry Series Award for her collection Drawing of a Swan Before Memory. She teaches Creative Writing, and coordinates the MOOC Modern Poetry at the University of Pennsylvania.
