salt oyster bowl—wet shaft—duty: to hay
/ foam the field—trans fur smut—i roe / ore—
let vanity rot—holy hill / glade—neon fawns
tuft, hoop—pond veil—feather din—stone
(soft, tender weight)—now a forest—horn tone—
feed him hewn, amethyst filth—oh lean net,
beg—tease me—eat brittleness, too—
hump hand (we hunt hot hydra)—hot itch (noted)—
cinch woman thin—snot nova—nudest text—mint,
holly, thorn—synthetic foam—delve—tie it
at hip width—idol: a fat peony,
a heavy poppy—hit holy, ovate depth—
soft halfbeast—stern lush woods (ate rabbit
boy, tasted honey)—mount want like a fist.

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A Note on the Construction of the Text


These poems, what I call “divinations,” were created with the assistance of an online anagramming tool and the source text of Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets. The first line of the corresponding Shakespearean sonnet is borrowed as the title for each divination. The rule I set was to anagram line-by-line, so each line of the divination has all of the same letters as the corresponding line in the Shakespearean sonnet. After entering a line from Shakespeare into the anagrammer, I’d be presented with a group of words, a lexical pool, and would then select words I was interested in or that held heat or resonance with my themes. After selecting a word, the anagramming tool would refresh and present a new list of available words. I’d continue this way editing and shaping the line until I’d used all the letters.