writers often mediate between English grammar and their own version of
it: this kind of grammatical freedom can be seen in the poetry of Australian
indigenous poet Lionel Fogarty.
In experimental poetries, words sometimes take on a different gram-
matical function from normal (for example, verbs become nouns);
essential elements of grammar are left out (for example, a verb from the
sentence); or the grammatical functions of particular words are not clearly
differentiated, sometimes giving the appearance of word strings. The word
association exercise in Chapter 1 is a good example of a text which does
not function with regard to normal grammatical principles.
In the following short extract, ‘I am Marion Delgado’, by Ron Silliman,
grammar is extremely abnormal:
Example 8.12
How do we recognize the presence of a
new season.
Field is the common sky.
Spring language.
What if blow-fly believe the sky is
the room.
A first time, not glow, of common is
the enemy.
Blow-fly objectify the expression.
A believe as stasis and casual as the
perfect.
Lion I’d bites.
A specific lion, mane, bites for the
peach-headed.
Realism is a swamp, not a gas.
How do you geometry light and dew.
Across a visits with a milky omitted.
Haze with a glow made of lights is the
sign.From ‘I am Marion Delgado’ (Silliman 1986a, p. 69)Here the word ‘field’ would normally be preceded by an article ‘the’, so
would ‘blow-fly’, and the verb ‘believe’ would then usually be singular.
‘Geometry’ is grammatically a noun, but appears in this extract as a verb.
In addition the sentence, ‘A first time, not glow, of common is the enemy’
is not grammatically congruent: in ‘normal’ prose we might expect it to
read as ‘a first time, a glow, a common enemy’, in which each item would
176 The Writing Experiment