A Winter Triangle
This book can be opened with
Winner of the 2023–24 Poetic Justice Institute Prize, Selected by Srikanth Reddy
A poetic exploration that reimagines form and language through celestial patterns
Informed by mystery, chaos, order and writing as container, A Winter Triangle explores poetic space and form amid the infinite possibilities of composition and change. Composed of three parts, or “points,” like its namesake asterism, this collection is inspired by Stéphane Mallarmé’s idea of composing poetry from the “senseless splendor” of the skies, as well as the designs for automata by twelfth-century inventor and engineer Ismail al-Jazari, and mythological depictions of Sirius, the dog/wolf star, as both a keeper of order and the agent of chaos and energy.
Inventing a new poetic form, the septentrional, which trembles in its own process of becoming throughout the length of the book, Marcella Durand questions the potential of poetry in the face of artificial intelligence, climate change, and political turbulence in which language is often twisted into the opposite of its own meaning. By counting the seven syllables of the septentrional and opening spaces (caesura) within the poetic line to provide breath and rejuvenation amid exhausting world events, these poems resituate poetry as an alternate space in which to reimagine the given forms of constellations and how we imagine order out of seeming chaos. Thus the question is opened as to whether the poet may ever make sense of the “senseless splendor” of the skies, or simply convey them as they are through poetry, holding the infinite within the finite, for a time.
Durand reads the “dustlike” script of the calligraphic galleon, a ship created entirely out of words, as art and struggles to understand the burning dog/wolf star that stands between law and lawlessness. Is there actual connection between stars in the constellations we have invented? Can we find room for composition within the broken loops of infinity? At the point between old and new, bow and arrow, chaos and order, A Winter Triangle asks us to face the overwhelm of change—self-inflicted, invented, planetary, and real.
A Winter Triangle is a self-portrait as human asterism. Arriving at this wondrous book’s unfinished final sentence, we come to see what one can be.---Srikanth Reddy, from the Foreword
Marcella Durand is the author of several volumes of poetry including, most recently, To husband is to tender. A recipient of the 2021 C.D. Wright Award in Poetry from the Foundation of Contemporary Arts, she is also the co-editor with Jennifer Firestone of Other Influences: The Untold History of Avant-Garde Feminist Poetry.
Foreword, by Srikanth Reddy | ix
I. automata of a perpetual flute
Breath runs out | 1
smile nicely | 5
the water clock I 6
the picklock’s frustration I 7
the etiquette of scribes I 9
what noise of circles I 10
a flower absent from all bouquets I 12
II. Septentrional
in order to develop a septentrional I 15
N I 16
it has not I 17
“Without invention nothing is well spaced” I 18
seven not yet I 19
constellations, as well as being imaginary I 20
to cut, to cut out I 21
rejuvenation I 23
give caesuras a chance I 25
the beginning of the opening I 26
the map isn’t right I 27
Septentrional I 29
S E P T I 30
Heavenly Wolf Star I 31
A heliacal star I 32
where the spear points I 34
Sirius, or the Wolf Star I 35
Math hints I 36
then we turn to the confines of the ship I 37
calligraphic galleon I 38
constellations are strictly regulated I 39
constellations are regulated I 40
infinity is made finite I 41
in uneven shapes we break I 42
calligraphic galleon I 43
he whispers, don’t tell the boss I 44
seven sleepers written into the boat I 45
can form I 46
le septentrion aussi nord I 47
III. a winter triangle
now is the time I 51
the winter triangle I 53
the winter triangle I 54
in dustlike script I 56
toward you with spaces I 57
what noise of circles I 58
the huntsman spider I 59
Scorpius, with its three syllables and red heart I 60
Stars that are interesting I 61
curious to see I 62
What I do is stand I 63
How is it possible I 64
she wanders into I 65
counting leads to the idea I 66
four for each chamber I 67
silence is X musician I 68
in form is some new strangeness I 69
N I 70
in a septentrional direction I 71
“that” lies on the stage I 72
if the theatre were open air I 74
if the play, I mean, the universe I 75
what sort of order I 76
cast alight – cast I 77
this new form of strange has to be understood I 78
look to the cold brilliance of the winter triangle I 79
it is not space that is eternal I 80
war endures, as does poetry I 81
Acknowledgments I 83
Notes I 85