The Book of Landings. Mark McMorris

      

       The Book of Landings

      Wesleyan Poetry

      WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY PRESS MIDDLETOWN, CONNECTICUT

      Mark McMorris

      THE BOOK OF LANDINGS

      Wesleyan University Press

      Middletown CT 06459

       www.wesleyan.edu/wespress

      © 2016 by Mark McMorris

      All rights reserved

      Manufactured in the United States of America

      Designed by Quemadura

      Typeset in Akzidenz Grotesk, Bembo, and Clarendon

      This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Name: McMorris, Mark, author.

      Title: The book of landings / Mark McMorris.

      Description: Middletown, Connecticut : Wesleyan University Press, [2016] | Series: Wesleyan Poetry series

      Identifiers: LCCN 2015035079| ISBN 9780819576330 (hardcover : acid-free paper) | ISBN 9780819576347 (ebook)

      Classification: LCC PS3563.C3872 A6 2016 | DDC 811/.54—dc23

      LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015035079

      5 4 3 2 1

      Cover art and design by Quemadura.

      For Kim, as always.

      Contents

Acknowledgments	IX
The Fragility of Writing: Notes on a Trilogy	XI
Fragments from a Time before This
I
12 Rectangles	5
Line Drawings	25
The Book of Landing	63
II
Pidgin Geometry	83
III
While We’re Waiting	105
City of Palimpsests
I. PLANTATION
Gun Carriage at Old Fort	117
The Great House in Various Light	119
Birds as More Than Metaphor	138
Letters to Michael
Dear Michael (26)	140
Artifact of Beginnings	141
Practical Green Table	142
Worksong	143
Paradise and Plantation	144
Untitled One	145
Untitled Two	146
And this shall seldom chance	147