Thunderhead Cantos

I wrote the poems for The Thunderhead Cantos over a long period of time. The bulk of the work was done in six years. Then there was a lot of re-arranging of pieces. Finally, I decided I wanted to present it as a reading, rather than as text, so I recorded it.

I recorded it because the long job of working with text on the page was wearing thin. I woke up to the fact (for the hundredth time) that poems are meant to be spoken. From that moment on, it only took me a few days to make a final edit of the text---and then I recorded it.

I look at the poems as episodes. They appear and disappear. I didn't start out with some overarching theme.

The art and imagining of poetry has splintered into a thousand different approaches these days. Ultimately, that's a good thing. People may yearn for traditional standards, but that leads to repetition of what poets have written before. I'm not interested in recapitulation.

Poetry is still the electric sensation of a line or two or three that suddenly take flight into a new place. Robert Bly once described the poet's action as "leaping." Smooth and familiar progression is shattered. The poet makes a connection that wasn't there before. Ever. That connection catapults language and experience into original territory. I'm all for leaping.

That's about as much as I care to write---actually a little more than I care to write---about my poems. As I say, they're meant to be heard.

Jon Rappoport
October 21, 2008
San Diego