Present

Technically stunning and always entertaining, Corn's poems are expansive and ambitious, drawing together varied strands from history, music, dance, literature, mythology, science and his own life. Often inspired by the structures found in music, his poems explore the relationship between the personal life of artists and the larger cultural tradition. ""Musical Sacrifice,"" for instance, compares and contrasts the lives of composer J.S. Bach and writer Franz Kafka in a series of 14 verse and prose passages. In passage 6, Corn explains: ""I discovered them both in 1963, and felt even then something resonant in the juxtaposition."" Similar responses to cultural artifacts form the basis of many of these poems. In ""Insertion Arias,"" for example, Corn, listening to music, finds that ""For a while, all we are is a voice/ as it steps and glides over textured strings/ made one harmonic flesh with woodwinds."" There are personal poems, including an elegy for a departed stepmother: ""From Southern California your New Age nephew/ Sent some doggerel to be read, which fear of sounding/ Like has kept me from beginning this, like,/ For six months and longer."" In the spry ""To Hermes,"" Corn turns from contemplation to action and calls upon the ancient god: ""Lord Quicksilver, god of erections, come down/ in your winged Nikes, your hard hat brilliant/ as an oiled mirror, and lend some assistance."" Corn's poetic vigor, however, shows no signs of needing such Olympian aid. (Apr.) FYI: Corn's manual on prosody, The Poem's Heartbeat, is being published by Story Line Press this spring.