The Seattle Poetry Chain is moving forward. Luckily, last week's picks, Roberta and John Olson, have decided unanimously that the next link in the chain should be Robert Mittenthal. Mittenthal is the author, most recently, of Value Unmapped, a collection of poems from Nomados up in Vancouver BC. His next book, Wax World, will soon be released from Chax Press in Tucson. He is very active in local poetry and does a lot of work with the Subtext Reading series.

Here is what John Olson has to say about why he chose Robert Mittenthal:

Robert Mittenthal's work has appealed to me for many years. He and the others involved with the Subtext collective, which has been hosting readings in Seattle now for well over a decade, always impress me with the freshness and innovative boldness of their work. Memory is a bit fuzzy, but I believe Subtext (this would probably be founders Ezra Mark and Nico Vassalakis) began the series sometime in 1992 or 1993. I will be featuring their work in
a forthcoming edition of Floating Island. The Stranger has at least one article archived about Subtext if anyone is interested. I have known Robert the longest. Herb Levy introduced me to him in 1991 or 1992. He was, at the time, the only poet I knew in Seattle who gravitated toward so-called
"Language Poetry."

As must be obvious to people who enjoy my work, I love the bizarre. I love anything strange. I am particularly fascinated by words, and poets with the ability to enhance a sense of materiality among words. Sherwood Anderson once described Gertrude Stein's work as "words that have a taste on the
lips, that have a perfume to the nostrils, rattling words one can throw into a box and shake, making a sharp, jingling sound, words that, when seen on the printed page, have a distinct arresting effect upon the eye, words that when they jump out from under the pen one may feel with the fingers as one might caress the cheeks of his beloved."

Here is Robert Mittenthal's poem:

Severance

Paid to forget I remember more. Off the rails where we are sentenced. It is time to plead for a simple place to sit. Ultimately replaceable we’re reminded to stop.

This is the network of twitch where memory is bare. It is a brand never new — where one for all inverts itself to take leave or to pay back. It’s a mime that regulates agreement — fat fingering the terms of sale.

This is the system of social assistance, composing sense. Around the corner where we can’t see the sound feel its way home. We made a beeline for it and got lost. Throwing what into whiteness pulls its chain. Purity as a lost seam where a pencil etched the white out. A ball of string thrown into the wind. Unraveled guideline traced to where the negative alights, to where seeds will never fall. These rules focus their imagined sum on the next step — a latticework that amounts to everything we just said.

Here is video of Mittenthal reading the poem and one other:

Many thanks to John and Roberta Olson for choosing the next link and many thanks to Robert Mittenthal. We'll be back next Friday at noon with the next link in the Seattle Poetry Chain.