Photo by Alvaro Cvg
Fruits of gloomy contrast sharply crossing
the lively flow of discourse, the wondering
masses gazing at the feast, a bride of
eighteen persuaded by her teacher to
gather purple passages mingled with
magic verses, as simplicity of
motive returns earnestly in ruined
vanity: Admirable brethren lift
up thy dragged down charges & examine
every tendency towards vengeance, what
Spaniards whisper & what Lincoln condemned,
in the respectable construction of
obedience relieved of independence,
of structure conceived as perfection.
Author's Commentary
My poem [2501-2600] (Fruits of gloomy contrast) is from my “At the Musarium” series of more
than one hundred individual verses. Each verse selects its words from a different set of 100-word
groupings organized by word frequency order. Frequency rankings are based on a count of the
Gutenberg Project archive compiled at the Wiktionary web site. The bracketed numbers that
supply a title for each verse indicates the frequency rankings of the word group that particular
verse is based on. The higher the number, the rarer the frequency of word use in the corpus of
source texts. [2501-2600] uses words from the more common range of this continuum.
I gave myself a few “rules” to guide composition. I would use as many words from the group as
was practicable. I didn’t need to use all the words, but I should use most, while hoping to avoid
wordiness for its own sake. I would avoid using words more than once. I would try to make
sentences that make grammatical sense. I would allow myself, however, to use “little words” as
needed: conjunctions, articles, pronouns, perhaps a linking verb. I would take words as I found
them without altering their form (except for capitalization.) I wouldn’t change the tense or
number of a verb. I wouldn’t make a plural noun singular or vice-versa. I would indulge my
instinct for malapropism and mis-hearings, for antithesis, for consonance and rhyme. I have
generally used a ragged pentameter of roughly fourteen lines, and I have modified these rules
whenever I thought doing so would make a better poem.
I think that what makes [2501-2600] distinctive is how it undertakes to warn “the wondering
masses” against “vengeance” and other lockstep actions and attitudes. The meandering syntax
resists order, even as it ironically peruses “perfection.”
The Author
Peter J. Grieco attended SUNY Buffalo, completing his dissertation on working-class poetry
while working as a school bus driver. He taught literature and writing in Ankara and Seoul, as
well as at many Buffalo area colleges. In 2013 he completed a BA in mathematics. Recently
retired from teaching, he is the author of many poems printed in small magazines and published
online.
Peter J. Grieco