Theory and Practice

Mary Evelyn Harju: in theory, and fast; in practice, and slow. 

Mary Evelyn Harju in theory and practice, fast and slow.

Empress of Eternity

One more directly for the Empress of Eternity. Here's how it started in Otoliths 44. 

The Kinks

 

Always a harangue, to get anywhere near the avant-prof clan from twenty years ago with the idea that hetero sex might be interesting to write about. Queer sex got off the hook, for being trailblazing. But men and women, forget it. Better to spout the usual stylized gibberish. In any case, who you see here is Danielle (Dani) Diendorf. And the major, newly revised double sonnet about her is Flaming Red Hair. The tie-in to Stoli from earlier this year is simple: the kinks. 

The Schuylkill Moves

 

The Schuylkill moves cleanly, despite
all the murk, as the Expressway looms
on the other side of it. The trees, as
usual, are Heaven, rooted much too
deeply for us to fathom, stacked at
solid angles into a receptive Universe.
I am waiting, writing on the edge of
wars, chopping through the cesspool
of centuries old shit, stunned into an
awareness of you, Abby, and of our life’s binds.
When I imagine you, it’s with a sense
that we’re both standing at the river’s
edge (we are, of course), and as long as we see,
your way, the trees shade into the sky, the binds hold—

© Adam Fieled 2017-2026

The sonnet The Schuylkill Flows was originally published in Otoliths 44 in 2017.

The Wilderness Sequence

 The Wilderness Sequence gets a new Ocean Queen. 

Les Liaisons Dangereuses

In a game not unlike Les Liaisons Dangereuses, the newly revised Side-Armed can sit right next to Frequencies. I saw a version, incidentally, of Les Liaisons Dangereuses in London as a teenager. It was almost as risque as the movie. I would also choose to note that these two pieces incorporate dialogue in a theatrical way. Is this a technique I learned in Pittsburgh? Not quite. The Pittsburgh zinger, if there is one, is that a Pittsburgh '92 actress did show up for me in Manhattan in the mid-Aughts in a major way. There it is again: Les Liaisons Dangereuses. 

Letting in drafts II

More work on 4325 Baltimore Avenue. Remember: you are, as you read, supposed to know that Diana and Jenny Kanzler are the same person. And that Abby Heller-Burnham was ensconced with us a good part of the time, too. And Zooska, the cat.