Selected Poetry Photo synthesis Silent spring Something grander... As He Lay Sleeping

Words of Orion
The Music of Poetry

by Jeremiah Gould
 

When he arrived at the University of New Hampshire, Orion Kugel, now a senior English Major, did not consider himself a writer. Now, he is at home in any writing workshop; his poetry and prose can hold up with any writer on the University of New Hampshire's campus and surrounding community.

Orion's poetry has indeed developed well in the past few years, after he started writing his freshman year at the University of New Hampshire. According to Orion, he had liked writing during his senior year in high school, but didn't write much until he took his first poetry class with Mekeel McBride. This class, which included such WRIToracle published writers as Julie Beth Himmelwright, Matthew MacVane and Mark Gosztyla, helped him to create his own distinct style of writing.

Merging a jazz-like flair for sound combinations with an organic use of line breaks and spacing, Orion's poetry is often as much a visual or musical piece of art as it is a literary one. Take for example his poem "Photo synthesis," which swerves across the page like a snake or syllabic cyclone while including combinations of words like "iconoclastic camera" and "his fingers slue around its lens." While other poets employ such untraditional spacing, it is seldom coupled with the consistency and pertinence that Orion seems to use. "My spacing is my own method of deciding pauses," Orion explains. "Poetry is between words." In this way, Orion stretches language beyond grammatical regularity. "Grammar just doesn't seem to [work]. [It] puts [the poem] back into the concrete world."

Orion's poetry is often as much a visual or musical piece of art as it is a literary one.

Looking at the world around him in new ways is a critical part of Orion's work. In "Photo synthesis" and "Silent spring," for example, the speaker emphasizes seeing both the outside world and themselves in different manners. "Are my eyes opaque?" the speaker of Silent Spring asks. "Recreating my own world so I can see it better in my own eyes" is what Orion replied when asked if his poetry had a message. "Everything is a big paradox," he adds. These paradoxes are apparent in some of his works, including a piece about a homeless lady in Mexico and to a lesser extent the poem "As He Lay Sleeping."

Often Orion finds his poetry to be about subjects he meets or sees, but does not necessarily know. In these ways he is able to make up stories and explore situations and people not his own. These situations and people are often of a fantastical and whimsical nature. "I'm able to disregard reason on a certain level," he states. In poems like "The Art of War", published in the December issue of the WRIToracle, a woman becomes "like [a] Venus / Flytrap," and in "Photo synthesis" a voyeur becomes a scientist in a Jules Verne-type machine. Inspired by "personal experiences," Orion's "interpretations" are aimed at giving "other people . . . the feeling [he gets, while allowing them] to interpret it in their own way.

Although his poetry is considered important in making sense of the world around him, it is not Orion's only means of artistic expression. "I express myself in many ways" he says, and is able to prove it. Orion also writes fiction, paints, and is involved in music, playing drums and writing lyrics such as in Flashlight, published in the December issue of the WRIToracle. "So many energies going into different art forms," he states, excited about his newer avenues of expression. "Music is still fun to play," Orion says. "It gets a lot of energy out, a lot of emotion." This release is more about enjoyment rather than perfection. "I'm not worried too much about the end product [at the moment]," says Orion, although he and his band-mates—Jared in Conway NH and Colin at the University—are hoping to put out a demo CD soon.

Orion's passion for writing, music, and art are in the future of this bright artist, who hopes to not only publish books of poetry, but also to write songs. And if his current writing is any indication, those dreams will soon become a reality.

For more on Orion, see his Profile and Writing Page on The Writ.

Photo synthesis
 
He's a solid body    taking that picture
 an illumination is 
      outlining him 
         making his 
             wild black shadow 
                         distort and bend 
                            on the white wall
      it's a creation  in his own image 
               tacked like a carbon copy
the iconoclastic camera is
		stuck to his face
	   glued to his   eye
        just a little   vortex
   that  his brain peeks through
"there is immortality in here!"
		     he yells   excited
while his fingers   slue around its lens
            	       like a steering wheel
                        trying to focus his eye
bending closer        he is a scientist
 examining the interrelationship
     of things
	floating there
	 in front of his porthole
      it's reality for his mind to borrow
			 the perception of truth
			 veiled by classification
one eye is glass the other
	  asleep  shut tight and dreaming
       but still he is peering through 
				       while
			   madlytwisting
	              	       dials and
			flippinglevers
he understands when conditions are right
		     then the camera blinks
			and he is done taking 
					that light

Silent spring 
  
And I lie like a heap of clutter
swept away beneath this park bench   fearing foot falls 
 and firing squads
I'm gnarled like a rock      discarded
                          on my cardboard cot
I wrap myself in rags and put my feet in plastic bags


 are  my eyes opaque?

spliced sunlight rattles through arabesque branches 
etching austere images of bliss dancing
                                     around my pyre
I feel paralyzed and rooted like an ancient tree
maybe I'm a fallen leaf     engraved by time
		which now gnaws on my insides


dusty dreams bounce behind my eyelids


my life is a motion flowing from my body
and as the demons try to collect it I battle them
                                                   bare handed
throwing punches as they circle my head like a halo
	     Because today is an infinite gesture
and death   is overdue   with her final advice

Something grander than myself I suppose
Or maybe I just like to think that so I can disregard my own responsibility
To myself
Further motion along my path but a little lost because I haven't been putting down any bread crumbs and the trees are silhouettes of the sky and don't want to expose the stars to my sight because I may know the direction I am traveling and thus I will find my devil and pierce him with his own spear, hang him high in his system, then toss him aside to make my own constellations. No it's never that easy to catch a devil in the night though he walks upon bristling branches breaking limbs and catching owls eyes it's difficult to deal with, more difficult to decapitate, though I know it is myself making my image and
wishing to break free from them and build a little hut where my devil used to live.

As He Lay Sleeping 
  
At ten years
 Matt and I affixing stickers onto Josh's face
  as he sleeps after adjusting age

"I'm gonna kick your asses!" he says
  when he startles awake
         but    we slip away laughing        and
  he tumbles back into his sheets and
	returns to sleep

suddenly he starts mumbling
	 somnambulating words
saying		  "something'scoming"
"what"		      I ask

"something's coming"

"somethinglikedeath"		he breaths
and we laugh because he's talking in his sleep