Issue 25: Marjorie Welish
Commemorative Onset
READING:
MOSTLY OBELISK THE LEAST OBELISK
BAS-RELIEF STOPPAGES
BAS-RELIEF AND STOPPAGES
BAS-RELIEF OR STOPPAGES
NO BAS-RELIEF AND STOPPAGES
NO BAS-RELIEF OR STOPPAGES
MOST BAS-RELIEF AND STOPPAGES BAS-RELIEF STOPPAGES
LEAST BAS-RELIEF AND STOPPAGES
LEAST BAS-RELIEF, AND STOPPAGES STOPPAGES
bas-relief and obliged stoppages
obliged / not obliged—but that is another regime
mostly obelisk
distributed throughout the bas-relief—but that
is another regime
The most bas-relief with the least stoppages
or stop acres—but that… provide
in bas-relief
belongs to the most stoppage.
MOSTLY OBELISK THE LEAST OBELISK
BAS-RELIEF STOPPAGES
Not in the least
glare
belonging to leisurely bas-relief itself
belonging to most if not all and then some great
even greater than the sum of its parts
and art long attaining to experience expressly effortful lifetime
almost a maxim extremely the most obelisk
and cause
achieving greatness long-lived and if anything on the increase more
and more might, with strength ascribed to
having prevailed sound strong and considerable parchment
in the zenith whose altitude has been noted
extensively serious and host to many a windswept stoppage
as sad as it is intense
lavish whacking
Life is short BAS-RELIEF
OR STOPPAGES REMAIN MOSTLY
and art long, ALL UNION BELONGING TO
BAS-RELIEF AND STOPPAGES
NO RELIEF AND opportunity fleeting,
experience perilous, NEITHER BAS-RELIEF NOR STOPPAGES TOUCH
and decision difficult. THAT BAS-RELIEF-INTERSECT
PROVIDENT AND
LEAST
LESSER
ADJACENCY
NO RELIEF AND NO experience
LESS PURPLE and art long NOT PROVIDED WITH
ANY PATHOS COMPANION TO
life short, impossible—
and art long, improbably belonging to having had
read
much prodigy into it.
Marjorie Welish is the author of several books of poetry, limited-edition constructed artist’s books, and a book of art criticism. Isle of the Signatories (2008) came about thanks to a Judith E. Wilson Visiting Poetry Fellowship of Cambridge University, 2004-5; other recent books of poetry are In the Futurity Lounge /Asylum for Indeterminacy (2012), and So What So That (2016) - all from Coffee House Press.
‘Commemorative Onset’ above is forthcoming in A Complex Sentence (Coffee House Press, 2021). Welish’s book of art criticism is Signifying Art: Essays on art since 1960 (Cambridge University Press, 1999); she is also a contributor to The Encyclopedia of Aesthetics (Oxford University Press, 1998), and has written art criticism for popular magazines such as Art in America and Art Monthly (UK) as well as for scholarly journals, such as Partisan Review, Salmagundi and Textual Practice (UK).
Fellowships include: Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, 2014-15; St Edmunds’ College, Cambridge University, Visiting Fellow - granted for 2014-15. Her creative arts and criticism were the subjects of day-long conference at the University of Pennsylvania in 2002, resulting in a 300-page conference book Of the Diagram: The Work of Marjorie Welish (Slought Foundation, 2003).
Copyright © 2021 by Marjorie Welish, all rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of Copyright law. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the notification of the journal and consent of the author.
