‘Lettering rapidly rubbed out before I can read’

From the New Zealand poet Allen Curnow’s ‘Canto of Signs without Wonders’

‘I look where I’m going, it’s the way
yesterday’s and the day before’s clouds
depict themselves over and over

an affluently planted skyline:
the clouds lay the whiteness on thick
over the bluenesses. The impasto

is unsigned, there’s a kind of an impression
of lettering rapidly rubbed out
before I can read, pasted over again

and rewritten, the name of a famous
product, the thing that’s everything,
the sky being prime space, anyway

the most public part of this universe.’

This collage is made from old plastic bags from the London Review Bookshop. When they first opened the shop their bags were clear plastic with black lettering and pictures. Perfect for photograms which I then tore up and collaged.

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