• Home
  • Poetry Prompts
  • For Writers
  • Daily Poem-Subscribe! ✨
  • Teaching Tools
  • Free Stuff + BOOKS
  • Patron Love

Poets and Poems: Susan Lewis and “Zoom”

By Glynn Young Leave a Comment

Feathered wood Zoom

I step out of the carriage, walk up the steps, and I can already hear the music. I enter through the wide doorway, and the music becomes louder. It is Susan Lewis’s language ball. I’m not sure if it’s a fancy-dress ball or a masquerade; I quickly realized I’d better be prepared for either, or both.

It’s called Zoom, and zoom you will, as you hurtle down made, partially made, and remade hallways of words, metaphors, images, and familiar phrases made unfamiliar by the substitution of expected words with the unexpected. Zoom is a romp, some 57 poems of a romp that confuses, bewilders, and ultimately entertains as you understand what the hostess of the ball is up to. She’s celebrating an honored guest.

Listen; the band is striking up a tune, or perhaps tuning up a strike. Or both, simultaneously, or separately. Does it matter? The dance begins.

Dear Sir

or Madam, until you lose your head or mother
its shred, wrapped in mystery & mead. No
levity for this, your skid life. No mercy while
you bilk your betters, sent flying to spy on your
attempts to rise. Across the deep there are many
with nary a hook to hang on. While ever & anon
those lads with rainbow limbs snake through
the gloom. Another day another dolor. Not
to mince woulds, but this sibilance is skilling
While you who wish upon a stare — where
would you turn & fleetly tumble? The Burning
Dervish never knows whereof he’d speak, mute
As he is, spinning in his vicious circle, boring
His whole through our dark & dappled gaps.

Take a breath. Don’t rest too long. Some of the next tunes to be played are “Back at the Convocation of Lost Souls,” “Sunset in the Nursery,” “In Praise of Miscommunication,” “Monumentally Manumitted,” “Four Shortcuts to Amelioration,” and “In Praise of Lying.”

Susan Lewis

Susan Lewis

Your head will spin with this explosion (and implosion) of language. This is a ball about language, how we use or it (or don’t), and how it serves to both communicate and not communicate.

Lewis is the editor of the literary journal Posit. She received her MFA degree in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence University, and her BA and JD degrees from University of California-Berkeley. In addition to her several published books of poetry, she writes flash fiction, which has been performed on stage in Denver, and compositions with other artists performed at the Kennedy Center and Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall. She lives in New York City. Zoom will be published on May 31.

The music is restarting. It’s time, once again, to dance with the words, the words played by the full orchestra of Zoom.

Related:

Poetic Voices: Susan Lewis and Katherine Hoerth

Poets and Poems: Susan Lewis

Poetic Voices: Susan Lewis and Shanna Powlus Wheeler

Browse more book reviews

Photo by Trevor King 66, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Glynn Young, author of the novels Dancing Priest, A Light Shining, and the newly published Dancing King, and Poetry at Work.

__________________________

How to Read a Poem by Tania Runyan How to Read a Poem uses images like the mouse, the hive, the switch (from the Billy Collins poem)—to guide readers into new ways of understanding poems. Anthology included.

“I require all our incoming poetry students—in the MFA I direct—to buy and read this book.”

—Jeanetta Calhoun Mish

Buy How to Read a Poem Now!

  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Glynn Young
Follow Glynn
Glynn Young
Editor and Twitter-Party-Cool-Poem-Weaver at Tweetspeak Poetry
Glynn Young lives in St. Louis where he recently retired as the team leader for Online Strategy & Communications for a Fortune 500 company. Glynn writes poetry, short stories and fiction, and he loves to bike. He is the author of Poetry at Work and the Dancing Priest Series. Find Glynn at Faith, Fiction, Friends.
Glynn Young
Follow Glynn
Latest posts by Glynn Young (see all)
  • A Book of Poetry by Edna St. Vincent Millay Finds Its Way Home - January 19, 2021
  • Poets and Poems: Troy Cady and “Featherdusting the Moon” - January 12, 2021
  • How J.R.R. Tolkien Met an Obligation – with Poetry - January 5, 2021

Related

❤️✨ Sharing is caring

Filed Under: article, book reviews, poetry, poetry reviews, Poets

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Take How to Read a Poem

Get the Introduction, the Billy Collins poem, and Chapter 1

get the sample now

Welcome to Tweetspeak

New to Tweetspeak Poetry? Start here, in The Mischief Café. You're a regular? Check out our January Menu.

Keep the World Poetic

❤️

Welcome a little patron love, when you help keep the world thoughtful and poetic.

5 FREE POETRY PROMPTS

Get 5 FREE inbox poetry prompts from the popular book How to Write a Poem

Join the Poetry Club

Join the poetry club, when you become a subscriber to Every Day Poems ✨

The classic—Now a Graphic Novel!

"Stunning, heartbreaking, and relevant illustrations"

Callie Feyen, teacher

read a summary of The Yellow Wallpaper

Recent Comments

  • Stephanie Dulli on Great Gatsby Fashion: Jay Gatsby Goes to Goodwill
  • Callie Feyen on Generosity with Self: When You’re In The Wrong Story
  • Sandra Heska King on Generosity with Self: When You’re In The Wrong Story
  • Callie Feyen on Generosity with Self: When You’re In The Wrong Story

Featured In

We're happy to have been featured in...

The Huffington Post

The Paris Review

The New York Observer

Tumblr Book News

Join Tweetspeak Poetry

Categories

Explore Work From Black Poets

Learn to Write Form Poems

How to Write an Acrostic

How to Write a Ballad

How to Write a Catalog Poem

How to Write a Ghazal

How to Write a Haiku

How to Write an Ode

How to Write a Pantoum

How to Write a Rondeau

How to Write a Sestina

How to Write a Sonnet

How to Write a Villanelle

Free Printable Poet Bios

Browse all poet bios now

Shakespeare Resources

Poetry Classroom: Sonnet 18

Common Core Picture Poems: Sonnet 73

Sonnet 104 Annotated

Sonnet 116 Annotated

Character Analysis: Romeo and Juliet

Character Analysis: Was Hamlet Sane or Insane?

Why Does Hamlet Wait to Kill the King?

10 Fun Shakespeare Resources

About Shakespeare: Poet and Playwright

Top 10 Shakespeare Sonnets

See all 154 Shakespeare sonnets in our Shakespeare Library!

About Us

  • • Our Story
  • • Meet Our Team
  • • Literary Citizenship
  • • Poet Laura
  • • Poetry for Life: The 5 Vital Approaches
  • • T. S. Poetry Press – All Books
  • • Contact Us

Write With Us

  • • 5 FREE Poetry Prompts-Inbox Delivery
  • • 30 Days to Richer Writing Workshop
  • • How to Write Form Poems-Infographics
  • • Poetry Club Tea Date
  • • Poetry Prompts
  • • Submissions

Read With Us

  • • All Our Books
  • • A Ritual to Read to Each Other
  • • Best Love Poetry
  • • Book Club
  • • Children’s Book Club
  • • Every Day Poems
  • • Literacy Extras
  • • Literary Analysis
  • • Poems to Listen By: Audio Series
  • • Poets and Poems
  • • VerseWrights Journal
  • • William Blake Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Shakespeare Sonnet Library

Celebrate With Us

  • • Poem on Your Pillow Day
  • • Poetic Earth Month
  • • Poet in a Cupcake Day
  • • Poetry at Work Day
  • • Random Acts of Poetry Day
  • • Take Your Poet to School Week
  • • Take Your Poet to Work Day

Gift Ideas

  • • Give the Gift of Every Day Poems
  • • Our Shop
  • • Everybody Loves a Book!

Connect

  • • Donate
  • • Blog Buttons
  • • By Heart
  • • Shop for Tweetspeak Fun Stuff

Copyright © 2021 Tweetspeak Poetry · Site by The Willingham Enterprise · FAQ & Disclosure