. . . & then the somewhat airy-giddy febrile lightweight acrobatics of Grassblade Light lead into something both more rounded-out & also more strange/exploratory, in the fireworks-finale which is July. The difference between the 2 books is highlighted by the use of end-rhymes in Grassblade, as opposed to (informal, variable) reversed or inside-out rhymes in July. Here is a section of that:

         7

  
         In the country of his father forgot and
 manacled below decks   to his own
 sole greenish vomitory (so sea-gnostic)
 Hamlet watched the orrery-gyro's   daft

  
         starboard tilt   left, right   a map
 flattened over hiding places
 green paps of   a minatory landscape
 a deep red coracle under palm

  
         of his hand   two red rivers   (north,
 south)   as they meet in a 3-cornered
 (7-cornered) coign of rusted ruth gone
 copper-vernal   a profile thrown

  
         for a Q by   finger of iron   in pool
 of dust   invisible smile of Ms. X
 whispered (doubleyoudoubleyou)
 's barnacled forehead   she loped

  
         into view she balanced a cup of green
 Tahitia-T upon speared iceberg head
 and frolicked like Luba's almost-baf-
 fled grave coronal freed from the grip

  
         of his soiled life sentence   the image
 of his eye landed (orthogradus ad hoc)
 upon ox-back   to pivot there   (a coda-
 clef)   and accompany   his fewny gam

  
         with fear and trembling   beneath the frozen
 birches   and the bridge over the river there
 in Minneapolis   where the star unravels
 in contrition   once   to forge amends in

  
         stony Troezen   slosh a cup of Lent-anointing
 cold   just   once   across your Jordan-brow
 (JB)   or take a snowy gondola (suburban dirge
 or broken fork)   into   the dull canal at last

      
                                    1.27.2000