The Fire Poetry began inside the “Big Read” tent at the Boston Book Festival in Copley Square in the fall of 2009. Children and adults visiting the tent were invited to remove pages from Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and alter them to form poems, using only hot colors: reds, oranges and yellows. Their altered pages were adhered to a canvas, collectively forming a fire shape.
After the festival burnt pages were adhered directly above the poems to create flame tips. More fire poems have been added at several other Big Read events as well as in my home art studio. The fire continues to grow.
Whether reading Fahrenheit 451 for education or entertainment, creating fire poems is a compelling supplement. Fire poets are able to synthesize the text in a dynamic way. Oftentimes key phrases on the page are highlighted that vividly and efficiently convey the attitude and atmosphere of Bradbury’s dystopian vision. Or disparate words are linked to create new poetic meanings, associations and interpretations, as poets engage their own creativity and imagination in a dialogue with Bradbury’s. This form of engagement is an abstracted examination of literature where participants intuitively construct meaningful expressions from the texts they encounter, becoming active contributors to the creative world of words.
451
Fahrenheit 451
451
Books
Books
Books
Books
The whole is going up
Life Under the Glass
Books such of this are important
They have quality
Quality means texture
This book has pores
It has features
This book under the microscope
Life under the glass
Streaming past
More pores, more details of life on a sheet of paper
Touch life, the pores in the face of life
The chemistry of the earth
The cycle back to reality
The legend of the earth was held in midair
Isn’t that legend for us today, in this city, in our time?
I Want to See
“Here,” he said silently
He said the words perfect
And there was no preacher looking at him
A voice
Gasping like grass
The earth all shouting to keep eardrums bursting, bursting open
Shouting a protest against their faces, their lips, their noses
Montage watched
And lying there he saw every single grain of grass and heard silence
The sifting dust they might need to gather this day
Go on
Go that way
Walk on the highways now
And someday a lot of it will be wrong
But just enough of it will be right
We’ll start walking today and see the world
And the way the world walks around and talks
The way it really looks
I want to see
Man’s Mind
Government declaration
Mass exploitation
Thank God you are allowed to read comics
School jumpers, racers, and imaginative creators
Dread your own bright idols
Bright boy
Born free
The image of happy to judge themselves against
The weapon: man’s mind
The target: the world, the old purposes
Everything Burnt!
Burn again
Burn every day
Burnt time
Burning years
Everything burnt!
Burning sun
Burning of all types and sizes
Bing, Bong, Boom!
Click, Pic
Bang! Smack!
Bing, Bong, Boom!
Life is Immediate
The River
Smell of the river like a solid rain
Burnt rust
His eyes wept dry with running
Jet him, fling him on five thousand doors
Slope down, solid moving blackness
He imagined thousands on thousands of faces
The sky faces
Night frightened faces peering from electric caves
Gray thoughts looking out
He was at the river
Sure it was real
Splashing his body with raw liquor
Drank it up his nose
Swept away in the dark
A storm of light fell upon the great illumination
He felt the river pull him farther on his way
Silence About Fire
Firelight stood knowing
Drawn by the fire, a liquid eye
Autumn stood listening to the warm crackle of the flames
Silence about fire
Time was time enough
The trees
The world
The center of the bonfire
The fire was silence
This special silence could hear the voices
The voices
The voices
The voices
Back in the shadows
The Ritual
Tonight was the ritual
Empty rooms felt an immense irritation
Almost obediently, light hung open
Painted fervor
Fiery devotion
They fell trembling
The Girl Next Door
The girl next door stood a long time watching the rain
I understand
I can remember
I shut it off
Out With It, In With Inner
Going over going
Over going over
One two one
Two one two
Of them of
Them of them
One and one
And one and
Another and another
And another and
He felt he
Felt he felt
Had been
Would be
Had this
Had two
One it did
It did it
Out with it
In with inner
It had into out
Did he did
Not he did
Not the the
Not the the
The the the
Metropolis to Junkyard
The bus was still in the air
Its destination: metropolis to junkyard
Bombs a building
The family
The family
Now a hotel
Anxiously, nervously
Drown the bomb into oblivion
Falling flat or screaming by itself
Starved and eating itself
Single Drop of Dreams
Autumn wind
Leaf shadows carried silence with it
Feel the silence
To the river
To the silhouettes of people
Now go past
Don’t stop, go on
This way! Here!
A single drop of dreams
Cacophony of Collapse
Bombarded bones
Shaken wobble head
Thrown centrifuge and spat waterfall
Emptiness and emptiness
Never quite
Quite, no not quite
You didn’t touch
Never…quite…touched
Thunder died
It was indeed remarkable
Barely moved
Settled
Impression sucked you up a cacophony of collapse
Don’t be
Don’t get
Who?
You
All Abstract
Listen in subways
Listen at soda fountains
People don’t talk about anything
Not anything
Cars, clothes, swimming pools, how swell!
All the same things, nobody different
In the caves the same jokes
The musical wall
The colored patterns
It’s only color and all abstract
Have you ever been all abstract?
My uncle
Your uncle
He is, he certainly is
Good-bye
Good-bye
One two three four five six seven days
Like a bird up a tree
Third day
Fourth day
What kind of suicide would you call that?
The White Clown
Swarms of black moths
A single storm
Screaming, listening
Here for the White Clown tonight
At the door with is back turned
Does the White Clown love you?
He licked his lips
Love you very much
You ask a silly question
Listening at the door
The sun, the clear sky
The street, the lawn, the porch
He let his breath go in a great sigh
He slammed the door
Numb thought
The numbness in my, in my… pill bottle
Rejection Slips
God-Light, the presence
God-Light, the presence
400 (count ‘em)
400 short
Debone, demarrow, render down and destroy
Every adjective
Every verb
Every sub-moron’s mouth
The two-bit of a first rate
Every white resembled every other
Like, read like, read, like read, like more than three syllables
Get the damned picture?
I react by firing the whole lot
By sending rejection slips to each idiot
Fire nor Water
Fire
Water
Everything mixed
Fire nor water
Out of opposite things, a third
Start the long journey
The going away from the self
Listening to the hum, buzz, murmur
Scolding then consoling
In the late hour of night
Haggle and nag
You yourself
Know that this is all one huge big blazing meteor
A pretty fire in space
The fire, you saw it
Yet you almost killed the start
I’m with you, remember that, blind God
My cowardice distilled in you tonight
Let me feel out our ticket
Maybe
Maybe
Before Oblivion
The Mechanical Hound
Like a grotesque, wondrous, strange god
The hunt through necessary commercials
The Electric Hound
Silent as death
One eye on the TV
Dramatized television objectively
Knowing life in full color
He kept his eye before oblivion
Punctured the wakened from sleep
All Over Again
Our children
Our children
What happened and why?
Thousands on the roads, abandoned
It wasn’t planned
Traveling together
Important to ourselves
Important to feel superior
We’re nothing more
No significance
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Why, there’s only touch of a man
So many to a person
Someday, some year
People will, one by one, know and set it up
Do the whole damn thing over again
Never discouraged
All over again
It is important and worth doing