“Language is made up of words and phrases that, supposedly, mean discrete and knowable things. In order to ‘mean things’ though, the sedimented histories and repressions attached to the word get passed over. However, when we push these words out and through certain passageways—like a screen, a window, a portal, a mouth—the word clips, letting something of its material spill out anew. This poem is from a series of poems concerned with clipping. In a time of the clip, the take, what can be given wholly? Very much, of course, and too much—a little, sometimes, still.”
—Jos Charles