Wendy Videlock’s poems seem to grow from the same plot as myths, fables and morals. Her slender poems approach the reader with a conversational tone and precise language, pulling her short lines taut and lending them an aphoristic air. Asked about the brevity of her verse, she suggests that “the more we carry on about a subject, the more likely we are to lose its essence”.
In the foreword to Wendy Videlock’s first book, Nevertheless (2011), the poet A.E. Stallings writes, “Videlock is a magician of play and pleasures, wisdom being not the least of these.” Her poems build their own internal logic through alliteration, assonance, and deft use of metre:
The vinegar tasters
dip their fingers,
make their faces:
stoic, bitter,
strangely sweet.
The seeker leaves
for Bangladesh,
the prophets check
for signs of theft,
the singers sing
for what is left.
(from ‘Hullo’)
In an interview for the Colorado Poets Center, Videlock reflects: “I think of rhythm as the most natural and abundant thing in the world. The iamb is really just another of the many natural pulsings of the earth.” Videlock's acute awareness of these pulsings contributes to the sense of communion one finds in her poems, as she connects the pulses found in nature and the human body. Her sense of of rhythm propels her slim lines, causing them to reverberate and expand into the white space of the page.
Don’t get me wrong: I know
that knowledge is power,
that mystery’s water,
that hunger makes
a gargantuan
lover,
and yes, I’ve drunk
of the river Lethe,
from the breath of the Celts,
from the echo of
the bugling elk,
and yet,
alas,
here I be.
(from ‘Vanity Flare’)
Wendy Videlock lives in Western Colorado with her husband and two children. She is the author of Nevertheless (2011) and the chapbook What’s That Supposed to Mean.
Bibliography
Nevertheless, Able Muse Press, San Jose, CA, 2011
What’s That Supposed to Mean, Exot Books, New York, NY, 2010
Links
Colorado Poets Center: Interview with Wendy Videlock
Poetry Magazine Podcast: Feeling Like a Worm in Tequila?
