Intaglio Daughters

<p>Author's note: <em>Intaglio Daughters</em> is an homage text for the poet Lyn Hejinian. All titles (in italics above each poem) are taken from her book <em>The Unfollowing</em>. In the preface to her book she writes I wanted each line to be as difficult to accept on the basis of the previous and subsequent lines as death is for we who are alive-a comparison that I make intentionally since my intention in writing the sequence of poems I'm calling 'The Unfollowing' was to compose a set of elegies. In considering a form for<em> Intaglio Daughters</em> I wondered-what follows loss and rupture? What follows unfollowing? The mourning process often involves a non-sequential experience of time-and many returns wavelike in spirals or contractions. In keeping with this idea of rounds sinuous or labyrinth-time reaching backward and forward simultaneously my book is a series of rondels with the final line in each poem returning to and resounding Hejinian's language.</p>