2 poems by Kari Ann Ebert

Kari Ann Ebert drew on Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (1847) to create “The Doctrine of Fundamental Gravity” (click here to read) and “Upon First Meeting My Double” (click here to read).

About the poems and the process of composing them, Kari Ann Ebert writes:

“The Doctrine of Fundamental Gravity” uses two phrases, from the twelfth line of text on p. 144 (12 x 12) in my copy of Brontë’s novel, to form the first line (and stanza). Then, I used a version of the OuLiPo exercise called “larding” to create the rest. In this poem, “larding” is achieved by taking the first line and adding a line on the top and the bottom of it to form the second stanza. The final stanza is formed in the same way but using the three lines of the second stanza and adding lines above, between, and below them. If you include the title (which has no phrases from Wuthering Heights), this poem is 12 lines purely by chance. That seems lucky.

“Upon First Meeting My Double” is an erasure of p. 144 (12 x 12) in my copy of Brontë’s novel. I chose the last 12 lines of the page from which to extract this poem. As I chipped away at the text, there emerged something ghostly that I embraced much like Heathcliff embraces Cathy. The title came naturally and is echoed in the finished poem, which is 24 words, or a doubling of 12.

In their use of 12, these poems reflect our invitation to poets—on the occasion of our twelfth volume—to incorporate 12 in some way in their work.