Videopoem: "Self Alaska" by Bill Yarrow and Ray Fahrner
Channel: Bill Yarrow
Date: 2014-12-27

Video Remix of "Self Alaska," a poem by Bill Yarrow.
Music and Reading by Ray Fahrner.
Video Footage: "The Empty Life" found on Internet Archive. 
Glacier Footage: "Calving at Margerie Glacier in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Alaska, 8.20.12" from Miraculous Spaceship.
https://vimeo.com/48451378
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/Video by Bill Yarrow.

SELF ALASKA

"A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us."
                                                           -Franz Kafka

Was there, he wondered, some parasite,
some infiltrated germ, some totalitarian
pest, asbestos fiber, cancerous
particle, irradiated isotope, sliver
of glass, peach pit, foam nugget,
stray hair, impinged corpuscle,
magnesium wad, metaphysical
quill or arrant stalk moored in him,
or what? Why was it so difficult to move
toward anything? Was his will congealed?

His doctor recommends an Arctic cruise.
He travels to a frozen stream, a frozen
lake, a frozen sea. He photographs the
awesome ice. A glacier calves inside him. 

This poem appears in Pointed Sentences (BlazeVOX 2012).