A Tonalist Set

by Laura Moriarty

What is A Tonalist? It is possible that this question can be answered by reading this set of poems and the essay by me, “A Tonalist Coda,” also included here, in which I speculate about lyric, anti-lyric, musicality etc.? The Coda follows the long essay poem A Tonalist in the book of the same name due out from Nightboat at about the same time as this issue of Aufgabe. I want to express my appreciation to the editors of Aufgabe for presenting this A Tonalist Set.

Most of the poets in this selection have long been associated with the blog A Tonalist Notes or I have known them forever, often reading and occasionally teaching and writing about their work. Many writers whose work informs the notion of A Tonalist, but who are not included here, can be found online in a selection I put together for Jacket (Feb/March 2010 issue). All of these writers (and various others) comprise the community out of which I dreamed up the group, idea, or movement called A Tonalist. What they share is not so much a style as an attention to words and a belief, at least in the moment of the poem, that these words make a world—an “untethered island,” as Myung Mi Kim writes. They, Taylor Brady notes, “Scribble in the wallow of a cosmic faith / then swallow up the sentence’s dead end.” I thank them for it.

© Laura Moriarty. All rights reserved.