In Windsor Pierce’s words
“ a monster” (1937) must’ve been
200 ft in length
& 5 ft high
with horns
or others “just a huge horned serpent” when the timber grew there
white men hadn’t come
but lightning from all directions
struck that place
The Thunderers
Because they hated snakes
Were shouting
(their lightning twisted like a snake
or maybe because of it) one heavy serpent
slid down the hill astride a log
while men shot arrows after it
floated as far as Tracy Run
there dug into the earth
& vanished
in the eddy called “deep water”
or “deep hole”
the place called
“where the snake slid down”
all when the world was new
The book is available in a facsimile edition.
1977 the friendship between Jerome Rothenberg and Phil Sultz led to a collaboration that produced 101 copies of Seneca Journal: The Serpent (Singing Bone Press.) The paper from the original project was made by hand by Tom Lang, who also set the type and printed the pages. The offering was wrapped in three folded sheets of handmade mulberry paper from Japan. Each cover was hand-painted by Phil Sultz. Copies now reside in many book arts collections including Emory University and the University of Virginia.
Jerome Rothenberg is among the foremost poets, anthologists, and commentators on poetics of the present day.