Note: These poems form the groundwork for an ongoing project called YEKTH. “Yekth” (or giecða/ȝecðe) is an Old English word for itching. Each poem is a “rune” composed of two runes: the “I” and the “Ċ” of Old English which, when brought together in certain contexts, spell “iċ” (the first person pronoun I, pronounced itch). In the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, the runic spelling of iċ would be carved as ᛁᚳ, and this rune provides the shape of these poems.
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MATHILDA CULLEN is a poet, artist, and translator from Long Island, New York and a PhD student in the Poetics Program at the University at Buffalo, SUNY.
