Poetry. The poems in A DUELLING PRIMER, referred to as figures, contain two parts. The first combines illustrations from an 18th Century fencing manual with a form of free associative ekphrasis. The second part reverses the order with a brief lyric followed by a visual element. Pascal's four-square turned from belief to communication. The poems first started as vivid dreams triggered by both the desire to return to the strip and to write about fencing. Many primers start with an ABCs and this work is no exception: Action; Buy a vowel; Careen across the floor; Defend; Ekphrasis; Face one's . . . Get into another's head; Hot to move the goods . . . Unfold a timeline's timeline; Vertical and horizontal thinking; Whisk; X of blades; Yells; Zorro? Handsewn chapbook.