Shall I condemn myself a little for you to forgive yourself in my body? Oh how you love my body, my house.
All too topical and yet relaxed, allowing the hShall I condemn myself a little for you to forgive yourself in my body? Oh how you love my body, my house.
All too topical and yet relaxed, allowing the horror and the cost of such to be the spectacle at the expense of potential transformation. Oh, we weep but I personally don’t stand with--well any group, I simply mourn.
Although wary, I had hoped for more here. There is a suggestion that we compare a Gaza alongside capitalist inequality and that of climate change. Which pains us the most?...more
When the storm Kicks up and nothing is ours, we go chasing After all we’re certain to lose, so alive� Faces radiant with panic.
Given the day’s forecastWhen the storm Kicks up and nothing is ours, we go chasing After all we’re certain to lose, so alive� Faces radiant with panic.
Given the day’s forecast, I consider this apt. It has been a good run. The idea of a supercell being formed by our carbon indulgence and dashing my life to splinters sounds reasonable enough. As much as anything else. I bought this collection with a slight quiver of excitement. Bowie and time travel through the prism of social justice? Count me in. I wasn’t expecting the tendons of grief which connect the sections. That appeared timely as well. I initially thought this was a recent composition and was surprised that it is nearly 15 years old. Certain themes appeared indolent while an emancipatory imagination is allowed to unfold like certain paper sculptures when dropped into water. ...more
Clive James brought me here. As did my shame in not having much exposure previously to Australian poetBelieving is not seeing but a theology of doubt.
Clive James brought me here. As did my shame in not having much exposure previously to Australian poetry. I didn’t latch on to the first half of the collection but the themes of age and posterity were explored with meticulous craft. Juste mots at every turn. I was enriched and well saddled for future travels. ...more
If I were sick, I'd be a child, tucked in under the woolens, sipping my broth. As it is, the days are not worth grabbing or lying about. Nevertheless, youIf I were sick, I'd be a child, tucked in under the woolens, sipping my broth. As it is, the days are not worth grabbing or lying about. Nevertheless, you are the only one that I can bother with this matter.
I have again relied upon Frau Sexton for an apt detour. This tight collection casts a vision of mortality, health and those biological bonds that some call family. I was hooked or perhaps pierced--skewered by tumbling metaphors and a shattering dawn of nostalgia. We travel form the cemetery to the surgical suite, we are burnished by childhood summers and are awakened by our own offspring. The telephone hectors.
I doubt this will fuel conversations with my own siblings or unearth a notion of confession to the Divine. What it did was nurture....more
I had long lived in the world of action and liability. But now I passed the gate into a world
Sweeter than hope in that confirmation of late life.
RPW I had long lived in the world of action and liability. But now I passed the gate into a world
Sweeter than hope in that confirmation of late life.
RPW delivers an American Epic on Race and History, Wilderness and Civilization, and a host of other unwieldy themes. The poem concerns an event where the nephew of Thomas Jefferson literally butchered a slave in the relative wilds of Kentucky. The structure of the poem is similar to a play, think Our Town but without the ladders. It was off putting initially to have the poet present in dialogue with the personages, especially Thomas Jefferson. There’s a brilliance in handling this strange incident in light of the contemporaneous earthquake, how both represent a settling and can likely only be understood in terms of Deep Time, or outside of fleeting perspective....more
I am a philosopher of sandwiches, he decided. Things good on the inside.
Probably 4.5 stars as I sensed a lag towards the end, coinciding with the glo I am a philosopher of sandwiches, he decided. Things good on the inside.
Probably 4.5 stars as I sensed a lag towards the end, coinciding with the gloom of Lima. Who hasn’t felt such, been lost to such sullen conclusions?
I love Carson, all her omissions, the muttered half-truth in the sight lines of the Infinite. This work stirs myth, finds the lyrical in abuse, the frantic footfalls of childhood and the subsequent confusion commonly understood as “life�. I liked the universal experience of sitting in a cafe in a strange city and imagining everyone loathing you whereas you are barely a presence. Here’s to citing Heidegger on postcards back to the provinces. Indifference is the chief export of aging if not maturity. The existence of the letters is subject to debate, especially in learned journals. I tend to side with those that regard nostalgia as a toxic byproduct of capacity. Alas we can ponder the impact of volcanic activity as a metaphor for cognitive rehabituation. ...more
I had hoped for something more lyrical, but this felt all too familiar: images of a poet as a young girl. The prologue was promising, looking upon herI had hoped for something more lyrical, but this felt all too familiar: images of a poet as a young girl. The prologue was promising, looking upon her birth from above and being seized with a sense of all history converging in an instant, that was compelling but soon we embark on we only had this to eat, and my stepfather was a tyrant. Perhaps her time at indigenous art school could have tightened the focus?
I will certainly explore more of her verse. ...more
Fall comes to us as a prize to rouse us toward our fate.
My favorite poems for quite a while; Nietzsche would have termed it timely, well before the hoFall comes to us as a prize to rouse us toward our fate.
My favorite poems for quite a while; Nietzsche would have termed it timely, well before the horse hugging anyway. Read this on holiday feeling mortal and very much in mourning. Each page is a brisk pulse of life steering us but staring us down all the same. The soft snow gangs over my heavy house.
I appreciated the dirges for Randall and Schwartz, even Billy Williams receives an obituary nod, though more for being a horn dog prowler than a Modernist. History keeps rapping albeit softly upon the prevailing structure while the protagonist considers his boozing and skirt chasing; he only appears comfortable when abroad in Ireland. There’s a counterpoint in black idiom which is apparently a concern for some. I’ve heard that Ralph Ellison consulted on the sections, but I haven’t verified. It is true though the reactions to such are debatable. ...more
I found this more an encore than an epilogue, much less an epiphany. Slight and weary it might be, this colleFor a sign of meaning in the meaningless,
I found this more an encore than an epilogue, much less an epiphany. Slight and weary it might be, this collection jarred me, a recurring squeak repeats now with every stride. I’m afraid I’m obligated to both listen and follow....more
My discovery of these pale, somewhat aged, volumes has proved a triumph. An otherwise stale book stylI look for uncomplicated hymns but love has none.
My discovery of these pale, somewhat aged, volumes has proved a triumph. An otherwise stale book style offered a mound of Sexton, even if not d already the collected verse. She’s been most welcome this week, reeling from grief and the birthday mania in our household I needed to look past the Oppenheimer and the fantasy novels which again have failed to ensnare. This is where my pulse beats audible. ...more
I wish that everyone who was awed by Joan Dideon’s memoir of mourning would be required to submerge intGrief is wearing a dead person’s dress forever.
I wish that everyone who was awed by Joan Dideon’s memoir of mourning would be required to submerge into these depths. Perhaps as Shaq Diesel once quipped, that’s apples and basketballs.
I thought often of Derrida while tunneling across this collection and then ultimately of Wallace Stevens....more
For us to live with death Death must change to light Light change to water And water change to memory.
The above is elemental, allegedly simple. It wasFor us to live with death Death must change to light Light change to water And water change to memory.
The above is elemental, allegedly simple. It was difficult to appreciate the first third of this collection as I was rolling my eyes at the obvious: the ennui of the cubicle, a Baudelaire at the self-checkout.
Themes coalesced, grouped however disparate. Sartre eclipsed the Flâneur and suddenly a longing was evident, I even thought of Elizabeth Bishop. Anyone familiar with the novels will recognize the themes, though the fleeting form he uses here is disorienting, like whiff of peat smoke outside of a metro station....more
And we are magic talking to itself, noisy and alone. I am queen of all my sins forgotten. Am I still lost? Once I was beautiful. Now I am myself
My encounAnd we are magic talking to itself, noisy and alone. I am queen of all my sins forgotten. Am I still lost? Once I was beautiful. Now I am myself
My encounters with this poet date back to the pandemic. She pulsates but privately. Unlike Plath or Sontag or god forbid Mailer or Vidal —Sexton wrought something dark and painful from suburban straits but didn’t make a parade of it. She’s weeping in the blackened kitchen at four am—just down the street from Updike’s Couples.
This collection sings hymns of the liminal when mothers care for their parents and then perhaps lose their emotional footing and wind up institutionalized. Ever her echoes stretch, back to the truth and in the false blossoms of something completely different....more
The well-read beggar doesn’t notice God has tossed into his cap that day’s gold coin.
Sometimes you spend $6 and aren’t sure of the result. This was theThe well-read beggar doesn’t notice God has tossed into his cap that day’s gold coin.
Sometimes you spend $6 and aren’t sure of the result. This was the case sometimes when I cared about craft beer; that pint of sea salt habanero ale wasn’t exactly life-changing. Alas such was my approach earlier when I began this collection: a grad student exercise in Pessoa heteronyms.
Alas while not exhilarated by the two line biographical sketches, the verse manages to be glib, philosophical and in translation! I did appreciate the motifs on resurrection, such was welcomed on a blistering sabbath. Amen....more
I leave little to the fire, and it’s already too much to live on percentages. I did my living at the rate of five percent; don’t increase the dose. It nI leave little to the fire, and it’s already too much to live on percentages. I did my living at the rate of five percent; don’t increase the dose. It never rains but it pours.
The master astonishes and then takes a bow. The poet gives us transport, one perhaps frugal in language but still deft in distance and image. I’m curious how Pasolini responded to the lyrical representation of their dispute. Such was granted immortality. If only all of our spats could achieve that? ...more
But, taking in the funeral sadness, This is what I would write for myself: He loved his land and this earth The way a drunk loves a pub.
Perhaps high sumBut, taking in the funeral sadness, This is what I would write for myself: He loved his land and this earth The way a drunk loves a pub.
Perhaps high summer has always made me sad? Likely not in childhood but lately my thoughts grow tender when the mercury rises and the humidity gnashes with impunity. The last week has been an awkward one, a holiday squeezed into stressed opacity. I’m no longer sure about the origins of this poetry project but it persists, jostled by the growling thunderstorms which sweep across the area. Yesenin is an overdue friend, a kindred soul who understood he didn’t fit in burgeoning Soviet society, he proclaimed his poetry was for a sick land and that the time of infirmity had been defeated. He simply knew. It was impact the poet had on Jim Harrison which began to chirp louder yesterday. I had spent the morning out in the hinterland visiting the partner of a recently passed friend. I approached the hilltop with a potted plant and a volume of Simic. The mourning is ongoing and I still feel conflicted. Arrogant as it might appear I think this collection of verse helped if only to distract and distill those internal incapacities. ...more
the simple magnificence of foliage, the dark, damp network of new roots, the ancient and new dimensions of another chestnut tree in the earth.
I’m fearful the simple magnificence of foliage, the dark, damp network of new roots, the ancient and new dimensions of another chestnut tree in the earth.
I’m fearful this translation project was a rubbish one. The book was a gift years ago in Miami, though the friend who gave it knew ten languages and I’m sure wasn’t concerned about fidelity.
I’ll pursue other editions do as to not fall firmly in the camp of Borges. ...more
Moon! And by flying off in vain, you holocaust into scattered opals: perhaps you are my gypsy heart wandering the blue weeping verses!
This tome contains Moon! And by flying off in vain, you holocaust into scattered opals: perhaps you are my gypsy heart wandering the blue weeping verses!
This tome contains multitudes. One can imagine a Vallejo corporation, a fiscal tribe of creatives who tackle sequential lyrical projects all under the trademarked name.
I was a humble reader, but consider me stunned. While reading, maybe fawning, I thought of Celan and of course Derrida. I repeatedly thought, I’m overdue for reading Neruda and Dario.
The images tumble but pivot, offering a spectrum of readings, a kaleidoscope of meaning and wordsound—even in translation. We walk rural fields in Peru, smell the breaking dawn in Paris and search the skies in Spain for imminent death during the civil war. It is outrageous that one poet had all these gifts, this facility across form and experiment....more
Of course all this doesn’t make a poem And here I toss it onto the page like a useless stone on the stones That will maybe someday help to build a houseOf course all this doesn’t make a poem And here I toss it onto the page like a useless stone on the stones That will maybe someday help to build a house
Stunning poems written in wretched conditions. The poet was imprisoned at numerous locations (seemingly each one worse than the last) after the Greek Civil War just after WWII. Conveniently the Nazis had constructed numerous installations ready to be repurposed to postwar realities. The author found the key to survival was to keep busy, so he wrote letters and fashioned this diary of verse. I found it profoundly moving and human. ...more
![[...]: Poems](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1705133073l/205312834._SX50_.jpg)
Loading...
