― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 1 April 2004 05:14 (twenty years ago) link
Whatever the difference is, it all began the day we woke up face-to-face like lovers and his four-day-old smile dawned on him again, possessed him, till it would not fall or waver; and I pitched back not my old hard-pressed grin but his own smile, or one I'd rediscovered. Dear son, I was mezzo del cammin and the true path was as lost to me as ever when you cut in front and lit it as you ran. See how the true gift never leaves the giver: returned and redelivered, it rolled on until the smile poured through us like a river.How fine, I thought, this waking amongst men! I kissed your mouth and pledged myself forever.
― Archel (Archel), Thursday, 1 April 2004 09:45 (twenty years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 1 April 2004 22:55 (twenty years ago) link
Was that written AFTER we talked about the pome that is not by D Paterson?
― the pinefox, Friday, 2 April 2004 14:00 (twenty years ago) link
Ye white antarctic birds of upper 57th street,you gallery of white antarctic birds, you streetwith white antarctic birds and cabs and whiteantarctic birds you street, ye and you thestreet and birds I walk upon the galleries ofstreets and birds and longings, you the birdsantarctic of the conversations and the bankmachines, you the atm of longing, the longingfor the atm machines, you the lover of thebanks and me and birds and others too andcabs, and you the cabs and you the subtlelonging birds and me, and you theconversations yet antarctic, and soup andteeming white antarctic birds and you thebooks and phones and atms the bankmachines antarctic, and you the banks andcabs, and him the one I love, and those wholove me not, and all antarctic longings, and allthe birds and cabs and also on the streetantarctic of this longing. -- Lisa Jarnot
― Casuistry (Chris P), Friday, 2 April 2004 20:37 (twenty years ago) link
― aimurchie (aimurchie), Sunday, 4 April 2004 02:43 (twenty years ago) link
This is by Stephen Crane.
― Ingolfur Gislason (kreator), Monday, 5 April 2004 15:16 (twenty years ago) link
― Gregory Henry (Gregory Henry), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 02:20 (twenty years ago) link
I was thinkin' about posting 'Thirteen' here, but I ws worried ppl might consider it all sycophantic and stuff! I actually sent Archel's page to two friends of mine who are big into the idea of being poetesses only the other week...
― Gregory Henry (Gregory Henry), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 02:31 (twenty years ago) link
That birthdaywould not slip past like all the others.She felt her eyes wideningas it stuck in her throat,that sickly pink-white icing.She blew out the candlesand started wishing.Her flesh dripped off like wax.
(Rachel Playforth)
― Gregory Henry (Gregory Henry), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 02:33 (twenty years ago) link
James Wright - "Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy's Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota"
― bnw (bnw), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 04:35 (twenty years ago) link
― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 08:31 (twenty years ago) link
We cannot know his legendary headwith eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torsois still suffused with brilliance from inside,like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,
gleams in all its power. Otherwisethe curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor coulda smile run through the placid hips and thighsto that dark center where procreation flared.
Otherwise this stone would seem defacedbeneath the translucent cascade of the shouldersand would not glisten like a wild beast's fur:
would not, from all the borders of itself,burst like a star: for here there is no placethat does not see you. You must change your life.
Rainer Maria Rilke
― donald, Thursday, 8 April 2004 00:55 (twenty years ago) link
I think I still need to read them more slowly.
The whole meaning of the one about the horse has not reached me, yet.
But it will!
― the pinefox, Thursday, 8 April 2004 08:31 (twenty years ago) link
― bnw (bnw), Thursday, 8 April 2004 12:37 (twenty years ago) link
I have been reading sean o'brien's essays on contemporary british poetry the deregulated muse and can report that it is very good.
― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 8 April 2004 13:06 (twenty years ago) link
Do you like the poem, 'The Park By The Railway'?
― the bluefox, Thursday, 8 April 2004 13:46 (twenty years ago) link
he says a few things I don't agree with in his essays and his aesthetic is more politically guided than my own; he doesn't manage to reach and talk about a few of my favourite poets in any depth but he has managed to open my eyes to a few people I had once glancingly dismissed (hughes [I read the birthday letters and got upset in the same way as I did with the lock-and-key cartography of pale fire]; and even, miraculously, motion.)
I have his collection ghost train (??) out at the moment, but it's resting in glasgow. I'm not sure I've read the poem you mention.
I have also taken out, in your honour, muldoon's why brownlee left.
― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 8 April 2004 16:32 (twenty years ago) link
Between going and staying the day wavers, in love with its own transparency. The circular afternoon is now a bay where the world in stillness rocks.
All is visible and all elusive, all is near and can't be touched.
Paper, book, pencil, glass, rest in the shade of their names.
Time throbbing in my temples repeats the same unchanging syllable of blood.
[...]
― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 8 April 2004 17:00 (twenty years ago) link
the atrium of the heart beckons with pendulous lipsany seaman would point his submarine inside: sirens singan eye flutters. strewn with carrion: the cliffs
pilot: could I go deep into the plasma of the seapull myself from the wreckage. red tide, white squidrefractile bodies caught in this prismatic stream
surely salvation bilges. suffers our immersionas a macrocyte absorbs a viral fret. into this deepthe whorl of shell and wave flash brilliant consecration
how the anvil beats within the limpet ear. we drift[...]
D. A. Powell - [the atrium of the heart beckons with pendulous lips]
― bnw (bnw), Friday, 9 April 2004 14:20 (twenty years ago) link
The Volkswagen parked in the gap,But gently ticking over.You wonder if it's loversAnd not men hurrying backAcross two fields and a river.
― cozen (Cozen), Friday, 9 April 2004 18:25 (twenty years ago) link
― ...in bed. (Chris Piuma), Saturday, 10 April 2004 02:37 (twenty years ago) link
― the finefox, Saturday, 10 April 2004 08:01 (twenty years ago) link
last night I found an old issue of Poetry Review what was designed by Jerry the Nipper, who was also writin' in it. And it also contained reviews of Sean O'Brien's anthology The Firebox, along with the Armitage / Crawford collection, AND Ian Sansom on The Deregulated Muse!
Meanwhile, I read something like 90pp of SO'B's pomes earlier in the day so for once I knew a little of what I was talking about, I mean, reading about.
I am not wholly sold on his... subtlety? intelligence?
But I guess what's thrown me most is the wee sketch of bristling him next to Sansom's review.
Should I blame the Nipper?
― the pomefox, Saturday, 10 April 2004 08:04 (twenty years ago) link
Most of it is real; crap.
― Ally C (Ally C), Saturday, 10 April 2004 11:44 (twenty years ago) link
And grave by grave we civilize the ground.
― cozen (Cozen), Saturday, 10 April 2004 11:53 (twenty years ago) link
― the spellfox, Saturday, 10 April 2004 12:26 (twenty years ago) link
(is there any nipper writing in them?)
JtN: you were otm re: 'Skid'. my copy arrived this morning; I'm enthralled.
― cozen (Cozen), Saturday, 10 April 2004 16:11 (twenty years ago) link
If the Nipper was in, the country, he could tell us, naturally, or artificially.
I think that JtN provided some of the best moments in the guid magazine, but I am [fill in word: you decide].
― the spellfox, Saturday, 10 April 2004 16:58 (twenty years ago) link
Summer 1998, vol 88, #2: JtN on Farley: pp.88-89
Winter 1998, vol 88, #4: JtN on Pessoa: pp.13-14.
The second piece (there) quotes Paterson and Rimbaud, and mentions FO'B and a tad obliquely JJ's tenners.
The first piece (above) mentions the Dandy Warhols, Thomas Pynchon and... Don Paterson.
How long can you hold out?
― the pomefox, Saturday, 10 April 2004 17:05 (twenty years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Saturday, 10 April 2004 18:19 (twenty years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Saturday, 10 April 2004 18:22 (twenty years ago) link
Odd... premonition of Ewing.
― the pinefox, Saturday, 10 April 2004 22:30 (twenty years ago) link
(from Bob Perelman's "Chronic Meanings".)
― ...in bed. (Chris Piuma), Sunday, 11 April 2004 09:03 (twenty years ago) link
― the pomefox, Sunday, 11 April 2004 09:54 (twenty years ago) link
I have been re-reading things. Some of it is perhaps not crap.
― Ally C (Ally C), Sunday, 11 April 2004 10:31 (twenty years ago) link
― the bellefox, Sunday, 11 April 2004 13:39 (twenty years ago) link
― Ally C (Ally C), Monday, 12 April 2004 09:45 (twenty years ago) link
My Little Utopia
Why the high, wrought-iron fenceWith sharp spikesAnd four padlocks and a chainOver the heavy gate?
I drop by in late afternoon.Make sure it's locked,And peek through the barsAt the rows of sunny flowers.
The tree-lined winding pathAlready streaked with shadowMasking a couple kissingAs they mosey away from me.
Charles Simic
― donald, Monday, 12 April 2004 12:12 (twenty years ago) link
From Sean O'Brien, 'The Park By The Railway'
(this one might be quite good, I think)
― the pomefox, Tuesday, 13 April 2004 07:58 (twenty years ago) link
― Ally C (Ally C), Tuesday, 13 April 2004 11:53 (twenty years ago) link
It's all good.
― the pomefox, Wednesday, 14 April 2004 17:37 (twenty years ago) link
the first lines of Portrait of Tragedy - Joseph brodsky
― aimurchie (aimurchie), Friday, 16 April 2004 04:24 (twenty years ago) link
third stanza Portrait of Tragedy - Joseph Brodsky
― aimurchie (aimurchie), Friday, 16 April 2004 04:34 (twenty years ago) link
He picked you for your hair to play this role: a look had reached Bootle from Altamont that year. You wouldn’t say you sold your soul but learned your line inside a beating tent
(From 'Keith Chegwin as Fleance' - Paul Farley)
― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Friday, 16 April 2004 12:04 (twenty years ago) link
(From 'Whang Editorial Policy' by Mark Halliday. Full text here: http://www.poetrysociety.org.uk/review/pr88-4/halliday.htm)
― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Friday, 16 April 2004 12:07 (twenty years ago) link
But I sacked the presumptuous hag the next week,I was that lonely.
(from 'The Geranium' By Theodore Roethke)
― Archel (Archel), Friday, 16 April 2004 13:20 (twenty years ago) link
(the end of 'Frost At Midnight' by ST Coleridge obv. I have always loved that last line quite unreasonably much.)
― Archel (Archel), Friday, 16 April 2004 13:25 (twenty years ago) link
― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Friday, 16 April 2004 13:47 (twenty years ago) link
― Ally C (Ally C), Friday, 16 April 2004 15:42 (twenty years ago) link