Dear Mike,
Thanks for your comments.
   This goes back to the earlier discussion about discursive poems. I feel
there's a fine line between discursive and didactic. In the past it was okay
for poets to be didactic, they were often regarded as prophetic or inspired,
repositories of higher sensibilities, so they could lecture the hoi polloi
about what was what. But that has changed so much I feel that, in some
American circles at least, it will soon be considered positively
distasteful for a poet to state anything, or make any opinion plain. The
proper poetic position will be like that of a news-journalist, expected to
represent both sides dispassionately. I often read poems which aren't really
about anything much, vague feelings of nostalgia,unease, responding to nice
landscapes,etc, that woolly area's okay, but please, no assertions or strong
feelings. We don't like THAT sort of thing, thanks very much - we're far too
refined.
Kind regards,
  grasshopper

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Horwood" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, January 24, 2003 7:41 AM
Subject: Re: [THE-WORKS] Carrier


Hello Grasshopper,
                   This is really good. It´s full of wonderful phrases. I
love `dampened lovingly´, `the intimate juices of discarded tissues´( oh, my
goodness), `significance of nothings´(very witty) and many more. And the
internal rhymes and variations on sounds, and the rhythm of the lines. The
only thing that jars a bit is the ending. This Dog´s got everything, you
don´t need God.



Best wishes,   Mike


--- Alkuperäinen viesti ---
This is a very first draft that came today, after rescuing a sodden pome
from my dog's chops, so be as brutal as you like... I am v unsure about it..


Carrier

My dog is a carrier, not of disease,
but of bits and pieces, scraps, snippets, litter,
torn cardboard, notepaper.
Some are rescued from the fliptop bin,
dampened lovingly, sucked for lingering traces,
some found adrift, air-lifted, fostered.
Ah, how the transparent case holds the essence
of chocolate ghosts. the intimate juices
of discarded tissues, the syrup of a sugar-bag.
I, with my rubbish mentality, wonder at
this bliss of littleness, tastiness of trifles,
significance of nothings.

I clear away. She exhumes, redistributes,
attentive, soft-mouthed,
a muscular re-cycling unit, warm, inexorable.
If God exists, may he/she lift me from the heap
of throw-away,  and mumble me into a word
like dog.

  grasshopper