Hi Mike,
One of your best, IMO!
There's one or two small niggles, where the almost-casual tone I associate
with the New York School and your wording don't quite meet... I'll highlight
what I saw/heard.
It's a delight to read and savour none the less.
Bob
Who, speaking personallally as well as critically, wonders if this style may
well be one for you to follow for a few more poems...
>From: Mike Horwood <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: New sub: Reading the New York poets
>Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 11:38:52 +0300
>
>The words that appear between asterisks are taken directly from The New
>York Poets: An Anthology edited by Mark Ford. The excerpts are from the
>introduction by Ford and from poems by Frank O´Hara and James Schuyler. In
>the normal course of events these words would be in italics but it´s not
>possible with email. This merely confirms what I have long believed, that
>there is nothing `normal´ about email (If God had wanted us to....etc)
>
>
>
>
>Reading the New York poets in my garden
>
>*`The New York School of Poets´
>is both a useful label
>and something of a misnomer.*
>
>The last drips of last night´s rain
>drop from the end of the drainpipe
>into the water butt. They´ve been doing WATER BUTT - VERY AMERIC-SPEAK
>WORDS
>this for hours. I know because I´ve watched.
>*And here I am, the
>center of all beauty!*
>
>Ripples catch the light each time
>a new drip falls and the concrete half-pipe
>sparkles with overflow where it meets SPARKLES WITH OVERFLOW??? FAR TOO
>INVENTIVE FOR THE POEM AND IT'S STYLE!!!!
>the grass. The sun is gaining heat
>but in the shade the wet ground
>chills the air that moves across my skin.
>
>*reader! You open the page
>my poems stare at you you
>stare back, do you not?*
>I laid my book on the garden table
>while I considered possible
>reasons for that continued dripping
>so long after the rain had stopped
>but I´ve decided to simply accept
>it and go back to my reading.
>
>*Oh, forget it. Reading,
>writing, knowing other poets
>will do it, if there is
>anything doing. By the by did you know*
>we recently put grass seeds over a bare
>patch where we dug up a shrub?
>Many have sprouted, fine as hair.
>Some strands are so thin I only see them
>with my face close to the earth.
>Last night´s rain has done them good.
>The smell of moist peat has merged
>with chicken droppings. Fecundity smells like this.
>*The fresh-mown lawn is a rug underneath
>which is swept the dirt, the living dirt
>out of which our nurture comes.*
>
>And water is beautiful. Water in
>sunlight. The barrel below the eaves
>stands in the sun. I could give
>that new grass some more water,
>keep that nurturing dirt wet.
>
>
>
>
>Mike
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