> Thanks, Catherine.
> Lähettäjä: catherine JF <[log in to unmask]>
> Päiväys: 2004/10/08 pe PM 01:45:00 GMT+03:00
> Vastaanottaja: [log in to unmask]
> Aihe: Re: New sub: Reading the New York poets
>
> This poem was a treat Mike. Good work!
>
> Catherine
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Mike Horwood<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: 07 October 2004 09:38
> Subject: New sub: Reading the New York poets
>
>
> 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
> 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
> 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
>
>
|