Fred,
I want to thank you for your "Ellen Avery." (Oh the tragedy of trying, somehow adequately, to thank a poet for a poem!)
Do writers KNOW when their words cause shivery stirring? Do you know?
Many of your words, these only a very few, caused me such feelings:
"if familiarity were tolerance"
"dread a bit more his retirement"
"as if we were two grownups mumbling over a child"
"herself another piece of driftwood washed here on her husband's tide
in contrast to my own careful docking"
"a fading number tells her where she's from"
"when I start without a salutation I know that one's to me"
Judy unable to find closing words or even her usual AKA's
--- Original Message -----
From: "Fred Pollack" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, July 01, 2005 6:25 PM
> -------------- Original message --------------
>
>> Missile-aneus thoughts, Fred:
>>
>> U R a celestial body orbiting (that's the first thought)
>>
>> Hav U done a dialog pome?
>>
>> (hav just come in from the f-----g 4th o Jooly traffic OY they're on killer
>> missions i wanna tell ya and all this to celebrate why we ain't Brits no mo!)
>> which leads to next thought:
>>
>> Hav U tried to open a beer with your nose? (just askin)
>>
>> I wanna see a Fred pome that equates power with women
>>
>> and I don't want U, Fred, to abandon your character-narration pome form (at
>> least not for the aforerequesteds)
>>
>> and, finally, watching firewerks from a sailboat is better than
>> ---------------(mebbe this assignment's too easy)
>>
>> Judy the celestial body
>>
> Why would I open a bottle of beer with my nose? Other members, perhaps, but not the nose.
> Some dialogue poems years back, but have no access to my files. Computer is on the blink. Am using a spare laptop from my wife's office.
> Poems equating women and power? Well, I've been considering a sequence on Messalina, or maybe Catherine the Great. Here's one about A woman and integrity, which is something different:
> ELLEN AVERY
> The tourists have gone; I can't say
> I'll miss their endless peering when,
> bored with crabcakes and toffee
> or having somehow lost their parking lot,
> they roam briefly inland and pass
> the grimy window of my studio.
> If I painted the one view of the one beach,
> like so many others, they'd ignore me;
> but looking in, they wonder what
> I'm doing ... What am I doing?
> ( - Remember how angry I was
> fifty years ago, when Marya said
> those first Pollocks I saw with her
> would make a lovely chintz.
> I'd be more tolerant now;
> as would she, if she were alive and if
> familiarity were tolerance.)
> It's autumn, time to hang another piece
> on the wall opposite the screens
> on which dear Dr. Gilder hangs my x-rays,
> take back last April's offering, dread
> a bit more his retirement,
> thrill like a girl when he marvels
> how well I'm doing actually
> (considering), and talk -
> as if we were two grownups
> mumbling over a child -
> about poor Sarah, my survivor friend.
> Who "should be in a home -
> we relaly must confront that,"
> says Doctor G., quite thoroughly confused
> when I agree, sharply: "Yes, she should have a home."
> (Instead of a room *chez a niece
> who is pious and narrow and mean,
> herself another piece
> of driftwood washed here on a husband's tide
> in contrast to my own careful docking.)
> "I'll take you in, and we'll go down together,"
> is what I say to Sarah when
> we hobble among the tourists,
> shying from their beliies
> and their explosive and unhappy kids,
> admiring the nearly naked young,
> enjoying the usual view, the noisy gays.
> It's hard for her to get lost, I tell the doctor:
> the town is small, and anyway
> most of her life, she says,
> has been a grand though unaccountable
> and possible pointless voyage;
> a fading number tells her where she's from.
> She'll take up no room -
> which is good, for I have none;
> especially now it's fall
> and my other friends, who have hidden
> all summer, come
> at dusk to drink and argue while I cook.
> All men, which means their various pains are tragic;
> or at least glorious, like
> their wealth, such as it is,
> their politics or art, such as they were,
> their late regretted wives.
> I love them most, I think, when they mostly talk
> to themselves: Douglas describing
> a memorably rude tourist;
> Howard a book, a traveler's account
> of a strange old settlement
> in Paraguay, where someone said
> after the War, "At least we have made others suffer."
> He wonders at that, ignored, shaking his head.
> Of course they can be trying
> when they begin to repeat themselves, or trail off.
> Or when, despite my orders,
> they attempt to help me clean.
> These longer, quiet nights are also time
> for letters. (Doug insists
> he'll buy me a computer ...
> I prefer his nagging and his tales
> of endless information, fabulous ease.)
> There are still surprisingly many
> to write, and even some that will be answered;
> though when I start without a salutation
> I know that one's to me.
>
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