So do you think the poet is drawing consciously here on the fairy-princess
tradition, ironizing it, however slightly, or just channeling its left-over
poetic modes?
jd
On 7/6/07, Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> "crushed chrysanthemum petals underfoot" rang my bell. WCW should sue.
>
> At 01:52 AM 7/6/2007, you wrote:
> >Cor !!'What am I but the flower of your deepest self?'
> >Patrick
> >
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> >Behalf Of joe green
> >Sent: 06 July 2007 02:37
> >To: [log in to unmask]
> >Subject: Re: more on rejections
> >
> >Good God!
> >
> >Frederick Pollack <[log in to unmask]> wrote: I sent my last collection
> to
> >a contest. Prairie Schooner literary prize. Big - $3000 + publication.
> >Didn't really think I'd win - my work is intolerable, grating, impossible
> -
> >but was curious what would. This lady did. I googled her, found
> following
> >recent poem. Leave aside how obviously well-connected she is, in what is
> >supposed to be an impartial contest. I have to say I admire her poem, in
> an
> >Aristotelian way: it is something perfect of its kind. Which is that of
> >nice sentimental escapist cliche-ridden shapeless Sensitive mainstream
> >blobcrap. As I recall, I sent another lovely example of the genre
> sometime
> >last year. Enjoy.
> >
> >The Bush Warbler Laments to the Woodcutter
> >
> >I offered you sanctuary with one condition.
> >Even this much you could not hold.
> >
> >When you looked into the forbidden chamber
> >my three daughters became birds
> >and flew away from me forever.
> >
> >Memory of our transgressions is a stone. It lies
> >on the seabed of our deepest forgetting.
> >
> >-regret and sorrow in the making
> >
> >Before you came I swept this house daily
> >with a long broom of rice straw.
> >
> >Often I would wander from room to room,
> >touching each treasure as I passed:
> >
> >a golden screen, three red lacquer bowls-
> >Now, all is dust suspended in late sunlight.
> >
> >This forest house, with its paper doors and secrets,
> >is too large for me now. Let it dissolve in mist
> >and absence, no trace left for the lost children.
> >
> >What am I but the flower of your deepest self?
> >
> >-crushed chrysanthemum petals underfoot
> >
> >Instead, I am cast out across vast distances,
> >circling far above the trees, never to be human.
> >
> >You will say that a grand house once stood
> >in a forest clearing. Then: nothing but birdcalls.
> >
> >Longing itself is nothing but the heart's open spaces.
> >
> >-regret and sorrow, come calling
> >
> >If I could make it so, I would be the one left alone
> >in the meadow, rubbing my eyes and wondering.
> >
> >Remember this: I, once a woman, took you in,
> >an exchange for a promise kept.
> >
> >Three maidens startled, then transformed into birds.
> >
> >Whatever you abandon returns in your dreams.
> >
> >
> >Mari L'Esperance is a graduate of New York University's creative writing
> >program, where she was a New York Times Company Foundation Creative
> Writing
> >Fellow. L'Esperance's poems have appeared in Pequod, The Beloit Poetry
> >Journal, Barnabe Mountain Review, Salamander, and several other
> periodicals
> >and an anthology. A chapbook manuscript, Begin Here, was awarded first
> prize
> >in the 1999 Sarasota Poetry Theatre Press national chapbook competition
> and
> >was published in 2000. In 2002 L'Esperance received a Pushcart Prize
> >nomination for her poem "Pantoum of the Blind Cambodian Women", which was
> >published in The Worcester Review. L'Esperance has been awarded residency
> >grants from Dorland Mountain Arts Colony and Hedgebrook. She has taught
> >creative writing at NYU, Merritt College in Oakland, California, and the
> >Academy of Art University in San Francisco. She is currently training to
> be
> >a psychotherapist and lives in Oakland.
> >
> >L'Esperance, who is of Japanese and French Canadian-American descent, was
> >born in Kobe, Japan and raised in southern California, Micronesia, and
> >Japan.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >---------------------------------
> >Boardwalk for $500? In 2007? Ha!
> >Play Monopoly Here and Now (it's updated for today's economy) at Yahoo!
> >Games.
> >
> >
> >--
> >No virus found in this incoming message.
> >Checked by AVG Free Edition.
> >Version: 7.5.476 / Virus Database: 269.10.0/886 - Release Date:
> 04/07/2007
> >13:40
>
--
Joseph Duemer
Professor of Humanities
Clarkson University
[sharpsand.net]
|