My recently retired friend in Dunedin emails me about the reading he is now
free to do...
(if he is right about poetry in England, where should I tell him to look?)
he writes:
feeling repeatedly irritated by the standard of poems printed in the TLS
(which a kind friend passes on to us).
I imagine there is good work being done in England, but it sure as hell
isnıt presented in the TLS!
Simple grammatical solecisms get through, first the authorıs brain, and then
the editorıs, such as this, from a poem by one Robert Crawford,
14 December 2007:
Empire
Everywhere now is Tenochtitlan
Now Tenochtitlanıs gone,
Its diorite pumpkins, grasshoppers carved from cornelian
Looted to far-flung museums.
The net, the web, pitches the world
Towards technopolitan Tenochtitlans,
Endless Aztec digital empires
Where each is captured, migrated, held
Even that hypnotic, caged
Puma in Montezumaıs zoo,
Gleaming chest rising and falling
In digitized, black-bristled sleep.
Iım happy to applaud his technopolitan Tenochtitlansı, but his use of
migratedı? And what does eachı refer to?
(Sgd: Grumpy Old Bastard).
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