-I love the casual tone throughout this poem, especially the opening line premise, "I'd like to live a slower life."
----Original Message-----
From: Barry Alpert <[log in to unmask]>
To: POETRYETC <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sun, Apr 26, 2020 7:13 am
Subject: Re: a poem that might fit these days
Thanks, Doug, for placing a poem about the weather in front of my eyes as the local version of it (rain most of today, 2 off days, and then 3 rainy days in a row) interferes with my morel forays towards the end of that season locally. Someone found 320 of them not that far away from where I live, but I was too early at the only site which I can access where I have found them in the past. Another much more developed site (by the county & the state) as public gardens as well as a center building for supporting interior activities including mingling closely with live butterflies has been officially closed with no reason posted which I've seen but considering the state governor's relatively recent restrictions pertaining to the corona virus . . .
I admire the manner by which John Newlove gives "the weather" its own line (if not authorship of the whole poem) after writing two 7 line stanzas followed by an 8 line stanza in which he frontally claims never having taken count before. Barry
On Sun, 26 Apr 2020 09:57:47 +1000, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>Beautiful, Doug. The weather gets in my words. What a line.
>
>Bill
>Doug, this is a very revealing and warming place to go. Thank you for
>sharing the John Newlove poem. Sheila
>
>On Sun, 26 Apr 2020 at 2:34 am, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]>
>wrote:
>
>> The Weather
>>
>> John Newlove
>> From: Apology for Absence: Selected Poems 1962-1992. Erin, Ontario:
>> Porcupine's Quill, 1993. p.180.
>>
>> I'd like to live a slower life.
>> The weather gets in my words
>> and I want them dry. Line after line
>> writes itself on my face, not a grace
>> of age but wrinkled humour. I laugh
>> more than I should or more
>> than anyone should. This is good.
>>
>> But guess again. Everyone leans, each
>> on each other. This is a life
>> without an image. But only
>> because nothing does much more
>> than just resemble. Do the shamans
>> do what they say they do, dancing?
>> This is epistemology.
>>
>> This is guesswork, this is love,
>> this is giving up gorgeousness to please you,
>> you beautiful dead to be. God bless
>> the weather and the words. Any words. Any weather.
>> And where or whom. I'd never taken count before.
>> I wish I had. And then
>> I did. And here
>> the weather wrote again.
>>
>>
>>
>> I find myself going back to various poets who meant so much to me when i
>> started out, & Newlove was one, brilliant from the beginning.
>> Doug
>> Douglas Barbour
>> [log in to unmask]
>> https://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
>>
>> Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuations
>> 2 (UofAPress).
>> Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
>> Listen. If (UofAPress):
>>
>>
>> Shakespeare
>> drag yr mouldy old bones
>> up these stairs & tell me
>> what you died of,
>> I think
>> I’ve got it
>> too.
>>
>> Sharon Thesen
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