----- Original Message -----
From: "andrew burke" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, December 01, 2007 4:48 PM
Subject: Re: "Midrash"
> Thanks for that explanation, Frederick. I also like the poem enormously
> but
> would like to change two things, if you'd be in agreeance.
>
> Attributing the angel to Walter Benjamin in the poem makes it a literary
> allusion, whereas if you put a quote from WB about the 'angel of history'
> above the poem, the angel in the poem could be more directly realised. It
> is
> a strong angel image so I feel it should be in the foreground, not clouded
> by an agent bewteen reader and poem.
>
> And, a simple matter, you have two 'Buts' close together.
>>to turn, to warn us. But his wings
> are caught in something spiky and
> gluey. He's completely immobilized
> as the pile before him slumps and settles.
>
> But immobility for an angel
> isn't the same as for us. He moves among us,
> impeccably invisible in any
> context, a turban, a baseball cap,<
>
> How about scrapping the second But? 'Immobility for an angel / isn't ...'
>
> While I'm sticking my nose into your poem, the term 'sub-prime-mortgaged'
> seems too ... temporary for me. I can't find the exact right word, but it
> clunked for me and drew attention to the Writing and distracted from the
> Angel. Is it just me? We in Australia only hear this term in economic
> reports on TV news when referring to USA's volatile finance sector, so it
> is
> not an 'everyday' phrase for us.
>
> Finally I'd like to say it is one of the best poems I have ever read on
> this
> list. Thanks, Frederick.
>
> Andrew
>
>
I really have to think about these suggestions - they're very thoughtful.
The many "but"s - I was aware of those and wanted them, because all this
angel's movements, his whole existence (including while he was being blown
backward) are an alternative to something; they are either entrapment or a
compensation. He can't simply move or even look forward (what "forward"
would mean is the real mystery, even more than what he is now stuck in);
neither can the grammar. You may be right about an initial quote and
"sub-prime-mortgaged"; I have to think about it. (Though most of the
world's stock markets are in convulsions, now, because of the idiotic
short-sightedness of US sub-prime mortgage lending.)
|