Yes, Fred,
all of what Judy says, and more.
More than 'nice' - much packed dramatic thought/feeling...
Max
Quoting Judy Prince <[log in to unmask]>:
> I found each of these breathtaking, Fred.
> They felt compelled and compelling, no words wasted.
>
> The first, 'Cliche', evoked the suffocated feeling in the strongest parts of
> August Strindberg's _Dream Play_.
>
> The next, 'Eugenio de Andrade', shockingly shook us from spare magnificence
> to disgust and dismay.
>
> 'Ingenu' holds much the most figures, tautly drawn and powerful. It also
> seems the most sweeping, speeding of the several poems.
>
> Though I haven't much clue as to the matches and meanings of 'Years of The
> Stranger' it, too, screeches an insistent pile of magnificent metaphor. It
> burns words like a prophet's: "While the abusers of language,/ secular and
> religious, froth/ and choke on their lies until/ they occupy all media to
> correct them."
>
> And, finally, 'I'm Like Wow' nails that scary disconnect between
> generations, between teachers and their students, between 'hurry up' and
> 'you don't get it'----perhaps, fundamentally, two groups envying one
> another, competing for Top Dog title with complete ignorance of one
> another's rules, background, motives, awarenesses and expectations.
>
> NIce.
>
> Judy
>
> 2008/9/17 Frederick Pollack <[log in to unmask]>
>
> > Cliché
> >
> >
> > So polluted, it can't be water
> > I tread, am under, breathing,
> > knowing I shouldn't be …
> > Piss-colored light,
> > doors like old cardboard that
> > could mean escape but are
> > so rotted I put a hand through
> >
> > and awake, shouting. Dreams
> > are cliché, but this one was
> > so bad, someone must pay.
> > I seek him later on a floor without
> > exit or elevator, the key
> > to all the doors behind each door
> > and every door locked tight.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Eugénio de Andrade
> >
> >
> > With envy enough to excuse
> > another poem about reading,
> > I read Levitin's translation
> > of Eugénio de Andrade.
> > Who spoke with expertise
> > of the entrance to seasons,
> > of the specific diameter
> > of the smell of horses,
> > of a single immanent blade
> > of harvest. And I wonder
> > what analogue exists
> > for the child of cities
> > to earth, air, fire, and water
> > (fear, contempt, dependency, apathy)
> > or the poet's beloved familiars
> > goats, sheep, birds, cicadas
> > (fools, fanatics, fascists, and sociopaths).
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Ingénu
> >
> >
> > Before what is no longer called
> > second childhood comes a second adolescence.
> > Women you won't possess
> > drift as before
> > with drinks and bikinis
> > over the sand and into the lives of others,
> > vividly recounting
> > just out of hearing
> > secret criteria
> > you needed, till you gave up needing to know.
> > The world slips sideways like a beachball,
> > whether seen from waves or dunes
> > or the delusive shade
> > of an umbrella, which lets through
> > the deadliest ray.
> > Again the fear you won't be heard
> > however you pose and shout,
> > the posing vital for without it
> > is only nothingness, which wants you,
> > and childhood, which cast you out.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Years of the Stranger
> >
> >
> > The rapist at the point of rape
> > feels amazing pain in his groin
> > and crawls to the police to make it stop.
> > The molester finds a knife in his ass;
> > the torturer, everywhere in his body,
> > the measure of his art, until
> > he opens all the cells, and even then …
> > While the abusers of language,
> > secular and religious, froth
> > and choke on their lies until
> > they occupy all media to correct them.
> >
> > For years this image has been
> > my talisman, my charm. I think
> > I may use, here, the intimate pronoun,
> > no longer certain the myth
> > accomplished anything, and never having
> > imagined *myself the Avenger …
> > Of whom bullies, defying pain
> > with the disheartening
> > courage of bullies, demand
> > that he show himself, not hide
> > in a ubiquitous cold shadow,
> >
> > and he does! A nondescript fellow,
> > however immortal, lacking
> > the style of a Redeemer
> > with official backing –
> > that archetype which,
> > in his professorial tenor
> > from the midst of his work, he
> > spends years, years, an eternity
> > refuting. His words
> > seem over-nuanced, hard to understand,
> > like poetry to the common reader.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > I'm Like Wow
> >
> >
> > They believe in *getting on with their lives*,
> > a creed they learned at the feet
> > of serial absent parents
> > or when they beat some juvie rap. Professors
> > who can't get on with their lives
> > perceive the burden of their speech that staggers
> > forward like reggae,
> > their look of non-respect and non-contempt
> > that holds not even Culture in contempt.
> > It's the sort of regret
> > that lets them know they're getting on with their lives,
> > the precious unexperienced
> > experience, the unknown knowledge.
> > Such as that freedom
> > is archons, celestial policemen, hustling one
> > into the traffic, saying, *Move along*.
> >
>
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