Books: Freer Verse
(2 of 2)
showing
even
without
a
deep
breath
thin
legs
rotted
with
disease.
Live
here!
on
this
page,
barely
making
it,
like
the
mass
of
mankind.
Bill Knott, 28, who writes under the name Saint Geraud, makes his point even more apocalyptically in To American Poets:
There's no time left to write poems.
If you will write rallying cries, yes, do so,
otherwise write poems then throw yourselves on the river to drift away.
Li Po's peachblossom, even if it departs this world, can't help us.
Pound's or Williams' theories on prosody don't meet the cries of dying children
(whose death I think is no caesura).
Soon there will be no ideas but in things,
in nibble, in skulls held under the oceans' magnifying-glass,
in screams driven into one lightning-void. . .
Only you can resurrect the present. People
need your voice to come among them like nakedness,
to fuse them into one marching language in which the
word "peace" will be said for the last time.
"Ah who shall soothe these feverish children/ Who justify these restless explorations?" wrote Whitman, who has been dead long enough to find a place in the hagiography of hip. As of now, few young poets feel the need to justify their work with critical commentary. George Amabile's response is typical: "I can't think of anything that wouldn't sound pompous or absurd." Such an attitude may not prove healthy for poetics, but it is good for poetry.
- « PREV PAGE
- 1
- 2
Most Popular »
- The '00s: Goodbye (at Last) to the Decade From Hell
- The Growing Backlash Against Overparenting
- Obama's 'Mistakes': Way Too Early to Judge
- The Gospel of Glee: Is It Anti-Christian?
- In His Cave, a Palestinian Farmer Makes a Stand
- When Thanksgiving Comes to Afghanistan
- Couple Crashes Obama's State Dinner
- One Year After the Mumbai Massacre, a Trial Plods On
- Ahmadinejad in Brazil: Why Lula Defies the U.S.
- California Judge Challenging Obama on Gay Rights
- The Growing Backlash Against Overparenting
- The '00s: Goodbye (at Last) to the Decade From Hell
- The Gospel of Glee: Is It Anti-Christian?
- When Thanksgiving Comes to Afghanistan
- Zhu Zhu Mania: Hamster Toys Are Ruling Christmas
- Obama's 'Mistakes': Way Too Early to Judge
- In His Cave, a Palestinian Farmer Makes a Stand
- Five Things the U.S. Can Learn from China
- One Year After the Mumbai Massacre, a Trial Plods On
- Ahmadinejad in Brazil: Why Lula Defies the U.S.







RSS