Tuesday, August 7, 2012

"That's what grad school does to you:

it burns your insides." So said Rebecca Thomas at the conclusion of the lyric poetry class.

Not that she was blaming the lyric, of course.

As everybody knows, poetry is where we take our burned out insides.

Language is, we learned, not gonna really do anything to satisfy desire, but, hey, what can you do?

As Jeremiah Shelor said, "Let's settle down... even if we don't have language, we're still going to die."

So, on that note, which is, I think, actually meant to be cheerful, consider these lines from Jorie Graham. We think she's got some talent.


All I was to invent in this life is there in the wicker basket among the lemons
having come from below the horizon where the sound of the market rises
...

I think that was the moment of my being given my name,
where I first heard the voices carrying the prices
as her face broke and its smile appeared bending down towards me
saying there you are, there you are.

—"Cagnes Sur Mer 1950" from P L A C E (Ecco, 2012)





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