I'm reading poems by Sharon Olds
and Weldon Kees, drinking coffee beside
the kitchen table; late afternoon after
thunderstorm that came atop but didn't
break the sweltering heat. Her poems
tend to be long and apt, my mind connecting
their matter to current events, Leningrad
under siege in 1941 to Gaza Strip. But I
can't do either long or current this
moment, so no May 1968, no moving
into another language her poetical gaze
that looks at first in, figuratively
and literally into the poet's own body,
and then opens that gaze to expand into
a panorama of the landscape of life. It
should then be Kees, who to me seems
walk the streets of the same America
as characters in Bradbury and Kerouac,
there's the imprint, like their works
would be bought from the same
giftshop selling authentical circa 1940
white, male American dreams turned
into nostalgia with darkness encroaching.
Same small towns, before the Fall
and after, That Winter. He's just a bit
more broken, not as good as Olds,
caught in the whirlpool of his own
misery. A truly good poet is caught
in the misery of others, a great one
alleviates it, or so I prefer to think
in my personal canon. But Kees,
rarely evoking comparisons to
the horrors of the current time,
tends to be long too, like I'm here,
and perhaps I should just do
a haiku or a tanka to break
the spell, to get the engine
going again. I was told
translating is stealing
and for sure I get
sustenance out
of it.
19.07.2024
#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse
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