Monday, March 3, 2008

exercise

I'm never sure if I should embrace or escape the narrative, or if either are really possible. I've been nostalgic lately (ha, as of late, as if it ever stops, daily) So I'm working on this. I'm working things. I'm not sure how I feel about the voice here, although it is a hard voice to get away from when I had to work with the Norton Anthology, and also with a voice I used to work with when I studied with this book. It brings it all back. Kalamazoo, with its familiarity and a walk to school, a drive to rocket star, the back porch kale. I loved that apartment, even though we feared the cats getting out.

The Norton Anthology

Your notes in my copy,
ink wells,
the blur of your
scripts. a,a,b,a,b,c.

c,d,d.

die, leave, and feel, adrienne rich
(me) saying things quietly,

through metaphor. My notes

on Dickinson, your blue heart below
Yeats.

The cankerworm was especially damaging to roses,

I don’t even remember,
and we met, apparently

in a Shakespearean Sonnet.

Season. Time. (it stops for no one) When I see all these things
I question yer beauty,

scorn. and virtue. Why the indifferent beak of Zeus,
poor Leda, and someone else before us both
writing notes for Pound and Eliot.

A cursive pencil
up against your arrow and ink pen.
My large changing script.

And
I remember
your big white bed
up against all the walls,
you moved it, so uncomfortable
within them,

and how empty the glasses were left that night,
and how empty they all are now.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Kelly, this is lovely.

The only thing I ran up against while reading it was: "your big white bed
up against all the walls,
you moved it, so uncomfortable
within them"

It's a bit cluttered here with the pronouns. On a first reading it stops me and makes me tie the "it" and the "them" back to him and the walls, which is a bit cumbersome. Perhaps, something like: "you moved your big white bed/up against every wall/you were so uncomfortable within them (maybe even "between them," instead?).

Anyway, I liked this beautiful poem so much I felt compelled, uncharacteristically, to leave a comment :)

K Ginger said...

thank you, anonymous.

Nikkita said...

I like this so much. I may need to print it so I can see it on paper and think over it more.

Thanks also for the Marianne Moore poem you left me. I've only given it a light read so far, but it beckons for more.

I hope you are well! You'll have a letter coming soon.

Emily said...

I love this. SO much! Before I read your comments I had printed it out to look at it on paper. funny, that was nikki's inclination as well.

love you, miss you. you're blossoming into quite the writer. I love it! I mean, you've always been good, but what you've been writing lately is great! I want to see more!