On the subject of writing poetry

Well, we had our first truly chilly night last night. For the first time, Lynn closed the sindow above our bed because she was too cold. I don't think we had frost, in fact I am sure we didn't. But there is a heavy dew on the cars this morning.

the sunlight has taken on that odd golden quality, when the angle of the beams is more oblique than right. One of the trees on the outer edge of the empty lot across the street from us has begun turning color--the one tree that always does each year, a flamboyant red head in a gold lamé dress standing among the somber forest green.

Asters and goldenrod bloom along the edge. In a small section of grass, smartweed is a small sea of briliant pink blossoms.

From this morning's Writer's Almanac.

Poem: "Berryman," by W.S. Merwin from Flower & Hand (Copper Canyon Press).


Berryman

I will tell you what he told me
in the years just after the war
as we then called
the second world war

don't lose your arrogance yet he said
you can do that when you're older
lose it too soon and you may
merely replace it with vanity

just one time he suggested
changing the usual order
of the same words in a line of verse
why point out a thing twice

he suggested I pray to the Muse
get down on my knees and pray
right there in the corner and he
said he meant it literally

it was in the days before the beard
and the drink but he was deep
in tides of his own through which he sailed
chin sideways and head tilted like a tacking sloop

he was far older than the dates allowed for
much older than I was he was in his thirties
he snapped down his nose with an accent
I think he had affected in England

as for publishing he advised me
to paper my wall with rejection slips
his lips and the bones of his long fingers trembled
with the vehemence of his views about poetry

he said the great presence
that permitted everything and transmuted it
in poetry was passion
passion was genius and he praised movement and invention

I had hardly begun to read
I asked how can you ever be sure
that what you write is really
any good at all and he said you can't

you can't you can never be sure
you die without knowing
whether anything you wrote was any good
if you have to be sure don't write

Happy Autumn.
Edie

"The office desk is a petri dish, and our culture is a virus"

For those of you who don't know, cd332 writes insightful entries that are well worth reading: I'd like to link you to his latest gem. It's for all those corporate drones who long to be pirates of the business world.

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