Histrionics April 10, 2009

I quite like this article from Poetry Daily, especially the mention of Milosz and the surrounding passage:
She was just listening; her first book wouldn’t appear for another twelve years. “At a certain moment,” she writes, “they announced someone named Milosz. He read calmly, without histrionics. As if he were simply thinking out loud and inviting [...]

Solace April 5, 2009

You won’t need to worry about having a home ever again.

Three Drafts of a Poem April 5, 2009

To further explain what I talk about in The Black Paintings—and because it might be fun to show how many changes have gone into this poem and how awful my metaphors can be sometimes—here are three drafts of the Venus and Mars inspired poem in chronological order:

The Black Paintings April 5, 2009

A major turning point in London was Botticelli’s Venus and Mars. I went out alone to see it knowing that I might be at the National Gallery for some time tracking it down. It was rare weather for London and the tube was sweltering. When I rounded the corner to Tralfagar the square was thick [...]

Forced to choose between a crow and seagull April 4, 2009

Forced to choose between a crow and seagull
she chose instead the crumbs between them:
a suffering close to giving, never in nature, instead
a process brings the grain together
the rueful miracle of bread, which the two birds ignore
squaking and circling and me with my questions and the world
we all want to place in childish metaphor.

Three April 4, 2009

The most distinctive element of any time Milos and Natasha spent together were the long and frequent pauses, pregnant with meaning, that would arrive without warning in the middle of the conversation. Though there was no precedence for their arrival they would interject themselves without hesitation and Natasha would purse her lips as if caught [...]