Monday 2 June 2008

Losing it

All week have struggled with the poem for the on-line course, it was Hass's mutilated poem again. Rage is not helpful.

Today managed to post an offering, a lousy poem. I didn't much like other people's either.

Maybe the lyrical poem is not my genre.
Maybe it is ridiculous for someone as unschooled in the art of poem writing as I am to assume after such a short time practicing that I know what 'my genre' is.
Talk of a straight-jacket.

I have to write a review for Thursday and had planned to write about David Whyte. I got his book from the library last week, I've read bits of it here and there and now I cannot find it. I spend an inordinate amount of time looking for objects. I shall have to be patient and it will re-emerge, though I've looked under the bed and under the seats in the car already, besides the other obvious places.

At a pinch I'll review something else, I have an Israeli poet - not Amichai.
Maybe it should be Amichai? Paul Muldoon has a poem dedicated to him in his book. I hadn't known he'd died, it was a bit of a shock, like losing a relative. At the book signing, I said so to Muldoon, and he saw I was moved - he said, Did you know him? And I said, Not personally.

Muldoon's poem is about a hand-grenade versus a pomegranate. Clever, but not deep enough.

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