[New-Poetry] Fwd: Conversation Pieces: Poems That Talk to Other Poems

Fri Apr 13 18:00:40 EDT 2007

One of my favorites, by Annie Finch:

Sir, I am not a bird of prey:

a Lady does not seize the day.

http://www.usm.maine.edu/~afinch/mistress.htm

jforjames at aol.com wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: knopfpoetry at info.randomhouse.com
> Sent: Thu, 12 Apr 2007 8:00 AM
> Subject: Conversation Pieces: Poems That Talk to Other Poems
>
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> http://www.aaknopf.com/enewsletter/poetry07/12_conversation.html 
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> <http://info.randomhouse.com/cgi-bin21/DM/y/jsJb0DXKYc0Wa0IEM0Ey> 	
> 	 
>
> 	In the introduction to /CONVERSATION PIECES: Poems That Talk to Other 
> Poems/ 
> <http://info.randomhouse.com/cgi-bin21/DM/y/jsJb0DXKYc0Wa0zQO0E2>, 
> editors Kurt Brown and Harold Schechter write, "In much lyric poetry, 
> as Helen Vendler observes, we are, in effect, listening to the voice 
> of a solitary poet addressing someone unseen, 'someone not in the 
> room'—a lover, a patron, a lost friend or family member. In the poems 
> collected here, that invisible someone is another poet. As we read we 
> can hear one artist talk back to another in admiration or 
> exasperation, praise or mockery, gentle rebuke or bitter disagreement. 
> The monologue is suddenly transformed into a dialogue, the solitary 
> meditation into an impassioned debate, the soliloquy into a 
> conversation conducted across space and time." The unusual and 
> enriching collection they've compiled is made up of pairings like the 
> one below, in which a contemporary poem by James Longenbach "answers" 
> the 16th-century love complaint of Sir Thomas Wyatt.
>
>
>
> 	*"They Flee from Me That Sometime Did Me Seek"*
>
> They flee from me that sometime did me seek
>     With naked foot stalking in my chamber.
> I have seen them gentle tame and meek
>     That now are wild and do not remember
>     That sometime they put themselves in danger
> To take bread at my hand; and now they range
> Busily seeking with continual change.
>
> Thank'd be fortune, it hath been otherwise
>     Twenty times better; but once in special,
> In thin array after a pleasant guise,
>     When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,
>     And she caught me in her arms long and small,
> Therewith all sweetly did me kiss,
> And softly said, /Dear heart, how like you this?/
>
> It was no dream: I lay broad waking.
>     But all is turned from my gentleness
> Into a strange fashion of forsaking;
>     And I have leave to go of her goodness,
>     And she also to use new-fangleness.
> But since that I so kindely am served,
> I would fain know what she hath deserved.
>
>
> Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-42)
>
>
>
>
> *Before Time*
>
> On one or two occasions
> It was different: she lingered
>
> At the window, turned—I was
> Desirable because for a moment
>
> I was anybody. The distance
> Seemed to disappear without us
> Moving but more than what followed
>
> I remember the open window.
> Taxis idling by the park.
> Streetlights shining
>
> Through the hemlock and the usual sounds
> Of traffic, shouts—all of it
> Starkly present and at the same time
>
> Incomplete; as if a space I'd never
> Wanted had been filled
>
> At the moment
> I wanted it: branches
>
> Swirling at the window as
> Her clothing dropped
> To the floor. If I have chance
>
> To thank for this moment
> I'd like to know what she deserved.
>
>
> James Longenbach (1959–)
>
> 	
>
>
>
>
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>
> "They Flee from Me That Sometime Did Me Seek" excerpted from 
> CONVERSATION PIECES. Copyright © 2007 by Everyman's Library. Excerpted 
> by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. All 
> rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or 
> reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
>
> "Before Time" excerpted from CONVERSATION PIECES, originally appeared 
> in FLEET RIVER by James Longenbach. Copyright © 2003 by The University 
> of Chicago Press. Excerpted by permission of The University of Chicago 
> Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced 
> or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
>
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-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/