[New-Poetry] The secret of poetry

[Anny Ballardini]

The poem is beautiful and your introduction gave me the shivers. 
On a different note:
Life goes on inclemently and we spend it reading.
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: David Graham 
  To: NewPoetry & Views 
  Sent: Saturday, November 03, 2007 5:54 PM
  Subject: [New-Poetry] The secret of poetry


  With the news of Jon Anderson's death I went to the library and checked out his 1983 new-and-selected poems, *The Milky Way*, which I remembered reading long ago, but not much else about it.   Nor could I recall any single poem by Anderson.


  Here's some sort of parable of his career, and about the poetry scene generally:  the last person to check out this book was me, in 1988.  Sic transit. 



  The Secret Of Poetry
               
  When I was lonely, I thought of death.
  When I thought of death I was lonely.

  I suppose this error will continue.
  I shall enter each gray morning

  Delighted by frost, which is death,
  & the trees that stand alone in mist.

  When I met my wife I was lonely.
  Our child in her body is lonely.

  I suppose this error will go on & on.
  Morning I kiss my wife's cold lips,

  Nights her body, dripping with mist.
  This is the error that fascinates.

  I suppose you are secretly lonely,
  Thinking of death, thinking of love.

  I'd like, please, to leave on your sill
  Just one cold flower, whose beauty

  Would leave you inconsolable all day.
  The secret of poetry is cruelty. 

  --Jon Anderson.  The Milky Way:  Poems 1967-1982.   Ecco, 1983.







  ========================================
  David Graham
  grahamd at ripon.edu


  Home Page:
  http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/About%20Me.html


  Poetry Library:
  http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
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