[New-Poetry] Head scratch

[David Graham]

Sometimes I just scratch my head at the Academy of American Poets.   
Today's daily poem offering, from Richard Kenney, strikes me as a  
most clunky bit of doggerel.

It's titled "A Pot of Tea."  Here's are 2 stanzas; see what you think:

Ginseng or the scent of lymph
Or consequences queasing
Into wide awareness, whence,
Like an engine seizing

Society remits a shudder
Showing it has feeling,
And the divers all have shaving cuts
And the future’s in Darjeeling—

And here's the whole thing, if you're thirsty for more:


http://www.poets.org/sponsor-book-profile.php/prmBookID/512/ 
prmSponsorID/167? 
utm_source=poemaday_040908&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=content_li 
nk&utm_term=conent_sponsorbook

You certainly won't want to miss the rhyme of "earring" with "Hermann  
Göring," in any case.  Yes, I know that this is probably intended to  
be gloriously Byronic and breezy, but my ears catch mostly the  
huffing of someone who's trying too hard.

*This* is the long-awaited book from Kenney--winner of both the Yale  
Younger & a MacArthur?  This is the best Knopf can find to publish  
these days, and the Academy to spotlight?  Kenney's written some very  
fine verse, and I hope the rest of his new book contains nothing  
but.  But. . . .




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

Home Page:
http://web.mac.com/drjazz

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