[New-Poetry] Head scratch

[jforjames at aol.com]

Ideas stain the limpid mind
Even while it’s sleeping:

Perhaps the lines above from the poem are meant to indicate that it's a 'dream poem'.
If so, I think he's getting too much sleep.
Finnegan

-----Original Message-----
From: David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu>
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu &amp; Views <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Wed, 9 Apr 2008 12:49 pm
Subject: [New-Poetry] Head scratch


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_link&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

==========================================








= 


_______________________________________________
ew-Poetry mailing list
ew-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
ttp://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/pipermail/new-poetry/attachments/20080410/2b4669e9/attachment.html