[New-Poetry] Baron Wormser

[Anny Ballardini]

I look out the window and hope I'll see a swan.
I hear they're bad-tempered but I love their necks
And how they glide along so sovereignly.
I never take the time to drive to a pond

And spend an hour watching swans.

I particularly like this passage on swans. I used to walk by a tiny lake
where there were some swans. I remember I also did whatever I could to save
one that had swollen a hook. I felt close to them. Then one day I passed
closer and I thought they liked me because I felt they were part of my
world, but it is true that they are bad-tempered. It is also true that I am
quick, and nothing happened.

On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 6:44 PM, David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu> wrote:

> I'll put in a good word for Baron Wormser, who is one of the most
> intelligent, quirky thinkers about poetics that I've met.  His own poetry
> ranges pretty widely in subject and style, so he's hard to excerpt fairly.
>  A lot of his work engages with Big Ideas, political and otherwise.  But he
> also does lyrics, satire, narrative, and so forth.
> I do think his essays are particularly fine; and he's co-authored a couple
> of texts on teaching poetry that are well worth seeking out.  A
> new-and-selected edition of his poems came out recently, but I haven't seen
> it yet.
>
> I also
> haven't yet read his memoir that Amy (I think) mentioned, but I do know something of his story, how he lived off the grid in rural Maine for many years.
>
> Here's a short poem that shows another mood/facet of his work.
>
> *Opinion*
>
> Halfway to work and Merriman already has told me
> What he thinks about the balanced budget, the Mets'
> Lack of starting pitching, the dangers of displaced
> Soviet nuclear engineers, soy products, and diesel cars.
>
> I look out the window and hope I'll see a swan.
> I hear they're bad-tempered but I love their necks
> And how they glide along so sovereignly.
> I never take the time to drive to a pond
>
> And spend an hour watching swans. What
> Would happen if I heeded the admonitions of beauty?
> When I look over at Merriman, he's telling Driscoll
> That the President doesn't know what he's doing
> With China. "China," I say out loud but softly.
> I go back to the window. It's started snowing.
>
> -- Baron Wormser, from *Subject Matter* (Sarabande Books).
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ========================================
> 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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>
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-- 
Anny Ballardini
http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/
http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome
http://www.lulu.com/content/5806078
http://www.moriapoetry.com/ebooks.html
I Tell You: One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing
star!
Friedrich Nietzsche
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