Craig Raine's new kind of poetry has yet to reach a substantial audience in the United States. But, if the reviews can be believed, Raine's reputation in Britain exceeds that of any contemporary poet on this side of the Atlantic. Raine's four books- The Onion, Memory, A Martian Sends a Post Card Home, Rich, and…
When I eat crab, slide the rosy rubbery claw across my tongue I think of my mother. She'd drive down to the edge of the Bay, tiny woman in a huge car, she'd ask the crab-man to crack it for her. She'd stand and wait as the pliers broke those chalky homes, wild- red and…
It is evident not only in the general frame of Nature, that things most manifest unto sense have proved obscure unto the understanding. Sir Thomas Browne “Hi.” “Hi.” “You OK?” “I guess . . . You?” “I miss you.” “I miss you too.” “What are you doing?” “Reading . . . You?” “The Late Show.”…
I discovered Craig Raine's work (first his remarkable second book A Martian Sends a Postcard Home and then his first book The Onion, Memory) about eight years ago. I was immediately struck by its eloquence, which is never stuffy or merely decorative, by the sharpness of its tone, and by the odd rightness of its…
In the taxi alone, home from the airport, I could not believe you were gone. My palm kept creeping over the smooth plastic to find your strong meaty little hand and squeeze it, find your narrow thigh in the noble ribbing of the corduroy, straight and regular as anything in nature, to find the slack…
When I take you in my mouth, it is all just a matter of identity. I study the weather reports. In a photo essay of Sun Valley Ski Lodge, under her picture, there is this: “Sonja Henie starred in Sun Valley Serenade BUT NEVER VISITED THE PLACE.” Wait, I think hear the phone. The child,…
Asked what he worked at, Oscar Wilde's brother Willie would reply, "At intervals." This kind of innocuous controlled explosion which sends a phrase sky-high the moment before it reassembles, younger and wiser and apparently unfazed, is analogous to the effect achieved by certain poems. It defamiliarizes, yes, but mostly in order to refamiliarize. It glamorizes…
Three months after he lies dead, that long yellow narrow body, not like Christ but like one of his saints, the naked ones in the paintings whose bodies are done in gilt, all knees and raw ribs, the ones who died of nettles, bile, the one who died roasted over a slow fire— three months…
To find a bit of thread But twisted In a peculiar way And fallen In an unlikely place A black thread Before the mystery Of the closed door The greater mystery Of the four bare walls And catch oneself thinking Do I know anyone Wearing such dark garments Already worn to threads First thing in…
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