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Greeting

trans. Italian Ruth Feldman and Brian Swann Mariarosa be good; I am leaving and deserting you* I'll never hear the May song again, daughter of oak and underbrush. You dressed in flowers of the broom, grown back on the uncultivated slope. You were inviolate, shut like a bittr blossom. Your frightened eyes were white beanflowers,…

The Island Of Ven

"Ellie, listen to this: In the evening after sunset, when according to my habit I was contemplating the stars in a clear sky, I noticed that a new and unusual star, surpassing all others in brilliancy, was shining almost directly above my head, and since I had, almost from boyhood, known all the stars in…

The Garden Was Entering The Sea

The garden was entering the sea Cape of deep carnation Your hand was leaving with the tide Smoothing the sea's bridal gown Your hand was opening the sky. Angels with eleven swords Were sailing alongside your name Slashing through the flowery waves Down below the white sails leaned In quick northeasterly squalls. With the white…

The Catherine-Wheels

The Catherine-wheels ogled us from the embankment where the man who lit them was poking them, his face red from the fuse. Today, with the holiday over, my dear, you've gone back to your own city. Yesterday night the clarinets at the time of the explosions, and the voices of families sitting in the piazza…

Getting to Know Frederick

Suddenly Frederick is not at her side. She stops and looks back. There he is, just standing there. He has dropped the duffel to the curb and is staring at his parents' house across the street. He rubs his black beard and shakes his head. Seeing this, she realizes he is facing a rare moment…

Notes on Poetics and Ethics

trans. Greek Martin McKinsey 1. It is one of the talents of great stylists to make obsolete words cease from appearing obsolete through the way in which they introduce them in their writing. Obsolete words which under the pens of others would seem stilted or out of place, occur most naturally under theirs. This is…

The Habit of Affection

People ought to like poetry the way a child likes snow, and they would if the poets wrote it. Wallace Stevens Affection for poems is a personal thing, transcending time, fashion, and even friendship. We return less often to what we admire or approve of than to what we love, and there are surprisingly few…

Bad Company

The widow drove into the cemetery, parked near the mausoleum, and got out with her flowers. The next day was Memorial Day, and the cemetery would be thronged with people. Entire families would arrive to bring flowers to the graves of their loved ones. Tiny American flags would decorate the graves of the veterans. But…

Paper Poems (From third Series)

trans. Greek Edmund Keeley Invulnerable body all naked so point-blank naked with the nipples still erect invulnerable to interior or exterior gunfire and that blue triumphant cunning and the wide trowel in hand covering the cement the smile of the second Christ. *     *      * Hidden behind the massive statue of Zeus he waits for the…