The hub poem on this stimulating weekly blog has been selected by guest editor David Howard, who also hails from down south. His thoughtful analysis begins:
"Poets don’t come from nowhere; sometimes they stay there. Whatever critics think, if they think, the best poets wear their origins like hand-me-down clothes, comfortably. Michele Leggott has Susan Howe. Graham Lindsay has George Oppen, who wrote in his notebook: ‘…meaning is the instant of meaning – and this means that we write to find what we believe.’
I read to find what (but also who) I believe. My admiring reservations about ‘Cloud silence’ hold me in a vital dialogue with it. I still argue with the predictable if precise ringing of the pastoral Angelus (‘looking up/ the harbour valley/ over rush-studded/ paddocks glistening/ after rain’) and with the stand-up personification of ‘the world [that] says Look at me, I dare you to/ I dare you to see.’
I’ve heard these lines out loud. They take a leap of faith off the page. The audience doubles up as Graham foregrounds the implications of what is, after all, a wilful world before enquiring: ‘Why is our art so introverted?’ "
After reading Cloud Silence, click on the sidebar for more Tuesday Poems posted by up to 30 poets from NZ, Australia, the US and UK. There's a wonderful range of work popping up as the day goes on including a poem two-lined by Anna Livesey.
No comments:
Post a Comment