At the end of a long street where I walked as a child:
A rectangle of heavy death under a black sky.
Since that time, poetry
Has kept its waters separate from other waters,
No beauty no colour detains it,
It is in anguish for iron and the night.
It nurses
A lifeless shore's long grief, an iron bridge
Thrown towards the other even darker shore
Is its sole memory and sole true love.
This is the first of two volumes, out now from Oystercatcher Press.
3 comments:
I don't like the last line of this poem:
This is the first of two volumes, out now from Oystercatcher Press.
Do we really need it? The line spoils the whole effect.
I am not a robot
I wonder if you could say a little more about what you dislike about it Philip?
Thanks,
Ian.
Thanks Ian. No. My only reason for intruding on Laurie's blog is to observe that poems necessarily have their own space. A poem by Bonnefoy is remarkable for the fact that it exists at all, like so much great poetry. Commentary in and around the poem, if not distinctively different from the print of the poem itself, can be confused with the words of the poem. Nothing precious about that. A reader wants the poem whole, complete, exact. Maybe extra text can be presented in a colour that diferentiates it from the poem on show. Does what I say make sense?
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