I enjoyed Linda Gregg's In The Middle Distance in a very laid back sort of way. It made me wonder about this poetry that is a sort of dialogue between lovers/friends. Gregg and Jack Gilbert have that sort of dynamic going on in many of their poems, they even name each other, for goodness sake, which is interesting in a gossipy sort of way, but I think the naming perhaps makes those poems smaller. I could be wrong. It made me think of David's comment about writing about sex, something like, "you shouldn't be able to see their heads." I guess the identification makes the reader stand in a different place in conjunction with the poem, a looking on place as opposed to perhaps a being a part of place. Of course, those poems are only a small part of the whole. There are many fine, fine pieces that expand inside the reader, that are not simply about the relationship between these two. I guess, too, I'm not saying that those poems are bad, just very limited in what they have to say. One wonders what the two writers say to each other in private, whether they ever say as much as the poems say.
4 comments:
Sounds interesting, Charmi. You are becoming a champion of poetry this summer--very well-read.
Just trying to get up to speed... I hate being the dunce in the class.
I know what you mean. I've hardly tackled poetry, especially contemporary poetry.
Well, there's a lot out there. I look at how fast my son is growing musically right now and I want to keep up, not musically, but in my own way. A lot of people are saying the same old stuff, but occasionally you find someone worth reading, who looks at the world in new ways.
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