Tuesday, July 05, 2011

TUESDAY POEM


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.  

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