PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

not much sanity left in this world but the village you described might do the trick,even a fraction of sanity and peace would be worth the trip

Thank You ~S~
 

In contemplating this poem, I am at a loss for words, so I must again borrow Ezra Pound's words, from a letter he wrote---I think it was to T. S. Eliot's American attorney---about the publication of Eliot's poem, The Waste Land,  As I cannot remember the exact phrase, and I do not have the source material in front of me, I can only paraphrase from imperfect memory; but, of Eliot's poem, Pound said, "About enough to make the rest of us close up shop" (the rest of us, he meant, being other contemporary poets),  And this is what I have felt about several of your poems, Gates of  Orion and Council of Stars especially, and now the Sperryvilles, that have such a supreme and summary beauty to them, that I almost wonder how another poet can continue after that.  For me, this is a new emotion that I have never felt when reading postpoems, not until this spring, when I began to read, and then to comment, on your poetry.  Your poems are, in the most poetic way, shining stars that cluster into an almost overwhelming constellation.  When I first saw Saturn through an observatory telescope, I almost wanted to weep for its awesome beauty, and its seeming nearness (even though I knew how far away from me it was).  And I never expected to experience that emotion while reading poetry---not Eliot's, not Stevens', not Vergil's.  But, here in this late segment of my life, I have felt that same emotion again, reading your poems, reading the Sperryvilles, and I feel, once again, that sense of cosmic awe, which I had never expected again.  I have often wondered before why I read so much poetry, and so much about poetry, during my undergraduate years---as that was not my Major, and often caused a kind of critical amusement among those who were directing my Major.  Now I realized I was being prepared for a twofold purpose---to write my own minor poems, and to appreciate and comment upon your very Major Poems.  And that has brought me a tremendous peace of mind.  I have wanted two things for a very long time:  to be a minor internet poet, and to be acquainted with a Major Internet Poet.  I have been blessed to see both of those come to fruition.

I read this again this morning, and I want to remark about phrases---the scholar of the Universe, and sad rusted things.  The first phrase functions as a kind of link to your other poems in which you prove yourself, definitely, as a scholar of the Universe.  This has the effect of bringing the authority and credibility of all those other poems on to Sperryville.  It reminds me of one of the poems of Wallace Stevens in which he alluded to previous poems he had written, and these gave the poem at hand a much greater resonance than it would have had without those references.  And, of course, there is the interior references of Eliot's Four Quartets, even to their very format which links them back to The Waste Land.  The second phrase reminds me of Japanese aesthetic, or what I understand to be Japanese aesthetics, in which wabi-sabi directs the poem, or artwork, to an acknowledgement of imperfection and transience.  These two phrases leaped off the screen at me during my second reading, and, for this reader, they provide a key to the Sperryville poems; and, I am even more convinced, to your entire collection. The beauty of our imperfections and transience, seen against the perfection and permanence of the cosmos, provides a counterpoint that any art can only begin to imply, and cannot ever fully contain.  This is my takeway from the Sperryville poems, and I suspect and expect---from my reading of your other poems---that I have not begun to scratch the surface yet.

I had both of your Sperryville poems open at the same time; and, as I said in my comment on the earlier poem, both these poems are so heavy with meaning that I do not believe they can be fully absorbed or understood on a first reading.  I am going to relate these two poems to my first experience with an artwork and its sequel (and these may sound trite, but they were highly important to me).  In 1966 and 1967, respectively, I had the opportunity to view (for the first of many times) the Universal films Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein.  After seeing these two films, and the dramatic artistry of Boris Karloff, I realized that I could not take them both in all at once; and I found myself reflecting and re-reflecting, considering and re-considering, and then realizing I still did not understand it all---not because of any lack of quality, but because there was so much quality packed into every scene.  These two poems remind me of that cherished memory from my childhood; the only similar experience I can remember that was parallel to it was reading, in 1976, T. S. Eliot's poems, The Waste Land and Ash Wednesday.  Your Sperryville poems remind me of both of these experiences; and, like the two experiences, the Sperryville poems will require more reflection and concentration, on my part, than can be obtained in a single reading.  As with many of your poems, I must revisit these more than once; and then, any familiarity I can hope for will be, on my part, strictly amateur.  I once told you that, in Spring of 1979, I was able to observe Saturn and its rings through the large telescope at the observatory at my college.  I wish I could do that again, to see it again and again, from different perspectives, in order to more fully appreciate my initial experience.  The Sperryville poems are exactly like that.