Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Ferris
Ah, Bill. It’s my hope, too, that I’m growing a little wiser and not just older. How many poems have I scudded over and failed to get? A barking dog or an empty stomach can render me utterly stupid. But just this morning I re-read a poem and finally got it.
Delight!
Progress…
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Indeed! I must have read Eliot's
Four Quartets a hundred times in my late teens and early twenties, and hardly understood a thing. Now it seems like every line is crystal clear and heavy with meaning.
However, I still don't grok the title. I know there are four poems, but there are five sections to each poem, hence, wouldn't a better title be
Four Quintets ?
***
Here's a great poem by a great contemporary poet:
Gospel: Juan
We crossed the border
Hours before dawn
Through a hole
Dug under a fence.
We crossed
Dressed as soldiers,
Faces painted
Mud green
The
coyotes
That promised
We’d make it, gave us
A straw broom
To drag behind,
Erasing our tracks.
They gave us meat
Drugged for the dogs.
Farther off,
There were engines,
Voices, a light
That swept the ground.
We crossed
On our bellies.
I wonder
If we’ll ever stand up.
— Tracy K. Smith
**Edited out the TMI.
This poem is part of a series, but I think it works just fine on its own.
I wanted to include another doozy by Smith called "Betty Blue", but I can't find an online version. I highly recommend her book,
The Body's Question. Nearly every poem is dynamite.