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  #1  
Unread 12-22-2004, 10:58 PM
Janet Kenny Janet Kenny is offline
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I have just been reading some poems by Anthony Lombardy, whose name is on the staff list here although he rarely appears.

I am knocked out by the ease and depth of his poems. I'm not sure how he would feel if I posted one here. I read them in his chap book on Web Del Sol. The thing that impressed me most was the easy diction and the range of forms, all handled with grace and insight. He writes effortless rhyme and effortless blank verse. The ease is the most impressive aspect of his work. I posted two others earlier then came back with this one which lingered in my mind.

Swans

BANNED POST(originally published in the "New Yorker")

The swans like wrecks in battle run
Aground upon this beach,
And bending bathers reach
For them with half a breakfast bun.

The fifty swans of Starnberger See
Have lost their dignity
And it is sad to see
Them flock beneath the Strand Cafe.

I linger on this shore defiled
By waste and cannot tell
The lame swans from the well
Or know the tame ones from the wild.

Perhaps there is no difference left,
Unless in summary things:
A blurring of the wings,
A different smell where they have slept.

All day I look for one that keeps
Away from shore and brings
The vessel of his wings
Into the far ravine, which leaps

Around these waters like a hand;
Like him I'd hold apart,
Refuse the sticky tart
They have uprooted from the sand.

Their loveliness is all a braid
Of everything I love-
What I'm complaining of
Is how we stoop and try to trade

A crust against that white estate
Which is forever lost
To everyone who tossed
Them bread and sat out talking late.

This transit of the trees and light
Whose changing crystal hones
The quality of stones
Into their evening, glancing height,

These stars asleep in chrome and keys
On shores where lovers park
And elevate the dark
With shadows onto rowing knees,

These things themselves, and rays that link
In commerce every end
Of human sight, descend
Back to their surfaces and sink,

As fifty swans compete for bread
From hands incautious of
The human way they shove
Into their circus to be fed.


_____________
I wish I felt confident enough to choose more. I hope if he reads this he will let me know whether he minds my having posted this poem here.
Janet


[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited December 23, 2004).]
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  #2  
Unread 12-23-2004, 10:39 PM
Janet Kenny Janet Kenny is offline
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Am I really the only person here who is moved and impressed by this poem?
Janet
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  #3  
Unread 12-23-2004, 11:36 PM
Mark Allinson Mark Allinson is offline
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Janet, I am impressed.

Perhaps it's the holiday season, but no one seems to want to play on Mastery lately.

I think you are right, there are some fine things from this poet.

The "Swans" seems to be a poem you might have written. And some of the others.

Here is one that took my attention.


THINGS TO LISTEN FOR

When you go there, here's what to listen for:
The snap of rubber gloves, the clink of steel,
The sweeping breaths your cheek and lashes feel.

Then listen for the inward cry, learn what
The muffled striving in the office means
Above the burping of the mild machines.

Then listen for the darkness in the leaves,
The troughs of light and dark that alternate
Beyond the droning windows where you wait.

Then when you look from bed the final time
And these sounds do not reach you any more
They'll be as lovely not to listen for.
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  #4  
Unread 12-24-2004, 12:06 AM
Janet Kenny Janet Kenny is offline
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[Mark,
Quite right. It's a difficult time of the year in which to discuss poetry. Alicia is away from home and everyone is gathering in clans--or nearly everyone.

I wish I could write such a poem. Thank you. I think it's a terrific compliment, I'm not sure Anthony Lombardy would

I love the painful poem you have posted.

Even I am engaged in domestic fussing at the moment so I too will return when time allows. We Grinches must stick together.
Janet
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  #5  
Unread 12-27-2004, 10:52 PM
Henry Quince Henry Quince is offline
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Yes, Tony Lombardy was (is?) a moderator in The Deep End here. If he gave up or reduced his involvement, I must have missed the announcement. Surely Tim or Alan would know.

I agree that the diction seems very natural in Swans — except when it reaches for the "poetic" cliché “braid” — but the argument is unclear towards the end.

I’m more convinced (and moved) by Things to Listen for, because the emotion feels more genuine.

Henry
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  #6  
Unread 12-27-2004, 11:18 PM
Joseph Bottum Joseph Bottum is offline
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Anthony Lombardy has another poem, "The Quiet One," in the last issue of Crisis, a Catholic journal for which William Baer has been doing the poetry editing--some small consolation for Baer's closing of his full poetry journal, The Formalist:

http://www.crisismagazine.com/more.htm

JB
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  #7  
Unread 12-28-2004, 03:13 AM
Michael Juster Michael Juster is offline
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I know Tony has been absorbed lately writing an extraordinary long poem--I've read sections and don't know how to begin to describe it except to repeat "extraordinary" and to observe that it's very different prosodically from his other work.
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  #8  
Unread 12-28-2004, 02:48 PM
Janet Kenny Janet Kenny is offline
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Joseph/Jody (I never know what to call you)
Thank you for posting both of those poems. I love Anthony Lombardy's quiet poem. I repeat, he speaks so flowingly and naturally.

I also love the way you have translated my favourite of all poems A Lyke-Wake Dirge. I have never forgiven Lewis Turco for presenting it in bowdlerised form in his "The Book of Forms". You, on the other hand have written a beautiful poem inspired by the original. It was a great treat.

Thank you,
Janet

[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited December 28, 2004).]
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  #9  
Unread 12-28-2004, 04:04 PM
Janet Kenny Janet Kenny is offline
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Henry,
I had posted "Things to Listen For" but changed it to "Swans" because I didn't want to assume I could post so many. I admire it too.

"Swans". The argument of interfering in another plane of existence is one I care about. My own view is that humans have already changed the habitats of wild creatures and we owe them a bit of rent but not improper sticky tarts. It is about sacrilege I think.
Janet

[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited December 28, 2004).]
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