I thought this was a terrific poem when I first saw it, and still do at this reading. Prophetic too: "lost to museums"!

Not "thier" but "their." Good speller, but arthritic fingers on the keyboard.

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtml/smile.gif

The reason pearls would be nice is the association of dhow with pearl diving in the Gulf. Although this is a Sumerian type poem, pearls are in the order of things given by Allah in the Koran. I wouldn't expect this poet to go off on that tangent and this definitely deserves my explanation of such.

I think this is a wonderful, imaginative, empathic poem, certainly one of the best I've seen on Erato for a while.
I've commented on it before, I believe.
It's there on Poets Against the War, but I don't believe that's the essence of the poem. To me it's Byronic.
Best regards,
David

Oliver--As I remember the period when this poem first appeared on the Deep End, your chronology is a little off: The brouhaha about the Iraqi museum was one of the prompts for the poet to write it, not prophesy about the future. But maybe I'm misremembering.

Everything about this poem is a mess--the attempt to use that foompy meter for a serious purpose, the bizarre parade of ancient scenes as figures for the modern, the creaky "Sands of Araby" images.

I'd throw the whole thing immediately in the out box, except for one little problem: It's a fantastic poem. Everything works together in a way that I wouldn't have predicted in a million years. Someday, when I'm a grown-up, I'll be able to figure out how the poet pulls it off.

This was simply the best anti-war poem I saw that year, subtle and keen at the same time, and I admire its author enormously. It should have been in the New Yorker.

Jody

What David and Jodie - and others - have said. One of the finest selected.

I was present at the creation - or at least remember following with fascination the thread on which this poem initially appeared on the Sphere - and want to comment that, in addition to the poem itself, I was impressed by the way the writer researched, and rewrote, and re-rewrote, and worked his craft and improved and molded the poem. This did not spring forth in one golden gush of language, never to be trifled with or changed. And the same is true of many of the other poems I have admired in this grouping. It is a reflection of what I particularly appreciate about the Sphere.

Ms. Espaillat (sp?), you mistake my suggestion as one which would like Pearl to replace something else. It isn't. It is a reinforcement of a concept in this poem that may not be evident to the non muslim reader of this particular poem. Sumerian is not muslim however, Iraq and the fact that this poem does appear on an anti war site means that it necessarily implies the role of the muslim reader. The gems mentioned in here are a notable mention in the Koran...God gives us all this great shiney stuff and we still are disengaged and unsympathetic to "God's" cause and beneficence. A very deep concept.

I'll repeat again, Fantastic poem.

[This message has been edited by Maggie Porter (edited December 06, 2004).]