A good essay on a fine poem, I think. Thanks for both of these. I was first introduced to Edgar by Joshua Mehigan (whose blurb is on the back of his New and Selected, along with Clive James's).

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Thank you, Catherine. Great essay by Clive James, Mark. Man on the Moon is indeed poignant.

Just yesterday I commented on a poem on metrical after one reading by simply blurting "wow" (three times, I think). For hours afterward I felt a sense of incompleteness. I had to go back. I read it again in a sober light, as the introduction and opening to the essay by Clive James recounts, and regained my footing enough to dig deeper into the poem for what made me speechless in the first place. I found some evidence.
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