Distinguished Guest Amit Majmudar's comments:
A change from yesterday's Traherne--religious poetry--only bluntly atheistic. Or is it? This one's grave play may have to do with an apparently nonexistent entity telling you he doesn't exist. Thereby implying that he actually does exist, at least enough to have a voice and speak in rhyme. The circularity is dizzying. Maybe this poem's metaphysic ain't so blunt after all.
I am with the commenter about light verse. About Duffy writing "about being a woman and being gay" and how she would write about "being black if she was," my first instinct was to let that go unaddressed. Leaving aside "left" or "right," I think people write about things that define them and matter to them. And unless that thing is somehow made universal in literary form, it doesn't get anywhere. There are thousands of writers writing about being gay or black or this or that, and they aren't elevated to poet laureate just for their choice of subject matter. It's only when that identity-detail is made universal and immediate through words for those who don't necessarily share it that the truly literary or poetic effect is attained; where a kind of (literary) Communion takes place.
Question for the congregation: How is a "wrong way" in poetry defined?
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