Actually, Jerome, I think the word works in its context no matter which image the mind conjures up.
This poem certainly grows on one.
I am puzzled though about the omission and can't but think that Bloom is making a larger statement by skipping Adrienne Rich's collection. It fits his crusade or agenda or whatever one choses to call it. And it likely created a great deal of publicity.
There is a list of the poems in that 1996 collection and some of my personal favorite poets (Sherman Alexie (who I am going to write a paper on soon), Alberto Alvaro Ríos, Margaret Atwood, Jane Kenyon, Ai) and their 1996 BAP poems are excluded.
I agree that the poems I recognize aren't in the the high diction poetry tradition of say, Wilbur, Hecht, Hollander et al, (who are also dear to my heart) but they represent is contemporary "best" poetry, by which I mean they move the reader (me) intellectually and/or emotionally or both, they are memorable--once read one remembers them. I would chose any of them as poetry over the one- act play by Thomas M. Disch "The Cardinal Detoxes: A Play in One Act", which was chosen by Bloom as "best poetry". No offense to Thomas M. Disch as I would love to see that 14-page play performed on stage.
I recognized some old favorites in the 1996:
"b o d y"
James Merrill,
Look closely at the letters. Can you see,
entering (stage right), then floating full,
then heading off—so soon—
how like a little kohl-rimmed moon
o plots her course from b to d
—as y, unanswered, knocks at the stage door?
Looked at too long, words fail,
phase out. Ask, now that body shines
no longer, by what light you learn these lines
and what the b and d stood for
***
Morning in the Burned House
by Margaret Atwood
In the burned house I am eating breakfast.
You understand: there is no house, there is no breakfast,
yet here I am.
The spoon which was melted scrapes against
the bowl which was melted also.
No one else is around.
Where have they gone to, brother and sister,
mother and father? Off along the shore,
perhaps. Their clothes are still on the hangers,
their dishes piled beside the sink,
which is beside the woodstove
with its grate and sooty kettle,
every detail clear,
tin cup and rippled mirror.
The day is bright and songless,
the lake is blue, the forest watchful.
In the east a bank of cloud
rises up silently like dark bread.
I can see the swirls in the oilcloth,
I can see the flaws in the glass,
those flares where the sun hits them.
I can't see my own arms and legs
or know if this is a trap or blessing,
finding myself back here, where everything
in this house has long been over,
kettle and mirror, spoon and bowl,
including my own body,
including the body I had then,
including the body I have now
as I sit at this morning table, alone and happy,
bare child's feet on the scorched floorboards
(I can almost see)
in my burning clothes, the thin green shorts
and grubby yellow T-shirt
holding my cindery, non-existent,
radiant flesh. Incandescent.
I see that the 25th Anniversary Best of BAP edited by Robert Pinsky remedies this to some extent.
So I suppose I'll have to try to scrape up the dough for Pinksy's and Rich's anthologies.
Thanks again, everyone who helped me think about this poem and its place in a greater context.
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