Greetings.
Yes, if you're interested in Coulette's work (and
I think he's one of the six or eight best American
poets of the second half of the century), you should
get his Collected Poems from Arkansas. ("The War of
the Secret Agents" is way too long to post---it must
be close to 700 lines---but it's a masterpiece.) He
also has a very interesting little poem, which is
not accentual-syllabic, that is, not iambic or
trochaic, but both accentual AND syllabic, called
"Petition"---
Lord of the Tenth Life,
Welcome my Jerome,
A fierce, gold tabby.
Make him feel at home.
He loves bird and mouse.
He loves a man's lap,
And in winter light,
Paws tucked in, a nap.
Five syllables, three beats, but not true accentual-
syllabics. Gorgeous, whatever it is.
Don't like Plath's poem, but that could be my fault.
I can't bear her work.
Judson Jerome is wrong. Dylan Thomas' poem is in 7-
syllable lines; the number of stresses varies from two
to four, if memory serves.
Elizabeth Daryush was the daughter of Robert Bridges
and a very fine poet, almost entirely neglected. Her COLLECTED POEMS, edited by Donald Davie, was issued
by Carcanet---I don't know if it's still in print; I
rather doubt it. Here's another of her good poems,
this one in ten-syllable lines, a sonnet, "Still-Life":
Through the open French windows the warm sun
lights up the polished breakfast-table, laid
round a bowl of crimson roses, for one---
a service of Worcester porcelain, arrayed
near it a melon, peaches, figs, small hot
rolls in a napkin, fairy rack of toast,
butter in ice, high silver coffee pot,
and, heaped on a salver, the morning's post.
She comes over the lawn, the young heiress,
from her early walk in her garden-wood
feeling that life's a table set to bless
her delicate desires with all that's good,
that even the unopened future lies
like a love-letter, full of sweet surprise.
And she has some wonderful things in other meters.
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