Steve, that Nemerov poem is one of my all-time favorites, and I tend to wave it around in front of people who demand to know the difference between poetry and "cut-up prose."
Here's another good one. I know nothing about the poet except that her book won the Washington House Publishing Prize in 1985, but I admire the heck out of this poem:
The Mother In Line 28
The poem is not the poet.
The mother in line 28
is not the poet's mother or child
and each time a poem opens a door
to a room of pans or pearls
it is the poem's room;
it is the poet's plan.
The heart that is bleeding
in stanza two
is not the heart of the poet.
The poet is elsewhere,
singing along with a piano player.
The heart in the poem won't heal.
The poet's own heart is strong.
--Elaine Magarell
From "On Hogback Mountain,"
pub by Washington Writers Publishing House, 1985
Marilyn
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Marilyn L. Taylor
[This message has been edited by Marilyn Taylor (edited March 22, 2006).]
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