I'd delighted by the new flurry of interest in this thread, hooray! Let's see. First of all: Mary, I will absolutely want to join you in a discussion about Swenson. I think there might be something I could frame in terms of how wonderfully "formed" her poems are, and yet she rarely, if ever, writes in the familiar, traditional forms. Lemme think on how that might be worded. (Suggestions welcome!)
Second-- yes Wilbur; absolutely Wilbur. I was flipping through his Collected looking for my favorites, and the endings of poem after poem kept stopping me in my tracks. But I think my two faves are still these:
1. Last stanza of "Year's End":
These sudden ends of time must give us pause.
We fray into the future, rarely wrought
Save in the tapestries of afterthought.
More time, more time. Barrages of applause
Come muffled from a buried radio.
The New-year bells are wrangling with the snow.
2. Last stanza of "A Courtyard Thaw"
This spring was neither fierce nor gay;
This summary autumn fell without a tear:
No tinkling music-box can play
The slow, deep-grounded masses of the year.
Someone earlier mentioned "Part of a Letter":
"A girl had gold on her tongue, and gave this answer:
Ca, c'est l'acacia."
--and I can't forget to include that much-anthologized "Digging for China":
"All that I saw was China, China, China." Thanks much, Margaret.
And Susan, you must send that excellent cento to Theresa Welford, who's in the process of developing an anthology of centos. Her email:
welfordtm@georgiasouthern.edu. I agree that it's fascinating how the use of last lines makes for an unusually resolute PACE, doesn't it?-- and that sense of inevitability you refer to. Thanks for posting.
Marilyn
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