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dragonlady7I'm not much of a poetry fan really. It speaks to me sometimes, I memorize bits of it, I recite my favorites upon occasion. I have even tried to write it, but words do not speak to me that concisely.
Today's issue of the magazine has a profile of a poet, a local poet, recently deceased. It's a multimedia extravaganza: Z has put up file after file of recordings we have of his readings. One is a video, a transfer from a Super-8 video recording.
The author of the article was an old friend of this poet, and so there is a lengthy interview included.
I'm listening to one of his readings, because Z sent me the link and begged me to click the link and test to see whether it played before finishing loading or whether it made you sit there through the whole loading process.
His voice is restful, soothing; his manner friendly, intimate, unassuming. It is pleasant to listen to him.
And at this moment, as I sit on my porch in the rain, trying to psych myself up for yet another day of work (meanwhile, trying to remember which of my bills I have not yet paid), I am empathizing keenly with the end of his interview. (RC is the poet, BJ the interviewer.)
Today's issue of the magazine has a profile of a poet, a local poet, recently deceased. It's a multimedia extravaganza: Z has put up file after file of recordings we have of his readings. One is a video, a transfer from a Super-8 video recording.
The author of the article was an old friend of this poet, and so there is a lengthy interview included.
I'm listening to one of his readings, because Z sent me the link and begged me to click the link and test to see whether it played before finishing loading or whether it made you sit there through the whole loading process.
His voice is restful, soothing; his manner friendly, intimate, unassuming. It is pleasant to listen to him.
And at this moment, as I sit on my porch in the rain, trying to psych myself up for yet another day of work (meanwhile, trying to remember which of my bills I have not yet paid), I am empathizing keenly with the end of his interview. (RC is the poet, BJ the interviewer.)
[RC:...] I think the whole imagination of hurrying on is really absurd, given lives have this obvious finite end, as though one were rushing to get everything done, like packing an ultimate suitcase. I was thinking of Wordsworth, “we lay waste our stores.” It’s sad that one should be so programmed. It really does remind me of the donkey with the carrot dangling on a stick in front of his nose.
BJ: There is no end to it.
RC: There is no end. We now work, I read in our paper a day or so ago, that we now work harder than any nation on earth.
BJ: More hours.
RC: And think of them as hours. If we didn’t think of them as hours, well wouldn’t have work, obviously, because the two go together.
BJ: Work. Do poets work? Is poetry work?
RC: Well, there are desperate attempts to say that they work. But as any poet would tell you, when it’s working, it isn’t work.
