I actually received word from a fellow student (thanks, Ron) that Oregon Literary Review published this poem on their website. Beyond the main subject of the poem, which is the loss of our infant son, the poem has a lot of creative history for me, some of which I plan to discuss during my graduate reading at the upcoming MFA residency.
I wrote and re-wrote this poem through half a dozen forms (and non-forms), finally arriving at terza rima as the medium for sustaining and combining so many different thoughts, experiences, and feelings. First drafts began when I was in London, visiting the house of John Keats in hopes of absorbing greater negative capability, and reading a lot of Robert Hass to keep out of the rain. I wanted to encompass so many thoughts and feelings all at once, as Hass often does in his gentle way, but had not yet found the means to do so.
It was David St. John’s magnificent sequence “To Pasolini” (from Study for the World’s Body), however, that renewed my belief in the terza rima form, and then a succession of old favorites, from Seamus Heaney to Dante himself, whose work further encouraged me to explore what freedoms I might find within the form’s constraints. In the end, it is a poem about many things, grief being, hopefully, an aperture in this poem, even as it has become one in my life.
9 Comments
Great poem!
Thanks, Greg! Most kind.
R-
i’ve got the cool advantage of having seen this poem before in its non-terza form so it’s especially delightful to read it in its present state. you so nailed it–just fabulous! –M
Thanks, Michelle. It is a fascinating to watch as fellow students revise–not only individual poems, but in the sense that later poems demonstrate further development and evolution, they might be called “revisions” of earlier themes. It is a rare and wonderful opportunity to learn from each other as we all get better and deepen our work.
Powerful poem Robert.
Thanks, Pearl
Beautiful poem. What can I say? It’s a grief we share, Robert.
Thanks, Andrew. I look forward to getting to know you and your work. Another contemporary poet who shares our experience is Keith Woodruff (see the list of sites I read on the main page). And, I was just reading Jon Silkin last night.
p.s. to say the DVD archive of this issue of Oregon Literary Review is now available:
http://www.lulu.com/content/5213484