Sunday, March 10, 2024

Condensed portentousness

Oh, dear. I think I’m not a fan of modern poetry. I got Then the War from the library—the 2023 Pulitzer Prize-winning book of poetry by Carl Phillips, and immediately I recognize the condensed weight of the portentous, pressing—
pressing on the necessary but fragile 

breath…
Oh, the judicious use of the 

line break. 
And, repetition.

An actual line:
“The gray of doves. The gray of doves, in shadow.” 

Yes. Very nice. The dying tree poem (post below) fulfilled my quota.

Instead I shall read, also from the library, Do zombies dream of undead sheep? A Neuroscientific view of the zombie brain, Princeton University Press, 2014. Serious science applied to a fictional being, “combining tongue-in-cheek analysis with modern neuroscientific principles”.

2 comments:

  1. i read allen ginsberg's last book of the poetry which was tough to read. i wonder if some of the newer poetry seems foreign to us olders as we were raised on a more rhythmic type pf poetry. and also if modern poetry has been written in line with texting.
    kirsten

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ooo! The zombie book sounds good…let me know…I might need it for my research.

    ReplyDelete