Equanimity

 
             

   
 
 

Saturday, February 26, 2005

 
Reading Donald Justice's Collected, hit on the second page by the hazy idea that Ashbery's "Our Youth" was a response to Justice's "Anniversaries." On what basis?

Justice (1960):
By seventeen I had guessed
That the "really great loneliness"
Of James's governess
Might account for the ghost
On the other side of the lake.
Oh, all that year was lost
Somewhere among the black
Keys of Chopin! I sat
All afternoon after school,
Fingering his ripe heart,
While boys outside in the dirt
Kicked, up and down, their ball.


Ashbery (1962):
The Arabs took us. We knew
The dead horses. We were discovering coffee,
How it is to be drunk hot, with bare feet
In Canada. And the immortal music of Chopin

Which we had been discovering for several months
Since we were fourteen years old. And coffee grounds,
And the wonder of hands, and the wonder of the day
When the child discovers her first dead hand.
Okay, so there's nothing there except that it may have been a prerequisite for poethood to be knocked sideways by Chopin in your teenage years.

Justice may be the quietest of Quietude poets. Perhaps not as quiet as D.H. Lawrence's white horse, so quiet it's in another world. But quiet enough to bring a sense of calm and attention. Valuable sense, maybe.

Jordan - #

 

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I'm Jordan Davis.
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Say hi: jordan [at] jordandavis [dot] com.

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