@3"With all tenderness and affection" —from J. Brodsky to M. Harper; inscribed in@1 Less than One: Selected Essays, @3October 12, 1988@1 Signature in a paperback arresting your copious annotations on "September 1, 1939" (exegetical in the extreme) extreme unction of the heart such lucid heartwork without translation bright bed and breakfast in macabre Providence very unPoelike for I have read your EnglishAmerican (as you read your RussianSoviet) to a vast audience of scientists in the graduated labs of Barus & Holly a valiant pant across participles the psychic hum of all lingua you intuited "for language is the only homeland" metaphysician of this psychograph an interrogation sutures of blood and song your generous taxonomies in cavernous secret vena cava First Published in @3The Kenyon Review@1, Volume 23 #2 (Spring 2001). www.kenyonreview.org/roth | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE POPLAR by RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM ODE TO EVENING by WILLIAM COLLINS (1721-1759) MOTHER TO SON by JAMES LANGSTON HUGHES TO-NIGHT by LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON SCHOOL AND SCHOOLFELLOWS; FLOREAT ETONA by WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED THE BROKEN FIELD by SARA TEASDALE |