Classic and Contemporary Poetry
READING HENRY FOWLER'S MODERN ENGLISH USAGE IN SALT LAKE CITY ..., by NATASHA SAJE Poet's Biography First Line: You note the one 'r' in iridescent Subject(s): Fowler, Henry (1858-1933); Language; Words; Vocabulary | ||||||||
You note the one "r" in iridescent, from the Greek, iris, rainbow, not the Latin, irrideo, to laugh, and I smile to think of your idiosyncrasy, scrupulous care in life as well as work. Today light streams in, the bright surprise of it risible, as amazing to me as sagebrush and pinions. First Western fall, felicitous, pumpkin custard carrying clove into the air as the cats quibble over the patch of hottest sun. Gone: Old house, old roads, old friends. Gone as well that blue hour when lovers over absinthe in cafes console themselves for loss. That city's further than it's ever been, differs toto caelo, by the whole sky, from these nights of shooting stars and sunny days that beam across the floor like lace. If you were here, Henry, you'd advise exactitude, tell me to love the narrow difference between "broad" and "wide": a distance that separates the limits, an amplitude of what connects them. Some words refuse wide, admit broad: blade, spearhead, daylight. And some allow them both: A wide door open to miles of snowy peaks. The view from where I am is wide and broad, and if I lose myself in its expanse, will mountains rein me in, or clouds, as volatile as grace? First Published in The Kenyon Review, Volume 22#3 (Summer/Fall 2000). http://kenyonreview.org/roth | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...HOWYOUBEENS' by TERRANCE HAYES MY LIFE: REASON LOOKS FOR TWO, THEN ARRANGES IT FROM THERE by LYN HEJINIAN THE FATALIST: THE BEST WORDS by LYN HEJINIAN WRITING IS AN AID TO MEMORY: 17 by LYN HEJINIAN CANADA IN ENGLISH by JUAN FELIPE HERRERA THERE IS NO WORD by TONY HOAGLAND CONSIDERED SPEECH by JOHN HOLLANDER AND MOST OF ALL, I WANNA THANK ?Ǫ by JOHN HOLLANDER DINNER IN A QUICK LUNCH ROOM by STEPHEN VINCENT BENET |
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