Thanks to those who have sent me poems for my Ezra Pound poetry competition. I'm excited I now have some entries, but it's not too late to join in. As a form it's not as easy as it first appears (see Simone's helpful venn diagram on this very issue), but if it's bad at least it's over quickly!!
Here's this week's poem by the real Ezra Pound. It strikes me as a classic example of how much of the poetic image is supplied by the perspective of the seer - it's a poem that seems to me to reveal much more about the "I" who narrates it than about the woman who is ostensibly its subject. See what you think!
The Garden
Like a skein of loose silk blown against a wall
She walks by the railing of a path in Kensington Gardens,
And she is dying piece-meal
of a sort of emotional anemia.
And round about there is a rabble
Of the filthy, sturdy, unkillable infants of the very poor.
They shall inherit the earth.
In her is the end of breeding.
Her boredom is exquisite and excessive.
She would like some one to speak to her,
And is almost afraid that I
will commit that indiscretion.
1 comments:
Hi Nic,
I love this Ezra Pound poem. I used to teach 2 line couplets to my students (some of those "unkillable infants of the very poor") and they loved writing them. And yes, they have now inherited the earth. Some of my happiest years of teaching were with those wonderful children who had little literary history but just loved poetry writing.
Thanks, I've enjoyed this little series.
Dad
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