There’s something priceless and dear about having so many people who bring you joy in one room. It is a gift of temporality that shimmers. Jean Valentine’s collection “Little Boat” features these beautifully compressed poems that are so spare and full of air in the form of spacing and interesting syntax. I remembered enjoying dissecting “Moose and Calf” at our last residency. There is an earthen gravitas that suspends in the air, where the reader can enter at multiple points. I want to be a writer who invites multiple entries into my work. From me to you, the poem is ours. And tonight it’s Valentine’s.
How will you/have you prepare(d) for your death?
Jean Valentine
quiet ready
the wires inside the walls
and when no wires
and when no walls
– with you it wasn’t flesh & blood, it was under:
I know you brokenheart before this world,
and I know you after.
I also enjoyed looking at “Moose and Calf” in that lecture. This one is beautiful too – it feels like a held breath, doesn’t it?
See comment under previous blog. Me not good at this.