Monday, November 1, 2010

Since I Went Missing: Poem at Danse Macabre

I have a poem up at Danse Macabre, under Nouvelle Poésie de Guerre

Danse Macabre has a wonderfully relevant and powerful issue on line today; WELTKRIEG, could not be more timely.

I had in mind as I was writing this poem,  something that would be, simultaneously, intensely subjective, and a problem on the level of language and aesthetics--the paradox of emptying the poem of the first person I.

Context has transformed it--I read it here and gasped. This is not my poem! I didn't write this! This is so much better!

The absence of specific context invited, what for me, was a whole new reading. But of course, I thought, conscious only of these abstractions as I wrote--how could I not have been thinking all along about death?

For me--a powerful example of how completely irrelevant the idea of 'authorial intent.'

Thank you, Danse Macabre!

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