"bits of retrenched nothings"
Ammons, Valentine, Dickinson, Lax, Patchen
A.R. Ammons:
Jean Valentine:
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Emily Dickinson:
The missing all - / prevented me / From missing minor / things - / If nothing larger / than a world’s / Departure from a / Hinge, / Or Sun’s extinction - / be observed - /
’Twas not so large / that I / Could lift my Forehead
Robert Lax:
Kenneth Patchen:
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Wow, the Ammon poem! "the flow of air /through prisons". Even though I don't know what he's getting at exactly. For some reason, (if anyone from the Wed. afternoon group is reading this), it, and the Dickinson poem made me think of that last part of Mary Leader's poem "Education for the Likes of Civilization" where she says:
Small things are not dealt with by law.
If I make things small enough, I can escape.
If I make things as big as I like I am in
Trouble. . . .