"neither going nor coming"
Justice, Bonnefoy, Dickinson, Hayden, Valentine, Song of Amergin
Donald Justice:
I would like to have lived in a time when the style and idiom of the period were givens. The high Renaissance, say, or the early 18th century. Composers and painters have faced similar problems in our time, of course. The challenges are exciting enough but in the end exhausting, defeating to some of us. And they lead to these little internecine struggles that waste good energy—they've been going on since I started writing—the poetry wars. I regret the poetry wars.
Donald Justice (second from left) in 1945 or ‘46. Taken by Weegee in trumpeter Frankie Newton's basement apartment, captioned “Feeling no pain.”
Yves Bonnefoy (trans. Hoyt Rogers):
Emily Dickinson:
That Susan / lives—is a / Universe which / neither going / nor coming / could displace
Robert Hayden:
Jean Valentine:
Song of Amergin, variation from Leabhar Gabhala Eireann, 12th century:
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