"traveling on its tongue of light"
Skelton, O'Hara, Rukeyser, Matthews, Wakoski
John Skelton:
Frank O’Hara:
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Muriel Rukeyser:
William Matthews:
Diane Wakoski:
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Skelton--I've studied him and love him, so seeing his work start the poems is joyful.
O'Hara--I love that the heart can exist in a month the same or other than the actual month. I also love the evocation of seasons--weather--as a nexus to arrive quickly into an urban space.
Rukeyser--for a set of poems on alcohol, I love the stanzas ending lines because the repetition formally reflects the desire (content) to insist on getting the beer.
Matthews--in reading I thought of "99 bottles of beer on the wall." There is one beer for seemingly everything.
Rukeyser--I love the commanding presence of a line comprised of one word--"flashing." From this, I love how this verb sets up a kind of meta-poem within the poem by the list created in the alignment of "flashing." On the vertical space of the poem, the list--"flashing," "daffodils," "perspective," "beer," "perspective," "history." The visual layout of these words provide a parallelism (and thus correlation) among them.
As a set of poems I appreciate the complexity and reach with which poems focusing on alcohol and addiction. So much to explore.