TWO MINUTE POEM

Some kind of artifact in a
suit walks in
around the wall where Hikmet
is held
shackles are a coconut
without amusement
without amount
for no particular reason
a raisin in the sun
explodes
songing weaves
abolish the heated sun


For today I almost finished the Mayer book. It's the first volume I haven't managed to complete this month, and I'll have to come back to it in what I expect to be a few "free days." Everyone who's read Mayer knows how good she is. My favorite pieces are the verse poems, many of them, especially toward the middle of the book. I like, in the prose works, the places where she, in the midst of immense catalogues of dailiness, hits on an extended historical or literary anecdote or description of a plant, etc.--the way those extended passages alter the rhythm of the work. Nearly everything about this writing is inspiring in the best sense: the palpability of the language, the stunningly prolific writing life, the devotion to it and the acceptance of poverty and uncertainty as part of that devotion. There's no better example.