tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6415228448079976141.post4975448160936000824..comments2024-01-17T09:06:41.408-05:00Comments on BookMenDC: where the lines breakTimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09257203824962491470noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6415228448079976141.post-2924805604072394012013-04-12T17:05:41.981-04:002013-04-12T17:05:41.981-04:00The poem ends:
The trees
wave but, except to...The poem ends:<br /><br /> The trees<br /><br /> wave but, except to say "wind—<br /> up again," this<br /> means nothing. Sometimes,<br /><br /> we hold on to a life tightly.<br /> Foolish; sad.<br /> Not to know that it has already left us.<br /><br />Dan Chiasson continues ' … The line breaks invite scrutiny, and make even a simple verb like "wave" seem like a dangerous risk: as it turns out, "wave," since it suggests saying goodbye, sets up the poem's elegiac conclusion. The beauty of this skeptical, self-cancelling poetry lies in its resignation, and in the silent interstices between words: that semicolon between "foolish" and "sad" has stuck with me for fifteen years, since I first read the poem.'Timhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09257203824962491470noreply@blogger.com