“Was not their mistake once more bred of the life of slavery that they had been living?—a life which was always looking upon everything, except mankind, animate and inanimate—‘nature,’ as people used to call it—as one thing, and mankind as another, it was natural to people thinking in this way, that they should try to make ‘nature’ their slave, since they thought ‘nature’ was something outside them” — William Morris


Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Jean Valentine Glacial

One of my Ph.D. students just sent me this poem by Jean Valentine (1992):


Fox Glacier

The Tourist:     Blue plough bones
                                    High eye socket
                                    Soot rock gristle
                                    Be with me
                                    Be with me
                                    Be with me
                                    Never be not with us
                                    Fox

The Glacier:              My gentle coming: fall
                                    I am with you my
                                    Gold-pan
                                    My sieved and sieving brow
                                    Most wanted: Favorite:
                                    Wanted and needed and loved: Diaspora



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