25.4.07

five poems / five days #3

Jean Valentine

Poetry


You, poem
the string I followed blind
to leaf by thick green leaf
to your stem
milky
poem without words
world electric with you

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Valentine has written a strong and accurate image of the creative process – how poets follow the voice – not knowing or even understanding the where of the going – how the poem is outside us. We listen. We follow.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I love Valentine.

But I have a question--one time on your blog we were talking about being nostalgic for a place even while you were at that place and you quoted a poem by Basho. What was that poem?

thanx!

sam of the ten thousand things said...

Thanks for the read Jenni.

As for your question - Matsuo Basho

      Even in Kyoto –
hearing the cuckoo’s cry –
      I long for Kyoto.