16.8.07

to leave his fitful home...

from my anthology of must read (a)merican poems

Liam Rector

Age Moves


Age moves in the hound
As it was in me moving
Through forest I found

As to dog I went
That year scrounging
Through Manhattan....

The wood opened out,
Unlikely in the city,
As to boy slandering

To leave his fitful home,
Bright he might survive
With his pen-knife only.

*

I’m drawn to the possibility in Rector’s beautiful poem – a work that serves, or at least seems so now, as a message-in-a-bottle from a wonderful poet.

A gentle wave as he goes – gentle…because the world is not always so.




      1949-2007

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm a little shocked. Thanks for posting this.

sam of the ten thousand things said...

Sad news.

Anonymous said...

Reading the tributes & the examples of his poetry, I'm appalled at how little American poetry filters through the various veils & barriers that enclose the poetry scene (such as it is) here in the UK. Personal resolution: I shall seek out more!

sam of the ten thousand things said...

Thanks for stopping by, Dick. One important attribute of American poetry is how open it is. A poetry with many voices, many differences.