tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1370181939017578161.post8770233860855291169..comments2023-08-13T09:04:51.674-04:00Comments on poetry passion: Metaphorpkcypherthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12837822081159657095noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1370181939017578161.post-15725419096995443052013-04-29T15:10:47.304-04:002013-04-29T15:10:47.304-04:00Two highly successful, beautiful pieces. Is “This...Two highly successful, beautiful pieces. Is “This Was Once a Love Poem” bittersweet ? Satiric? It is certainly meditative and poetic. (Not every poem is poetic.) First, Hirshfield evokes beauty and youth, when passion and ideals seem irrevocable, and when truth is written with a capital “T.” But as one grows older the world seems narrower. Conversations about “history, art” are replaced by “African violets or flowering cactus.” The small and tactile replaces the grand and abstract. Satisfaction replaces love. Or is love really gone? The “single finger outstretched like a tiny flame” announces a passion that never completely dies. There is a note of despair in the singleness, but also a note of hope in the flame.<br /><br />“The Key” is another existential poem that flirts with the mythological. The woman who comes by the lake is like an earth goddess. At the same time, she is every woman contemplating her existence, as waters here are highly symbolic. And the house “dreaming” on the formidable shore, and compared to a “red barrette on a wooden dresser” evokes the familiar versus the infinite, our place in the universe that would appear as insignificant as dust but would change its whole equilibrium should we disappear.marie-johttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05798554105777034828noreply@blogger.com