Ode to Mary Oliver
In a good poem, like the ones you write, nobody masturbates or stubs their toe
They only hear magic voices telling them to change their life
There is no burnt toast, only mystic animals and boxes of darkness
There’s no evil, your lyric speakers always think well of themselves
Going off into the woods to embrace trees
I don’t buy it because there should be a lot more insect bites
Your bland, pious words betray you
Maybe your sanctimonious platitudes are the bad poems after all, Mary Oliver!
I’m coming to realize this as I write this ode to you
Maybe my terribly bad poems are not so bad after all,
Much as I try to make them worse and worse
5 comments:
Excellent!
It needs a little more punch, somehow I suddenly want a Baroque insult poem for M. O. but -- yes, this is why I don't like her work.
Thank you for this, Jonathan!
I did my best to try not to think less of people who put Mary Oliver quotes on their FB wall, but I did not really succeed.
There is no delight in language in her poetry, no invention, though am sure she was nice, in that word's etymological sense.
The etymology of "nice" is "stupid," from the Latin nescio.
One of my favourite etymologies,
Y sí.
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