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Public Poetry, Kevin Walzer's meditations on poetry, publishing, business, and other creative pursuits
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Kevin Walzer, a poet, poetry publisher, husband, and father.
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Thu, 01 May 2008
Book of the Day: Easy Marks by Gail White
Here's the most appropriate comment I can make about Easy Marks by Gail White:
Gail White
has bite.
Her poems,
no tomes,
can snap
or slap.
How daft!
I laugh,
but see
just me
entwined
in her lines:
For My Niece as She Enters Her Teens
One thing the Puritans were right about:
Children are savages. They have no mind
or morals, and their art-work doesn't count.
But now, thank God, you leave all that behind
and count as almost human--golden ore
that only wants a little smoothing down.
So now, the news flash you've been waiting for:
Your aunt and uncle didn't come to town
on a load of melons. We discovered sex
without your help; we drove our elders wild
with music, alcohol, and politics,
and wore our hair as long as yours, my child.
So don't suppose you understand pop culture
when you don't even know who Pogo was.
The Beatles aren't yet ready for the mulcher.
I still know several ways to get a buzz,
the Buddhist creed, and how to write free verse.
Your generation, love, could do much worse.
Cold. Nice
as ice.