I wrote this poem in December 2016, in that moment—to quote Emily Dickinson— "between the instant of a wreck/ and when the wreck has been." The final scene was inspired by an image from a poem by Anna Akhmatova, who was brutally aware of the line between art and kitsch. Apologies to all who have asked to read the play described here; the speaker and play are fictional. However, the story of my grandmother burning her photo albums is true.
Jason Schneiderman on "Dramaturgy" |
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What Sparks Poetry:
John Robert Lee on Philip Larkin's "Church Going"
"I took, and still take, however subsumed, his neo-formal poetic forms, unfussy, concentrated, a modest musical tone playing on half rhymes and perhaps above all, the finely detailed and close, film-like observation of the world around him, physical, natural, and emotional. 'Church Going' was one of the poems I copied as I learned from him how to shape such pointed, accurate stanzas." |
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