Cheesy Poems anyone?
Prosody 101
When they taught me that what mattered most
was not the strict iambic line goose-stepping
over the page but the VARIATIONS
in that line and the tension produced
on the ear by the surprise of difference,
I understood yet didn’t understand
exactly, until just now, years later
in spring, with the trees already lacy
and camelliasblowsy with middle age,
I looked out and saw what a cold front had done
to the garden, sweeping in like common language,
unexpected in the sensuous
extravagance of a Maryland spring.
There was a DARK EDGE around each flower
as if it had been outlined in ink
instead of , and the tension I felt
between the expected and actual
was like that time I came to you, ready
to say goodbye for good, for you had been
a cold front yourself lately, and as I walked in
you laughed and lifted me up in your arms
as if I too were lacy with spring
instead of middle aged like the camellias,
and I thought: so this is poetry!
I first read this poem on my literature SAT II and i kinda fell in love with it for some unbeknowst reason…
