"Hire us / lucid; I'm / finesse undue"

December 12, 2015 5:22 PM

I fucken love Catriona Strang's poetry. Who's like her? Or who else might I like?

I mean, just look at this thing:

Come contingent; you're a pressed pair--
it's a bribe as obsequious
as no paid stare possessed
and not quite dared: a verbal wreck
Sit, tidbit, salutes are said:
         our vast pottering
evacuates simpers, or sums
         a maximum squeem.

Or come sit in enamoured regions;
I'll appall all dear protests.
Our indignant tantrums
sever a query's meek peril
and muck back loot's calm:
         presume us oscular
we sustain a choice neck
         celebrate the night air.

posted by Joseph Gurl to Media & Arts (7 answers total)

She dedicates the book to Lisa Robertson. How about Lisa Robertson?
posted by bibliotropic at 5:41 PM on December 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

William Carlos Williams long poems maybe? C.P. Cavafy perhaps?
posted by vrakatar at 6:49 PM on December 12, 2015

Consider Rosemary Tonks, who was the subject of a great FPP by verstegen, which introduced me to her work, sampled in one of the excellent links:

… England is darker than a thrush, tonight,
Brown, trustworthy hours lie ahead. Suddenly
My past hurls her dream towards me!
I steady myself … but how tender, carnal, blasé it is.

Let me hide, well away from a past that dreams like that.
Away from streets that taste of blood and sugar
When the glowing month smashes itself against the hedges

In the dark. I need ink poured by an abbey…

(‘A Few Sentences Away’)

I've put Tonks on the furthest burner back, myself, not to be served and consumed until very near the end, not least because she looks to me for all the world like a genuine case of possession by a malevolent if not malignant family spirit handed on at death from generation to generation.

Also, glance at Laura Riding, and at Anne Sexton.
posted by jamjam at 8:21 PM on December 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Kevin McPherson Eckhoff?
posted by miles1972 at 10:35 PM on December 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

Anne Carson?
posted by miles1972 at 10:37 PM on December 12, 2015

Response by poster: Was hoping for a bit more, but just in case anyone's still thinking about this: I'm already very familiar with Williams, Robertson, Tonks, Riding, Sexton, and Carson, and of them I think only Carson scratches a place in the vicinity of my Strang itch (and some seem very far off to me, ymmv). Eckhoff, though, I hadn't read before, so thanks, miles 1972!
posted by Joseph Gurl at 11:15 PM on December 13, 2015

Maybe some Frederick Seidel? Especially from Going Fast.

Also maybe Alana Merritt Mahaffey.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 4:08 PM on December 14, 2015 [1 favorite]