Line from Woodnotes I

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem

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The weakness of “departed lover” in

The line is maybe only slightly weak,

Not weak enough to be condemned as sin,

But weak is weak.  When scansion is oblique,

A stanza suffer–and the poem as

A body’s whacked, and, yeah, the line before’s

Afflicted, too, like cool New Orleans jazz

When stripped of syncopation.  All the corps

Of lines are so unsteady in their count

And rhythms that one wonders why his wife

Or friend or editor chose not to mount

A whisper (fearing tiny, homely strife?).

  The poem hobbles onwards in its pain

    Despite the mind behind, that lucid brain.

~ Phillip Whidden