The given,
which has concerned us,
no longer strikes so deep.
Age is more adventurous:
That is its gift to us, and from us.
We might almost wish
that it were not so.
Old age is poised --
rarely takes that last flight
above the peaks
that youth tried to scale
in vain.
from "The Weather Within"
I was sorry to hear the news that Enslin passed away last weekend. I have blogged about him previously, and, as I said then, I admired him enormously. He went his own way, in an American tradition of independence, and his later work, analogous to musical composition, is outside of any fashion or trend, and is quite unlike anything else being written right now. His last book will be published posthumously by Skysill Press.
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2 comments:
Enslin was a people's poet, very Whitmanesque. And perhaps what I like most about the man & work (and I've only known him for a couple of years or so, first introduced to him by Ed Baker) is the devotion to small press publication. Which will always make for a 'pure' poetry in these days of sideshow literariness.
I couldn't agree more Conrad. I admire poets who stay faithful to small presses when they could, if they wanted to, take up with big publishers.
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