Marvelous stuff! Any complaints about 'pompous grandiosity' (below) absolutely misses the point; the tone, the urgency, the verve of the speaker matches this distant context of ancient Mesopotamia. And that's what makes the shift in "Reclining Nude" to close on tenderness and lyricism all the more profound: "running your hands over the air, kissing the light." Lovely.
The town heaves? I can see why he's a junior professor; the entire poem is godawful. It's clumsy and pretentious, filled with pompous grandiosity, as is the 3rd piece. Put that thesaurus back in your desk, man.
Marvelous stuff! Any complaints about 'pompous grandiosity' (below) absolutely misses the point; the tone, the urgency, the verve of the speaker matches this distant context of ancient Mesopotamia. And that's what makes the shift in "Reclining Nude" to close on tenderness and lyricism all the more profound: "running your hands over the air, kissing the light." Lovely.
Thank you for posting these poems! Really enjoyable and I hope to see more from James in future.
The town heaves? I can see why he's a junior professor; the entire poem is godawful. It's clumsy and pretentious, filled with pompous grandiosity, as is the 3rd piece. Put that thesaurus back in your desk, man.