
Lines Worth Quoting
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It takes forever to read a book of poetry
and twice that long to read a single poem.
Poems’ words are more than vehicles for stories.
They work – or don’t – on levels and dimensions
the poet may wish but they themselves decide.
I like to write in o.m.g. italics
with a font not seen since seventeen-sixteen.
It makes reviewers of my prose suppose
I’m original, or tetched, or must have been
in my merry minutes writing, running hose,
and shaping paragraphs to form a calyx
whose sense if any is sensory not flat
and factual. I am not ‘into’ that,
preferring quote-mark irony to ironing
and to too-perfect rhyme. I end up whining.