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Jock Sturges in “Poetry Northwest”

 

My friend Lynn threw out the magazine Poetry Northwest (Volume 1, Number One, Spring 2006) so I stole it from her recycling bin. I don’t like any of the poems, but the photographs by Jock Sturges, of nudist camps, are milky and involving. The editor, David Biespiel (or whoever made that decision) was exactly correct: a naked person (for example "Vanessa; Le Porge, France, 2003") is a poem, as she lies beside a still pond reflecting firs. Or Minna, in Oud Heusden, the Netherlands (1994), who floats in a stream with her arms outstretched, head bent to one side, like a medieval Christ, as a tangle of reeds flourishes to her left. Or Maia in Montalivet, France (1991) who bends over to shave her narrow legs, in an outdoor shower. Much better than the poem I chose at random:

 

This "planet" is a baked clay pancake.

He studies it now: it’s cool

enough to handle, and he’s placed it on the sand,

at his feet. At this remove, the world is

abstract and complacent: not even the venial Y

of the Tigris and Euphrates is more

than the faintest tracery slipping

like a dream, back to its bedrock. At this

 

Okay, that’s all I can stand. It’s called "Bruno’s Place" by Albert Goldbarth.

  

John:
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