We set ourself to a long and difficult art,
An amateur at heart.
We said, “A poem should be like fragile ware,
Perfect and bone-bare
And real enough to touch, if one has courage.”
That was a tender age.
Some cracked, and some, more obstinate than we,
Kept their deformity.
Here are the crazed, misshapen, and time-tarnished
Poems we once wished—
All that luck, zeal, and pains of craft would spare—
Finished beyond repair.
-
Clearing the shelf
This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 2 Number 8, on page 66
Copyright © 1984 The New Criterion | www.newcriterion.com