Re : question
Camille Scaysbrook (the_globe@hotmail.com)
Sun, 05 Apr 1998 04:08:33 -0700 (PDT)
In these post-modern times especially I think this is well within the
realms of `fair usage' (for want of a better term). Today, it seems that
people worry less about where inspiration comes from and more about the
actual quality of content (e.g. Quentin Tarantino, whose movies contain
far
more obvious and self proclaimed `borrowings' than would have been
acceptable not that long ago). It's a good poem - it stands by itself
whether or not you know the Salinger reference. Responding to or
borrowing
from other poets has a long tradition behind it - for example, Sir
Walter
Raleigh's response to Marlowe's `The Passionate Shepherd to his
Love'.(and
C.Day Lewis' response to that).
Camille
verona_beach@geocities.com
THE ARTS HOLE
@ http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/6442
> The Trouble Tree
>
> The story goes
> he comes home
> each night and hangs
> his troubles
> like clothes
> on the branches
> of his hesitation.
> These days it's not
> war that causes
> his twigs to bend
> but his brother,
> their fist-in-face
> voices on the phone,
> their wrong silences,
> and how far they
> stretch between poles.
> What can brothering
> mean to these two,
> the only two,
> so different
> that to name
> their link
> a new language
> would only be
> the beginning?
> Underground
> is a root system
> secretly guarding
> and connecting
> inverted forests
> with emotional foliage
> and a water system
> thicker than blood.
> Deeper still
> a wasteland
> of wanting
> consumes
> with emptiness
> what generations
> meekly inherit
> as human nature.
> How he sees
> into his brother's
> core is a gaze
> skinning bark
> on this trees
> lowest branch,
> testing wood
> and age rings
> until the earth's
> true center
> is rooted.
>
> *****
> will hochman
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