Sunday Poem

THE NEWSPAPER

The photo of the little Jew in the cap,
Back to the gun held by the Nazi
With splay feet aware of the camera,
The little boy with his hands in the air,
I turn over. I don't want to see it.
As a member of the human race. I am
Civilized. I am happy. I flap the
Newspaper with the picture over
So that when it is picked up to be taken
Down the cellar to be put with the trash
I won't see it. I am sensitive.
The little boy is dead. He went
Through death. The cap is his best one.
He has brown eyes. He does not
Understand. Putting your hands
Up in front of a carbine prevents
The bullet. He is with the others,
Some of them he knows, so
It is all right. I turn
The paper over, the picture face
Down.

From Selected Poems by Ralph Gustafson (2001)

Palmu's blurbs

Brian Palmu, who is quietly emerging as one of the sharper poetry critics in the Canadian blogosphere (admittedly, not a big group to begin with), gives us his notes to the 83 books of poetry he read in 2008 -- that's probably 82 more than any sane, well-adjusted man should have to read.

Three Signal books were implicated in this herculean task: Postscript by Geoffrey Cook, Red Ledger by Mary Dalton and The Power to Move by Susan Glickman (out of print, but available in her selected Running in Prospect Cemetery). Brian liked two of the three. To find out which, you'll need to read the whole thing (not an unreasonable request given the keen concision and provocativeness of the individual entries -- you'll enjoy it).

I'm especially grateful for his appreciation of the very fine Anglo-Quebec poet Ralph Gustafson, who appears twice. (Vehicule published Gustafson's Selected in 2001).