![]() group death) through the example of the extinct Passenger Pigeon, whose final member “Martha,” as the epigraph tells us, passed away on September 1, 1914, and was stuffed and put into the Smithsonian Institution. (Interesting, too, how Janet’s “Buddha” has one eye open, and Yana’s Martha is known for her “glass-eyed visage”) However, the speaker of the poem, which one might suppose from the title that bridges into the first line, to have been Martha, is not Martha, but, as we learn in the final stanza, another stuffed animal “one case over” from Martha’s, and although the speaker may also be extinct, we don’t know who they/she/he is. Yana Kane’s poem, “I did not want” is a curious pairing with Janet’s “I Used to Think” Yana’s poem is also a list poem, where the ellipses that begin each stanza signal that each stanza is part of a list beginning with the title’s words “I did not want.” And like Janet’s poem, Yana’s poem also addresses the past, but in a very different register than Janet’s, because Janet talks about personal history and the feelings associated with leaving innocence behind, but Yana focuses on feelings associated with extinction (i.e. Janet’s poems don’t go out in these notes, so if you weren’t there, you’ll have to wait till it’s published someplace BIG! that my parents would always be living/ and time was a great Buddha sleeping with one eye open.” Someone pointed out that the poem doesn’t talk about the things the speaker thinks now, only what she ‘used to think’ and this creates a wonderful poetic state (or space) that allows something like nostalgia for delusion to become the emotion of the poem. It was a list poem of things the speaker “used to think” beginning with her previous belief that “a pot belly was gross” and very gradually moving from this comic instance into more and more serious material until we catch her admitting that dreams don’t come true: “I used to think you could live like an artist-/ not caring for jewels or cars,/ mortgages or debt – your hands your gift,/ you clothes speckled with paint…” She ends with a great sigh, saying, among other things: “I used to think. Pity the poor fool who wasn’t at the workshop Tuesday, where Janet Kolstein’s “I Used To Think” blew the roof off Zoom. ![]() How about that Marina Carriera reading at The Little Theatre at Felician U sponsored by RWB on Wednesday August 3? Great lyricism, great earthy (earthy = sexy) romanticism, and an important stand as a joyous first-generation Portuguese queer woman. Arthur Russell‘s recap of The Red Wheelbarrow Poets’ Workshop of August 2, 2022
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