Monday, October 17, 2011

Poems and Mushrooms

I picked this up from Rob McKenzie's blog, who in turn is talking about Don Share's take on a poem by Katherine Kilalea which is called 'Henneker's Ditch.

Share quotes the poem - if it is not the whole, I'd be dying to get the collection it's in, New Poetries V - and then goes on a really interesting meander, showing us not only a good appreciation, but a good insight into his own thought processes when he comes across a poem that needs unlocking.

I last felt this interested in a poem when reading T.S. Eliot's Prufrock, or Ginsberg's Howl. This is a poem that's got me thinking about hybridity, dream sequences, and - of all things - some of the things I used to do, twenty or so years ago before I got sense.

They would be drugs - well, mushrooms in particular (that's about as hard as it got around here - they were free!) - which I'm not advocating in any shape or form - but these were the first thing I thought of when I read Kate Kilalea's poem... I've put this here more as a note or reminder to myself, more than anything - but the poem is exciting, and has me thinking hard.

5 comments:

Dominic Rivron said...

Thanks for drawing my attention to this. She has a striking voice - unashamably Modernist. It reminded me of Pound and Eliot - The Waste Land in places.

Rachel Fenton said...

Wow - no effort at all to read that - in the sense it sucked me right in - but tickled me into re-readings - so much in there. Thanks, Barbara :)

Rachel Fox said...

Dancing curtains... that's what mushrooms did for me. I've never been able to look at a curtain in the same way again!
Oh and I once thought I was going to give birth to a loaf of bread. But that's another story...
x

Unknown said...

It's an exciting poem Dominic, and yes it is modernist - and yes Eliot for me, I must read more Pound!

Rachel Fenton, yes that's what I thought too - good you liked it!

Rachel Fox, we have more in common - with me, it's the moon. Maybe you'll share the loaf of bread story some time ;)

Short Poems said...

iI enjoyed reading your lines very much.