Saturday, October 10, 2009

Workshop 4

We spent lots of time visiting Elizabeth Bishop's Santarem (accent on the e), which ES (Ed Skoog our leader) termed a "masterpiece." It appeared in The New Yorker on February 20, 1978 with its opening
"Of course I may be remembering it all wrong
after, after--how many years?"

Skoogisms: Fragments are more tolerated in the present tense. The past is inherently sad. Sing a little Kung Fu Fighting ("Everybody was..."

The workshop and its participants as well as the hour long Metro ride on the Green and Orange or Blue lines is rebuilding the post-chemo poet in me, the post-chemo Ernie Wormwood.

We are on hiatus this week, what will transpire in the two weeks off?

2 comments:

Beto Palaio said...

So good for Brazilian poetry that Elizabeth Bishop lived here (in a montain refuge at Rio at fifties). I love the poetry she wrote about a "sweet bred" (pão doce) that are so masterly made by bakers down here.
By the way: Santarém is a city in Amazonia.

ewormwood said...

Thanks for your comment, Beto. I just now saw this.