Isn’t it sometimes Y? Oh, wrong rule. In Geoff Moorman’s self-education about poems—how they are shaped, what they omit and what they mean—this is pretty straightforward. Cat burglar. But seriously, because he was so kind as to read all twenty-five lines, let me venture that I was happily toddling along down the page with the kind of carelessness I usually reserve for the rest of my life, and was so excited about “zarf” that I fell out of step, something like skipping a toe-tap in a jig. Maybe some meaning can be found where the Y was not. Perhaps that no systems are perfect, but still afford a coherent whole? Or that we cannot find that out deliberately?
Originally Published: September 5, 2012
The Poetry Magazine Podcast: May 2013: Yes, Tarp
Jessica Greenbaum Responds