My poem has stepped out into the world with nary a backward glance. 'After Reading Auden' has made itself comfortable on the Caselberg Trust website with news of the Poetry Prize that embraced it, and is jostling for space in the shiny new issue of Landfall (221) which is packed with such pleasures as a Vincent O'Sullivan review of the novel 'Gifted', a Stephanie de Montalk essay on nursing and poems by Alice Miller. There it is between judge Bernadette Hall's report on the Caselberg prizewinners, and Michele Amas' delicious 'home to you'. And now the Dominion Post is interested in hosting 'After Reading Auden' too.I am thrilled by the poem's chutzpah, delighted it is still a little shy of all the exposure, and more than a little amazed that it is somehow connected to me. This is how it should be for a poem. Too much time inside a computer hard drive can make it a pale and meagre thing, drained of the confidence it needs to step out into the world.
It made its first steps here, but now it's out there, the poem seems pinker and plumper and its shoulders are set a whole new way - and listen, it's singing our song.
1 comment:
Mary, dear, this is wonderful news. You have every right to feel a little fizzy over it! Congratulations very much. xox
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