Jody Azzouni

Jody's Notes

Okay--a couple of made-up words. Made-up words isn't that big a deal except for the occasional editor who doesn't get it, who "fixes" the poem. (Without asking you whether it was deliberate, I mean--I'm not talking about the editors at Blue Unicorn.) And the syntax wrenched--but really just a little. Otherwise, it's narrative, and straightforward narrative if you know the Greek myth.

So I backed away a little. From what I'd done in earlier poems. At least from this: Leaving so much space on the page between image A and image B that the reader has to work to put it together.

And that's interesting. Sometimes, when we find that the way we talk has shifted, we find that earlier ways of speaking are gone. We look back and say: How weird, how I used to talk. Other times, we retain earlier ways, use them on occasions when we're in the mood (or when we can't help ourselves), work them into ways that we currently speak. Give the ways we speak some depth and resonance. At least in this sense of depth and resonance.

By the way, D.H. Lawrence wrote a poem on the same theme. I remember reading all of Lawrence's poems. I hated the experience. And it went on and on for weeks and weeks. (Because, of course, the experience was one of reading all of Lawrence's poems. That's not an experience you can have in a hurry.)

I liked only two of his poems. Out of all of them. And one of the poem I liked was about this myth.

I republished this poem in The Lust for Blueprints.