Following Diane’s post below “About Seeing,” on Linda Gregg’s essay, I read Mary Ruefle’s essay from the same collection.
I was struck by this sentence: “There is a world which poets cannot seem to enter. It is the world everybody else lives in. And the only thing poets seem to have in common is their yearning to enter this world.”
And how can you resist an essay that includes this story: “In the 2001 Kentucky Derby, which I watched live on television, Keats ran against Invisible Ink. There was no way I was going to miss this race ....”
Monday, November 13, 2006
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5 comments:
Oh yeah, it's great; I read it in: From Planet on the Table: Poets on the Reading Life, edited by Sharon Bryan and William Olsen, which I got from the library. Mary Ruefle is brilliant. Maybe the other thing poets have in common is wishing we could write like Mary Ruefle. You have to pay attention. She says, continuing the Kentucky Derby story, "Keats lost. Invisible Ink placed third, but had he been second, he would have showed."
Ms. Ruefle's essay is brilliant, yet she was in dire need of a fact checker. The Derby results she reports in that essay are incorrect. Invisible Ink was second in the 2001 Derby, barely nosing out Congaree. Both were defeated by Monarchos, who was the Derby winner. Second in a race is "placed." Had Invisible Ink been third, he would have showed.
I had money on Keats in the race, for sentimental reasons, but he faded too soon. That's pretty ironic right there.
Pamela, you're right, of course, about win, place, and showed. I knew that, but the authority of her essay statement made me discount that. Thanks.
d-
I thought the essay was marvelous, and I think she's brilliant. Thanks for pointing me toward her work. I will definitely order that book when I get paid.
Although it was Robert who pointed out the essay, I wanted to say that the book I mentioned has quite a few essays by poets on what they read.
Mary Ruefle's poetry is indeed brilliant as well.
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