Sunday 5 April 2015

Diane Wakoski

Diane Wakoski is often associated with the Deep Image movement yet her creative career goes far beyond the boundaries of this particular school of poetry. As Paul Hoover points out, the label is connected mostly to her early years as a poet in which she created stunning surrealist pieces like “Blue Monday” (which was the inspiration for my own response). But her style has changed somewhat since then, moving from dreamlike abstraction to a more narrative style. Her very personal and direct pieces might remind of the Beats or Confessionals and often looks at the unpleasant and painful parts of people’s lives. The Poetry Foundation quotes Peter Schjeldahl saying about Wakoski’s poems in the New York Times Book Review:
"[They] are professionally supple and clear . . . but their pervasive unpleasantness makes her popularity rather surprising. One can only conclude that a number of people are angry enough at life to enjoy the sentimental and desolating resentment with which she writes about it." 
I am definitely one of those people who share her rage. – Although not in this poem, for once I actually wrote a happy one.

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In Mint Condition

Ocean green ocean of soft
cushion moss morning leaf
a dream’s citrusy taste still tingling
lingering tender rest breast fingertip
traces on apple sheets
He holds me
in mint condition
aquamarine at the bottom of my spine
through every fibre I shimmer emerald
taking luscious sips of flavoursome chartreuse
breathing pine
with callow sun light caught in the eastern window
my leaves turn
my roots stretch eager and deep
I am sheltered delicate flesh in avocado sheathing
He my forester
his rake untangling my twisted blades
caressing my shoulders
pulling patiently my miserable weeds
in my meadows he opens the sky
on a morning of malachite
my jade in the palm shivering
in mint condition
only in his light





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