Round 10,064

Yusef: "After Your Death" by Natasha Trethewey

Bob: "Poem After Daniel Hang" by Dale Smith

A school of quietude poem, well done, against Dale Smith's imitation/translation of a Spanish conquistador. This is a difficult one. I am not convinced by this voice:

but only when at last
I relaxed could I see
the possibilities of a life
in which to be deprived of Europe
was not to be deprived of much.

or:

Tribe after tribe,
language after language
who could recall them all?

Who is supposed to be speaking here? The voice just doesn't ring true, either as a 16th century explorer or as a contemporary American poet. I can see the argument that it's supposed to be hybrid voice, but I don't buy it. Dale/Bob should win for ambition,

but

Yusef wins with Natasha's nicely turned poem about "another space emptied by loss." I like the image of the fig half-eaten by insects.

After 10,064

18-35-10