Round 73

Yusef: "Clemency" by Robert Wrigley

Bob: "Illumined with the Light of Fitfully Burning Censers" by Dara Wier

"Clemency" is one of those poems with a lot of "writing" in it--"the redwing blackbirds / drilling their whistly bells." Is "scintillate" an adjective (after the analogy of desolate)? The speaker talks directly to God and is unembarrassed by doing so (or by his own "fine writing"). I've got to respect that sense of unembarrassment.

Dara Wier writes a parodic poem in "intelligent voice of suburban housewife" who, we repeatedly hear, "got an ok parking space." Does the intelligent housewife still use the word "fishmonger"? Not a criticism, just a question. What is defining her as intelligent here? Is the parody here too condescending?

I have to give the round to Bob just for the title of Dara's poem. I feel my critical faculties slipping away from me. I feel more and more fallible as the game reaches its conclusion, less and less inclined toward meanness.

After 73

20-41-11