Kate Colby, New England poet, is a friend of Suzanne’s.
I struggled with her pithy collection Fruitlands but am now happily into Beauport. Which is not to say I understand everything. But I am loving the spare naturalness of the language.
It hits the same pleasure buttons as deceptively casual-sounding passages in T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, like:
“Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
“Had a bad cold, nevertheless
“Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
“With a wicked pack of cards.”
I don’t know what Eliot is getting at exactly, but I’m crazy about the way that sounds.
Here’s a bit from Beauport that made me smile:
Fashionable Turn-outs in Central Park (1869)
“Those were the days. Don’t you think?
“Sunday driving in plein-
“air affairs of gold
“rims and spokes,
“upper-lip-shaped
“lisping, bespoke
“tailcoats.
“No incendiary pamphleteers,
“here, no lady lecturers,
“temperance hoo-hah …”
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