Wednesday, July 23, 2008

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER: 1988 - William Meredith


ENVOI


Go, little book. If anybody asks
Why I add poems to a time like this,
Tell how the comeliness I can't take in
Of ships and other figures of content
Compels me still until I give them names;
And how I give them names impatiently,
As who should pull up roses by the roots
That keep him turning on his empty bed,
The smell intolerable and thick with loss.


----------------------------------------
from "Effort at Speech: New and Selected Poems" by William Meredith,
published by Triquarterly Books/Northwestern University Press in 1997

2 comments:

sam of the ten thousand things said...

What a beautiful and perfect piece of writing. Thanks for this post, Nick. What I wouldn't give to have written the last line.

Nick said...

This poem is so in tune with they way I feel lately that it hit me like a ton of bricks.