[Critique Group 1] Leonard's comments on Salley's sub

[leonard tuchyner]

This is telling exactly what you are doing,

while you are doing it.

Such a unique and sublime way of telling how you do a poem.

You tell how you make poetry,

at least this one.

You are Grateful that you  have the leisure to enter into the process.

Your technique is very much like prayer.

It is not a process you take control over,

but it is a letting the poem and its ideas assemble themselves

as if by magic.

And, the quiet they pierce is like a quiet clarion call.

I love this piece.



 Mid-morning, the rituals of prayer

and chores done, I sit nestled

in silence, grateful for time

to sift floating half-formed ideas

as they filter into cohesive themes.

I sort and juggle dancing words

that skip into place by their own volition

or, through what seems like magic,

into poems that pierce the quiet.



                 By Sally Rosenthal