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“Curious one should think of the way that
trickles of water would then find paths down the edge of the street
after rain, the way one would squat for hours contriving diversions,
little dams of twigs and pebbles, bits of stick, dirt, paper. Then
float leaves on the current still persisting, watching the progress
of them either end up in a cul de sac or else sail off in proverbial
glory. I was supposed to be getting home after school, but this
was far more interesting.
“Graham Foust’s poems are ‘far more interesting’
and find their way through like impedances, moved on by just such
currents. Think of the myriad ‘rhetorics’ that overlay
our speaking. ‘Hey there!’ ‘Sir?’ And so
on, not to mention all the frames and habits, which (that!) make
saying anything (something? some thing?) so freighted.
There is
also the pace as in W.C. Williams’s ‘The
old horse dies slow…,’ if you know that poem. These
poems move in close to luxuriant circles, round and round each particular
syllable, neither hurrying nor dragging behind—just there.
At times there seems an almost physical presence to them, a third
dimension, which is substance.
“There are years between us but we meet nonetheless in these
places, thinking (‘I think / think think once / in a while’)—thinking. In fact, he’s the first person who ever
moved me to look up the etymology of that word think: ‘tong-.
To think, feel . . . Old English thancian, to thank . . .’
Anyhow, methinks I owe this poet thanks for fact of us both finding
wit in stone and much else. He feels, therefore he knows.” —Robert Creeley