BlueIris
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Thu Dec-06-07 09:00 PM
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The BlueIris Semi-Nightly Poetry Break, 12/6/07 |
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"Nevsky Prospekt"
(July 1917)
It is an old photo, very black and very white. One woman lifts up her heavy skirt as she runs. A man in a white jacket, his hands tied behind his back, runs, his chin stuck out. An old woman in massive black turns and looks behind her. A man throws himself on the pavement. A child in heavy boots is running but looks back over his shoulder at the black and white heap of bodies. The wide grey stone square is dotted with fallen, inky shapes and dropped white hats. Everything else is heaving away like a sea from the noise we feel in the silence of the photograph the way the deaf see sound: the terrible voice of the submachine guns saying This is more important than your life.
—Sharon Olds
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BlueIris
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Thu Dec-06-07 09:27 PM
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1. I've read this poem twenty times and find something new in it each time. |
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This last reading, I was compelled to notice that Olds mentions the figures in the photo are (or were) running from the slaughter, not just walking or hopping or whathaveyou. It's a poem about terror.
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BlueIris
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Thu Dec-06-07 10:04 PM
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2. But, in a way, this poem is so much *better* than the other one I posted. |
BlueIris
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Fri Dec-07-07 02:26 AM
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CaliforniaPeggy
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Fri Dec-07-07 02:29 AM
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This is astonishing, and terrifying...
I can literally see what's happening...
And I feel like running away too!
Thank you...:hug:
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BlueIris
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Fri Dec-07-07 09:13 PM
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ThomCat
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Fri Dec-07-07 09:50 PM
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6. How much more would we learn about history |
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if the text books came with descriptions like that? :shrug:
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BlueIris
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Fri Dec-07-07 09:58 PM
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Thu May 02nd 2024, 06:06 PM
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