Learning something

The timer is on again, for 10 minutes.

It is late, 11:30 am, and only now am I starting to write...The reasons why are not worthy of being blogged.

I have read Brian Turner's Footfall, from one poem to another, the lot of them, and reached the last one Exit, and it made my heart turn over.

A poem intended to be read at his funeral. He is only 60, and rides his bike all over the place - not about to die at all - a bit of depression there.

A wonderful poem, its truth unmistakable. I can't say what makes it so much more appealing than the others. Maybe it is that I don't care enough, they don't change anything. Exit is honest about his shortcomings and his hopes and regrets. It is not that either. Stunning, I can't wait to re-read it.

My next book is Hone Tuwhare's. His is waiting on top of the red sofa in the family room, for this evening. Robert Hass's edited collection is by my bed, to read before sleep.

Feedback from Elizabeth about my latest lot of poems - she explains why two bits I wanted to keep together in one poem do not fit, and it immediately becomes obvious. The two-poem version is best. I had been wondering whether I would actually learn something useful from her opinion on that particular issue, and because of the explanation she gives, that the connection between the two bits is too remote - which I saw for myself as soon as I read her words in the email, the answer is, Yes, I have learnt something.