Poetry often deals with the intractable — vivid troubles over some longed-for and unattainable object (or one never to be banished), some hungering thing unaccomplished or painfully irrevocable. The ever-acute British writer W.H. Auden evoked that preoccupation when he called poetry the “clear expression of mixed feelings.” Many of the submissions in this lively pool of Bay area poets explored these conditions with grace and subtlety.
The piece I chose, “Another Crazy in Love,” retells a classic Greek myth of erotic devotion and betrayal. But to retell is not merely to repeat. This version doesn’t mention that in earlier renderings of the myth, Clytie had Helios’s new lover killed in order to get him to return to her. (That didn’t work, by the way.) And this poet emphasizes that Clytie, rather than being transformed by her grief, “willed” her limbs to take root, “wished” her face into a flower. Willing and wishing — two kinds of volition (even as one may wonder what kinds of control they might also be).
READ THE 2018 JUDGE'S PICK FOR POETRY, "ANOTHER CRAZY IN LOVE"
You don’t need to know the myth to get the gist of the poem. But the speaking voice offers it as a substitute for the erotic particulars of a contemporary situation and thus as an invitation to further meaning. Hear it in the title: “Another Crazy in Love” or “Another Crazy in Love.” The ancient Greeks frequently likened desire to a delicious, dangerous madness. Does love make us crazy, or do we bring a native craziness to it? Can we choose our myths of desire wisely, or at all?
READ THE 2018 READERS' PICK FOR POETRY, "BOMBSHELL"
I’m happy for what this poem compels me to consider, how it leads me to questions with more than one plausible answer. That vanilla scent coaxing butterflies to the heliotrope, the sunflower — isn’t it also the charm we each concoct to distract from our wounds and crimes, and compensate for our predicament? —Donald Morill
All of the poetry submissions were judged with the authors’ names removed. The top 10 finalists and the winning poem were selected by Poetry Judge Donald Morrill, Dana Professor of English and dean of graduate and continuing studies at the University of Tampa. Don is the author of four books of nonfiction and three volumes of poetry, and his novel Beaut, winner of the Lee Smith Novel Prize, is being published this spring. The former poetry editor of Tampa Review, he recently concluded a term on the Assoiciation of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Board of Directors. Don is married to fiction judge and fellow UT faculty member Lisa Birnbaum.
(Read the Readers' and Judge's Picks for fiction here.)
This article appears in Feb 1-8, 2018.