( via / via )

Dictionary of the Khazars.

      "rasterbook"

mirage of the world · the rain shadow
   cerulean beach · balked crescent
muggy esplanade · artifact pile
   burnt timbers left · where time broke
graygreen hymnal raised · by ghost henchmen
   in the pages · permission

There is hardly a tradition in English as there is in Japanese of the jisei or “death-poem”, but Stevenson gets my vote for the best one.

   Was Wilbur a great poet? If Sylvia Plath was the preëminent poet of her era (as i do believe), then he certainly would feature among the most accomplished minor poets*. Is there any reason for this classification? I say a poet can write one or two poems that deserve to be remembered, & be a "great minor" (or just "minor" since that adjective conveys only my appreciation); a "major poet" is one who influences other poets (at the time or after death), & by whose presence the tradition afterwards is not the same. Lots of formal poets admire Wilbur (as Frost's urbane brother...). Did his having written change anyone else's work?

Now, if he had written more alliterative poems like "Junk" or "The Lilacs" (now 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒'𝑠 a Wilbur deep-cut), the poets of the Alliterative Revival could embrace him as a forerunner & i might be more inclined to reclassify him. But these are not the poems one thinks of in connection with his name.

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* Berryman & Lowell being right on the edge, fading now except for their handful of greatest hits, i think. --It's senseless to confine this to poets in English just from America. Put Wilbur next to Geoffrey Hill & compare.

Hotel Housekeeping: Summer Seasonal, 1969.