Comment on this article

What Ed Bennett wrote:
"Migrants" is the poet's exploration of nature ranging from his garden to a pack
of nocturnal raccoons foraging in the dark. His vision is crystalline, especially
in "August 28" where he opens the poem with:

"I lay a cool slice
of red ripe brandywine tomato
on my tongue."

The language and rhythm of the lines are as free as Whitman with the short phrase
precision of image that one finds in William Carlos Williams. Each of these poems,
though familiar in setting, grabs the reader's attention not so much with a fist at
the collar as with an arm around the shoulder. He sets the stage in this section for
a journey through the reader's soul.


August 28
   (For Richard Brautigan)
by Bruce Dethlefsen

I lay a cool slice
of red ripe brandywine tomato
on my tongue

I lick off the blade
fold up my knife
and stare through the garden fog

I could tell you
this is autumn
on its wisconsin way

I could compare this tomato
to the red red of falling leaves
the circumcised morning air
the tang of goose wings flapping

and I can tell you don't care
you say where's the lettuce
the bacon
the bread
that celebrated spread of mayonnaise




Ed's full review can be viewed here:

Breather

Return to: