A conversation in poetry involves a bunch of poets and fellow travellers (e.g. painters, photographers, translators) in an informal conversation taking the form of the work itself; that is, people respond in kind to each other’s creative efforts.
Dear Conversation readers, In the context of reading the recent, strong poems about birth here, I don't know why a poem about a death should come to me. Perhaps, in the face of their very strength and power, I had felt frozen, and could not carry on the “conversation”; perhaps I felt that more need not be said.
Then, something in Cui Yuwei's poem-response to those poems broke through and freed me, and out came a draft of this poem.
Revisiting my draft tonight, I thought well, it carries on the conversation? My father's death was a kind of birth, for him. I hope to use the poem in a series I am writing, For my father who art in heaven.
The title I have given my poem is very much a provisional title, just added tonight. Thanks for reading! By the way I am very grateful to Kit for organising this conversation space, it has made me write poems I think I might not have uncovered without this blog.
