Today was divine. The air embraced it was so hot. Mexican food on a date in the city (fresh guacamole that was perfectly salted) and a new poet! Can you believe it? I was reading on the Metro and found her. Lorine Niedecker. I’d never read her before now. But her mythical miniatures eddied into my eyes today (via an article by Majorie Perloff). What a luxury to find a miniaturist that carefully constructs as Emily did, and adapts and rejuvenates myth and personal lyric like H.D.. She identified with the Objectivists (like Zukofsky who was her mentor) but her brilliance is how the personal lyric (“weedy speech”) jig-jags out of the lapping lull of her exact and dual-minded words. Here is one of her poems (Jean Valentine must just adore her! I can hear Jean’s lyrical construction in Niedecker.)

I married
in the world’s black night
for warmth
If not repose.
At the close—
someone.

I hid with him
from the long range guns.
We lay leg
In the cupboard, head
In closet.

A slit of light
at no bird dawn—
Untaught
I thought
he drank

too much.
I say
I married
And lived unburied.
I thought—