Lumpy pudding

Judging a poem is like judging a pudding or a machine. One demands that it work. Poetry succeeds because all or most of what is said or implied is relevant; what is irrelevant has been excluded, like lumps from pudding and 'bugs' from machinery. (Wimsatt & Beardsley)

Here we celebrate the excluded, lumpy parts of the pudding!

May 24, 2012 3:00pm
Joseph Brodsky: A Season The time of the hawk counting chickens, of haystacks in fog, of small change in the pocket that burns the skin; of the northern rivers whose ripples, freezing in a far-off mouth, recall their sources, their god-forsaken south, and warm up for a second. The time of the daylight’s ups and downs; of the raincoat hanging, swollen boots, mishaps in the stomach due to the soft-boiled, fallow turnip; of winds tearing apart gonfalons of sod-fearing warriors. The season of card-built kremlins; days resemble each other like “when” and “where,” and the bark is stripped by fire’s shameless, trembling fingers that grope for more than damp underwear.

Joseph Brodsky: A Season

The time of the hawk counting chickens, of haystacks in
fog, of small change in the pocket that burns the skin;
of the northern rivers whose ripples, freezing in a far-off mouth,
recall their sources, their god-forsaken south,
and warm up for a second. The time of the daylight’s ups
and downs; of the raincoat hanging, swollen boots, mishaps
in the stomach due to the soft-boiled, fallow
turnip; of winds tearing apart gonfalons
of sod-fearing warriors. The season of card-built kremlins;
days resemble each other like “when” and “where,”
and the bark is stripped by fire’s shameless, trembling
fingers that grope for more than damp underwear.

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