I have been accused, acknowledged in assemblies, before the mirror,
that my short sharp lines, wispy, glanced phrases, however you wish
to frame intelligence reports about this poetry, facile or plain speaking,
ordinary Larkin English, will receive one thousand hands clapping
against the collective forehead because I did not attempt, except
in experiment, to write the rolling, locomotive, quintessential,
coal-fired, forging through the prairie grass, and not yet educated
in fine arts of conservation, American line, signed here, so help me
God, Whitman, Pound and Ginsberg, as I begin to sing tonight
about the new pact, its sinister, yet renewable, consequences.
Indran Amirthanayagam, September 12, 2012