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