Charles Jensen | Writer

More echo of myth. Although I never thought this was my thing until I sat down to do this, and now I see, looking backwards: breadcrumbs. H.D. made films. Not many people know this, but it was one of the things I like about her, that she put into practice what I have only considered, that film images and poetic images have affinity. That the unraveling of a poem line by line is an unspooling. That poetry, like celluloid, should be exceptionally flammable.

Trilogy was the first long poem I ever read–or long sequence. I loved the pacing of it, the patient couplets making evenly measured steps forward. I have always loved her for “Oread” and this was like “Oread” on Red Bull. It went on forever. It forbade the war from winning, and yet it is a book of the war. It is unsentimental and it will not stop caring. There are a lot of contradictions inside.

It made me love the couplet.