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Jul 13Liked by Amy Federman

Thank you, dear birthday twin. I needed your words and the poems you chose.

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I am so glad these gave you a wee lift, birthday twin!

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You chose three beautiful poems of comfort and solace. I don't believe I've ever written anything as soothing. But then I'm not prone to giving comfort that is usually transient and fleeting. I believe poetry is hard labor and that labor can produce lasting release that amounts to a change or transformation of conciousness. I feel l'm living a life sentebce and the words must be clear, clean, cogent and credible. I believe that I cannot lie about my state of mind. Even poems that cry for help can be acts of mercy and bring, via mind-to-mind transfer, correlative clemency. Here's one such poem, "Two," by Robert Creeley"

When they were

first made, all the

earth mist have

been their reflected

bodies, fot a moment--

a flood of seeming

bent for a moment back

to the water's glimmering--

how lovely they came.

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A fantastic poem by Creeley, what a master he was! Still can't believe he came and talked to my poetry class in college—it almost doesn't seem real. You're right: His poems provide a different kind of comfort.

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