Elaine Feinstein

Here’s a thought for a Monday morning: Poetry has been with us for thousands of years. Think of all the poets/poems that have existed for a moment and then disappeared into history never to be heard again.

Today we note the birth date of Elaine Feinstein FRSL (October 24, 1930 – September 23, 2019), English poet, novelist, short-story writer, playwright, biographer and translator. Her writings included 14 novels, radio plays, television dramas, and five biographies.

Feinstein's poetry was influenced by the Black Mountain poets, a group of mid-20th-century American avant-garde or postmodern poets centered on Black Mountain College in North Carolina, and by Objectivists.

Here is a poem by Elaine Feinstein for your consideration:

A Visit

I still remember love like another country
with an almost forgotten landscape
of salty skin and a dry mouth. I think
there was always a temptation to escape
from the violence of that sun, the sudden
insignificance of ambition,
the prowl of jealousy like a witch's cat .

Last night I was sailing in my sleep
like an old seafarer , with scurvy
colouring my thoughts , there was moonlight
and ice on green waters.
Hallucinations. Dangerous nostalgia.
And early this morning you whispered
as if you were lying softly at my side:

Are you still angry with me? And spoke my
name with so much tenderness, I cried.
I never reproached you much
that I remember, not even when I should;
to me, you were the boy in Ravel's garden
who always longed to be good,
as the forest creatures knew, and so do I.

--Elaine Feinstein