Plight

by Cid Corman

Poems.

Genres: Poetry

98 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1968

Reviews

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The influence of Lorine Niedecker is present throughout the collection. One poem in particular, "North Shore", may be a tribute to Niedecker - its titles reminiscent of Niedecker's North Central ; its "pile of gravel" reminiscent of Niedecker's "granite pail"...

Remember my little granite pail?
The handle of it was blue.
Think what's got away in my life -
Was enough to carry me thru.
 - Untitled from The Granite Pail: Selected Poems (pg. 7)


At low tide
gulls on

a pile of
gravel

in mist through
mist eye

the estu-
ary.
 - North Shore

My favourite poems from Plight...

ULTIMATE FACTS, GENERAL LAWS

There is no outside, no
enclosing wall, no 
circumference to us.

The man finishes
his story - how good! how
final! how it puts a

new fact on all thing! He
fills the sky. Lo! On
the other side rises

also a man and he 
draws a circle around
the circle we had

just pronounced The circle.
Already our first 
man is only a first

speaker - his redress
another circle drawn
beyond the other . . .

And so men do and so
they cancel out and
each becomes the other.

*

No longer 
hearing
snow

fall
now that
night's fallen.

*

You sit there
at the bed's
edge and stare

at this man
trying to
sleep and you

say: Sleep, sleep . . .
But my dream
waits outside.

*

THE GRACE

Thank you for 
whatever
it is - just
as it is

Ah - if we
could only
leave it at
that - at this.

*

Who counts rain
drops, pine pins
or tears? And

yet each feels
the presence
of each or

how much each
is a part
of, is, all.

[Carrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite of everything I've read of his so far. Which isn't that much, but I'm in a much better mood now.