I was surprised (and delighted) to see that my first published poem, from a 1991 issue of First Things, is now online.
I’d be curious as to Brandon’s opinion, given the excellent verse he posts on a regular basis. Perhaps it’s apropos I stumbled upon it again.
I like it, and think it works very well, for the most part. I think it’s a bit wordy in parts (e.g., the ‘Such was our sometime conversation’ part sticks out oddly) so it reads in parts like it’s still in drafting stage. But that’s really not surprising — the sort of format you are using here always seems to me to be very, very difficult to write well, so it’s the sort of poem great poets spend their lives refining and revising, anyway.
I appreciate your reading it. Yeah, I was trying very hard not too sound too imitative of blank verse classics burned into my brain cells during my undergrad classes…and it is wordy. But it’s got me thinking about trying again.