best of 2016: CD WRIGHT'S THE POET, THE LION, TALKING PICTURES, EL FAROLITO, A WEDDING IN ST. ROCH, THE BIG BOX STORE, THE WARP IN THE MIRROR, SPRING, MIDNIGHT, FIRE & ALL

The Book That Jane Wrote

Movies, paintings, and books stream through the poet's memory vault.  They are called in "not [to] confuse reality but illumine it."  Perhaps to contribute a few cues--how to live, how to endure.  Poetry's privileged perch is not stable.  "Poetry is speech by someone who is in trouble," is one poet's definition.  There are more elegant definitions, but this one points to its primal aspect.  Experience need not be assimilated.  Art need not be separated.  The poet would bid Virginia Woolf rise out of the Ouse emptying the stones from her pockets.  She would that artists endure.