What Is It You Feel I Asked Kurt by Diane Seuss

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend December 16, 2016   What Is It You Feel I Asked Kurt   Diane Seuss

What is it you feel I asked Kurt when you listen to Ravel's String Quartet in F-major, his face was so lit up and I wondered, "the music is unlike the world I live or think in, it's from somewhere else, unfamiliar and unknown, not because it is relevant to the familiar and comfortable, but because it brings me to that place that I didn't/couldn't imagine existed. And sometimes that unfamiliar place is closer to my world than I realize, and sometimes it's endlessly distant," that's what he wrote in an email when I asked him to remind me what he'd said earlier, off the cuff, "I don't recall exactly what I said," he began, a sentence written in iambic pentameter, and then the rest, later he spoke of two of his brothers who died as children, leukemia and fire, his face, soft, I'm listening to Ravel now, its irrelevancy.            Copyright © 2016 Diane Seuss. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "This poem is part of a book-length collection of unrhymed sonnets that will in some way compose a memoir. It emerged from one conversation among many I had with the composer Kurt Rohde while we were in residency together. The poem started with a question, which grew from a deep curiosity and developed into an even deeper connection." —Diane Seuss   Diane Seuss is the author of Four-Legged Girl (Graywolf Press, 2015). She teaches at Kalamazoo College and lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Poetry by Seuss   Four-Legged Girl (Graywolf Press, 2015)  "The Moment" by Marie Howe "Notes from the Other Side" by Jane Kenyon "Waiting for Rain" by Ellen Bass Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038