Ivan Argüelles

Let's look at Ivan Argüelles. He's a poet who writes long poems that often fit right in with Pound and the Imagists and James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, but he has his own special twist on them. He has a strong sense of Gabriele d'Annunzio , what with his spacial atmosphere and feeling of listening to the sky out in the thickets. 

He has a wide open sense of the land, of the beat poets, but he's focused and concise. I find him very readable in a way most beat poets are not. If you've read Pound's Cantos, his work will immediately resonate with you, because he plays with the Cantos like the neo-classical group of Modernists play with the ancient Greeks and Romans. It's really quite neat, and adds another level to his work. I would also say if you enjoy Donne or Neal Stephenson you might enjoy him.

His piece "[archaic]" is great, a really beautiful moment where you feel both in the middle physics and Donne's purifying fire. I loved the ending lines:
[...]
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
blinking, without focus, gropes, a
hand in the maze, summer beside foreign
glass, charred remains, each portion
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I will address the issue of Love,
what is once the ancient, dried fruit
clinging to broken limbs, ask to see
the Sphinx, sleep, 


Here's a discussion and overview of his work. Here's more on him. Here's an excerpt from his poem "("my" inspiration)":
[...]
a remark in passing, lowering
head in gesture of shy naiad,
are there waters so crystalline?
distance is the signal, remote
the utter language of the Soul,
do the two recognize the Other?
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I don't remember what it is
I don't remember who it is
I don't remember why it is
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"my" inspiration, are there better
words for it? can one "know"?
it is a mystery, for why is
everything so blank today,
for why is the sky, riches are
not wealth, beauty is for why,
mere cloud banks announce it,
thunder in the middle of the sun,
the edge is as near as it gets,
floral games, eglantine jasmine
hyacinth as prizes, swarm ever
the bees in their mock summer,
climbs the ivy in its dream
of dense verbiage, darker yet
the inch between annihilation
and the declaration of love,
darker still the river beneath




And here's another excerpt I love, from his Saturday Afternoon in the Upanishads--he has a very Borges-like tone, and I find myself thinking of him often. When he's not sliding into a more modern Poundian ethos, he has a refreshing, sparse and beautiful tone of Borges in his work, like here in Saturday:

before sunrise
                                 when the waters are still dark
           and without reflection                                          [OSIRIS]
and as for the soul of man
           not even a mirror may suffice