Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Thomas J. Erickson

Thomas J. Erickson has some great work out--I especially love his poem "The Gyre" in Word Riot here and "My Nausicaa" in The Labletter here in 2012.

He is a master of different styles, of quiet, watchful beauty like Wordsworth or Longfellow, and the ancient, Greek style of Pound at his most neo-classical.

His lines are just perfect, a great epic description of truly epic tales, like in "My Nausicaa", he says:
[...]
We all ran and hid except for Nausicaa.
The sun on her raven hair, her silver
arm band, the ruby rings on her lily hands [...]

The man kept glancing at the blushing
Nausicaa who caught my eye and smiled.
I trembled as I filled her cup. My hand
brushing hers—smelling the hyacinths in her hair. [...]



He has a great sense of progression, a soft world in some work, different from his other styles. In "The Gyre", it lulls you, like a hammock during the summer makes you want to get on a little jetty and go out on the lake. I especially liked these lines and the final words:
[...] 
I step in the water and push [...]
When we are far from shore, [...]
We drift awhile in silence
and peer out at the expanse
of the deep blue sea. 



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