Elaine Feinstein
This morning, we note the birth date of Elaine Feinstein FRSL (October 24, 1930 – September 23, 2019), English poet, novelist, short-story writer, playwright, biographer and translator.
Feinstein's poetry was influenced by the Black Mountain poets, a group of mid-20th-century American avant-garde or postmodern poets centered on Black Mountain College in North Carolina, and by Objectivists.
The clock's gone back. The shop lights spill
over the wet street, these broken streaks
of traffic signals and white head-lights fill
the afternoon. My thoughts are bleak .
I drive imagining you still at my side,
wanting to share the film I saw last night,
- - of wartime separations, and the end
when an old married couple re-unite - -
You never did learn to talk and find the way
at the same time, your voice teases me.
Well, you're right, I've missed my turning,
and smile a moment at the memory,
always knowing you lie peaceful and curled
like an embryo under the squelchy ground,
without a birth to wait for, whirled
into that darkness where nothing is found.
--Elaine Feinstein
[All poems from Elaine Feinstein: Collected poems and Translations (Carcanet, 2002)