Monday, July 18, 2011

I AM NEW YORK CITY by Jayne Cortez:



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I'm posting this great poem by Jayne Cortez as a jpeg

because I can't figure how to type it into this blogger page and keep

her indentations—

please click on the image to see it larger and then click the magnifying-glass tab to see it in closeup,

to read it—

This poem appeared in the "International Women's Issue" in the magazine Mundus Artium, Vol. VII, 1974,

and was reprinted in the same magazine's omnibus anthology (Vol XII and XIII, 1980/81),

from which I've scanned it.

Jahan Ramazani didn't consult me about which poems to include in his Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry,

nor did Helen Vendler ask me to offer suggestions for her Harvard Book of Contemporary American Poetry,

and Michael Waters hasn't sought my advice about his anthology Contemporary American Poetry,

not to mention every other editor of anthologies that cover this period of USAPO—

but if any of them had,

I would have recommended this poem by Jayne Cortez.

(Or maybe not. The thought is moot, a fantasy of the moment.)

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reprint from May 20, 2009: