Comments on: Elizabeth Jennings http://sorabji.com/1/2009/10/elizabeth-jennings.html Sat, 11 Feb 2012 22:09:57 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: sorabji http://sorabji.com/1/2009/10/elizabeth-jennings.html/comment-page-1#comment-107 sorabji Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:31:15 +0000 http://sorabji.com/1/?p=113#comment-107 I found "Absence" on page 19 of the New Collected Poems volume. I have had similar moments of clarity about the deaths of friends and neighbors. One day, while sitting on this very spot, I looked out the window and saw ambulances, firetrucks, and EMT vehicles quietly arriving, some 12-15 people solemnly marching into the building to tend to the formalities of the death of an elderly man who had lived upstairs. I heard the man's daughter scream in agony, and I heard the voices of the police officers deliberate briefly before reporting the incident as a natural death. The sounds faded and the emergency vehicles returned, one-by-one, to their posts, leaving the street outside looking exactly as it did before. That is what I remember most. The silence of the man's absence, the final sounds that circled around him in death, and the way the ensuing silence filled up with the sounds of routine activities from others who had no idea anyone had died. I don't know why I share this story, as it says nothing of what I might actually think of Jenning's "Absence". But then it is not essential to have an opinion, is it? I found “Absence” on page 19 of the New Collected Poems volume. I have had similar moments of clarity about the deaths of friends and neighbors. One day, while sitting on this very spot, I looked out the window and saw ambulances, firetrucks, and EMT vehicles quietly arriving, some 12-15 people solemnly marching into the building to tend to the formalities of the death of an elderly man who had lived upstairs. I heard the man’s daughter scream in agony, and I heard the voices of the police officers deliberate briefly before reporting the incident as a natural death. The sounds faded and the emergency vehicles returned, one-by-one, to their posts, leaving the street outside looking exactly as it did before.

That is what I remember most. The silence of the man’s absence, the final sounds that circled around him in death, and the way the ensuing silence filled up with the sounds of routine activities from others who had no idea anyone had died.

I don’t know why I share this story, as it says nothing of what I might actually think of Jenning’s “Absence”. But then it is not essential to have an opinion, is it?

]]> By: ROY http://sorabji.com/1/2009/10/elizabeth-jennings.html/comment-page-1#comment-104 ROY Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:18:55 +0000 http://sorabji.com/1/?p=113#comment-104 THOUGHT YOU WERE SPOT ON WITH YOUR COMMENTS ON HER POETRY.HAVE YOU READ "ABSENCE".WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON IT? THOUGHT YOU WERE SPOT ON WITH YOUR COMMENTS ON HER POETRY.HAVE YOU READ “ABSENCE”.WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON IT?

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