In poetry’s stripped-down urgency, in its openness, the space between lines, the repetition and essentialism—poets can speak in ways that transcend culture and gender and time. Films and novels remain rooted in their age, give or or take a century. But poetry? Tell me The Canterbury Tales doesn’t still make you laugh and Keats make you cry. And, my dear girl Luna, why did your mother name you what she did? You asked about the real Luna. You asked about my inspiration. All of my work, from The Love Poem to The Lasts, The Pond, Mothers and Fathers, even The Last Romantic, derived from my brother
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