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Tracy K. Smith

Tracy K. Smith was born in Massachusetts on April 16, 1972 and grew up in Fairfield, California, near the Air Force base where her father worked as an engineer. She was the youngest of five children. Smith’s mother was a

Part Two: The New World

by Tracy K. Smith (b. 1972)

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There were always these fingers

Winding cotton and wool—

Momentary clouds—into thread.

Was always that diminishing. Words

Whittled and stretched into meaning.

And meaning here is: line.

What the fish tugs at. What is crossed.
Thin split between Ever and After.
And what, in going, is lost.

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Poets Book of Days

November 5

Ella Wheeler Wilcox born, 1850

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Poetry Trivia

Question:

What work was at the center of what has been called the world's first literary quarrel, which took place in 1401 and 1402?

Answer

The Querelle du Roman de la Rose (Quarrel of the Romance of the Rose) was over whether Jean de Meun's allegorical poem "Roman de la Rose" merited the literary attention it received. Written, most likely, at the end of the thirteenth century, Jean de Meun had added nearly 19,000 lines to Guillaume de Lorris's earlier version. The work was accused of being vulgar and unfair in its satirical treatment of women.

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