P oetr y
Christopher Marlowe was probably a secret double agent, knifed through the eye, at twenty-nine & Basho did say that writing haiku should be like cutting a ripe melon with a sharp sword. Rimbaud became a ninja, & dropped symbolism to run guns in Ethiopia. Dickinson, the k unoichi (or female ninja) of Amherst, snuck behind lines in her father’s house at night, disguised as an old maid— She dealt her pretty words like blades. Moving by stealth, an arcane agency slips through this world, observing hidden things, belonging nowhere, obsessively perfecting cryptic messages for—we know not whom. Their opponent never knows of their existence. Their legendary powers are charms & incantations, magic spells & flight. They can walk on water in their m iz ugum o, or water-spider shoes.
A tti cu s R evi ew : G et L i t, R ou n d 2
P a ge 13