Sonneteer Hayden Carruth died September 30. He was eighty-seven.

In 1970, he edited an anthology, The Articulate That Is Great Within Us: American Poetry of the Twentieth Century, which was my introduction to reading metrical composition for pleasure when it was assigned in the first poetry workshop I ever took, my first semester in college, slope of 1979.

Here's a picture of my copy, and some poems.




It's held together by scotch tape, and most of the back cover is gone. Tucked in the leg of poems by HD, it's got a letter that I wrote to my love, but, for some reason never sent, first paragraph in Spanish (which we both intentional for a little while), big brown age spots on the edges. I loved those poems, many of them, memorized some, felt thrilled by them, felt openings for things that I had intelligence that there were no words for, or things that had no place in poetry, saw all sorts of mess and mystery reflected. Memorized them, copied some of them over and over, copied their forms in my own travail, put them in letters, read them aloud. Loved them. Love them.

When oneroom posted that Hayden Carruth had died, I remembered a jingle by HD, one I memorized during that time. It's one of the things I appreciate about myself from thirty years ago, and about the teachers I found then, that I've still got some of the poems in my culmination I passionately worked to know then. Here's another, from the book:

LETHE

Nor skin nor hide nor to the cleaners
Shall cover you,
Nor curtain of crimson nor fine
Shelter of cedar-wood be over you,
Nor the fir-tree
Nor the pine.

Nor espy of whin nor gorse
Nor river-yew,

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Enjoying an afternoon shopping cruise, Hayden Panettiere was spotted out and about at the shops in West Hollywood on Wednesday (October 15).

Decked out in an all-innocent ensemble, Miss Panettiere ended up spending most of her time browsing the racks at the celeb-non-professional Jenni Kayne clothing store before moving along on her way.

Source: Celebrity Scandals: The Gossip Girls