Frank Corcoran

irish composer

Gabriel Rosenstock – Poet Extraordinary – Inventing Himself As He Went Along

Given Rosenstock’s long and prolific career, it is unsurprising to find that the poems chosen for this volume differ considerably in their style and form. A wide spectrum of metrical formats and stanzaic patterns characterize the volume, yet throughout all of these variations can be heard a consistent and easily recognizable voice. That voice is an intellectual one, eager, searching, at times struggling to define and re-define experiences and reflections of many sorts. It is a voice for which language itself represents a peculiar mixture of opportunities and limitations. As he expresses it in his poem SPRACHE (LANGUAGE), which I’ll quote here — ironically enough — in English:

And when Frank Corcoran
writes to me from Hamburg
the medley is wonderful:
Tipperary Irish
(I know, it’s extinct)
German
Maynooth Latin (
I know…)
Italian
and a few marginal notes
of faltering glissando.
I know how he feels.
These days to say nothing any way reasonable
is difficult in any language …
issaki no kaki ku’u muku wo yurushi oku
as Yoshiko Yoshino might say

Posted under: Humble Hamburg Musings

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