I was cleaning out files yesterday and found a typed copy of James Tate's poem, "A Dangerous Adventure." I had forgotten about this poem, and that's astonishing because who could forget a poem that begins:
The woman I love is typing in a nearby room.Clippity clippity clippity clippity, then silence.
Today I went hunting for it online because now it had to be my Poetry Friday pick. (He had me at clippity.) It was a bit of a scavenger hunt, with my first search result landing on a page that told me this:
Wait. Full Poem Text Available at ... Jama's blog?! Perfect. I headed over there.
The post from Jama, written in 2009, began like this:
Well, of course I am.
And at the same time, please marvel with me at the beauty and endurance of this Poetry Friday community. I've been on this ride with you all for nearly twenty years. We post, we read, we share, we comment, we forget who-posted-what-or-when and it's all good because it's all about poetry and friends. The people of Poetry Friday are typing in nearby rooms — clippity, clippity, clippity, clippity — and I love every single one of you.
A Dangerous Adventure
by James Tate
The woman I love is typing in a nearby room.
Clippity clippity clippity clippity, then silence.
She’s thinking, like a jaguar, or a dagger.
Words but more than words. Currents, hairpin
turns. It’s scary but exciting. It’s like dancing
on a precipice or sleeping under a waterfall.
She doesn’t know the way home but she’s running
and leaping over chasms in the earth, and she’s singing too,
in a foreign language she’s never heard spoken.
But the melody is one I’ve known all my life.
....
(Read the rest here, at Jama's blog, and kindly applaud
her husband Len for his forever-support of a wife
who types in a nearby room.)
~~~~~~~~~~
The Poetry Friday round-up this week is being hosted (of course) by Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect.
2 comments:
Okay, this is so incredibly magical. The universe was calling out for this poem.
Now, I can't recall what I read yesterday, let alone 17 years ago, so I'm glad you've shared this. It's a lovely poem. All these years later, I still stand by my disdain for sickly sweet love poems.
Yes, the magic is palpable! ✨✨ And I still love a well-placed e.e. Cummings, as well as a hearty ode to writers, which Tate certainly pulled off.
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