(no subject)

Despite crossing it with Ozymandias, 2000 Illustrations' debt to Sunday Morning is kind of alarming. There's a bit or two that seem like they might be tributes to Stevens (the burnoose line, the sepulcher one), but to be taking so much, and of the main, not incidentals - surely you can't do that consciously, can't proceed with that weighing on you. Though perhaps she suppressed that particular poem while acknowledging others? I dunno, but I do know this: I'm reading her more closely than I've ever read anything, and it's all making me more and more sure Bloom is right about how writing works. Which I was already sure of, but Jesus.

Yes, it's doing all sorts of things he didn't, Bishop's travels are a master trope letting in nuances Stevens' seasons don't, there's some "Bible is an antique volume written by faded men" gender provocation at work, she's working in a lot more specifics about what causes religion, what parallels it, what it's after and why, she's more compressed, more closely readable even than him, every damn line is beautiful in a new and lasting way and I'll love it forever etc.

It isn't Sunday Morning.

But when all is said and done it's Sunday Morning.