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Poem by Jared Carter

Eyewear is pleased to welcome, this Friday, Jared Carter (pictured), who lives in Indianapolis. The photo is by Diane Carter.

During a long writing career that began in the early 1960s, when he was living in France, he has published three collections of verse – the first with Macmillan in New York, the second and third with the Poetry Center at Cleveland State University. All three volumes remain in print.

A fourth book of poems, entitled Cross this Bridge at a Walk, is now out from Wind Publications in Kentucky.

In the UK Carter’s work has appeared in Stand Magazine, Agenda, and Outposts Poetry Quarterly. Over the years, Carter has written in many poetic styles and forms, from the traditional to the experimental. A selection of his poems, stories, essays, and photographs may be found on his web site at Jared Carter Poetry.

http://www.jaredcarter.com/

Carter believes the future of poetry and of publishing in general lies with the world wide web. Cyberspace offers great opportunities for new and emerging poets from around the world. In the few years he has been active online, he has managed to post a number of prose poems, fables, and tales. Links to these works continue to be added to his web site.


Five variations on an entry in the diary of Virginia Woolf

There looms ahead of me the shadow
of some kind of form which the diary
might attain. I might in the course
of time learn what it is that one can make
of this loose, drifting material of life;
finding another use for it.


1
Ahead of me there looms some kind
of form or shadow. In the course
of time I might learn what it is that
one can make of this material. I might
attain this life, finding another use
for this diary, this loose drifting.

2
What is it that one might attain,
that I might make of this material?
Drifting, this loose shadow looms
ahead of me. In the course of time,
finding another diary of form,
I might learn some kind of use for it.

3
I might learn what it is that one
can make of time – finding another
use for it in the course of life.
I might attain some kind of shadow
of form. This loose material looms
ahead of me, this diary of drifting.

4
In the course of finding form,
in this drifting, what can one make
of time? Loose, I might attain shadow.
A diary for another use. I might
learn what this life is. Some kind
of material looms ahead of me.

5
Ahead of me, some form looms.
There, I might attain some kind
of drifting diary. I might learn
what of me is another time.
In the course of finding life, what
use can one make of shadow?

poem by Jared Carter

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