The hunt by William Jay Smith - The New Criterion

Poems

November 2001

The hunt

Burke

was right!

Each vowel black and white with silver sound,
each consonant, a coil of golden fleece
that’s hunted over russet-colored ground—
chorale by Bach and painting by Matisse—
this language, life… . Those hunting horns resound
so high up there you’d think they would release
the very sun itself the mountains round,
and penetrate deep valleys till they cease.

These words, this world; and all one sees and hears.
Think how, as if through time, the hunters ride
above the curling clouds while morning clears
and brings them breathless down the moutainside:
think how the dark divides to take their spears,
how in each poem life is justified.

—William Jay Smith

William Jay Smith

Events

November 09 2009

YOUNG FRIENDS: Tour of an important contemporary art collection

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November 24 2009

OPEN EVENT: Laura Jacobs reading

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December 02 2009

Friends Event: The Swallow Anthology Reading

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Webcasts

New Criterion-Social Affairs Unit Conference: Part 4
"The Criminalization of Making Money" by Lionel Shriver, Recorded 9/25/09

New Criterion-Social Affairs Unit Conference: Part 3
"The State and the Threat to Democracy" by Jeremy Black and "The Paradox of the Intellectual and the Future of Capitalism" by Tim Congdon, Recorded on 9/25/2009

New Criterion-Social Affairs Unit Conference: Part 2
"Nice 'N' Easy: The Age of Micro Tyranny" by Mark Steyn, Recorded on 9/25/2009

Weblog

The death of attention

by Michael Weiss

Nov 07, 2009 02:26 PM

God Bless

by James Bowman

Nov 05, 2009 06:05 PM

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