D. H. Tracy is a working poet, critic, and translator. He currently lives in Boston, Massachusetts.

Wakka-Wakka Sing-Song: D.H. Tracy on Vijay Seshadri

Reviewed: The Long Meadow by Vijay Seshadri. Graywolf Press, 2005.

“Moving on to the next slide,” says Seshadri, in a put-on lecture about a genius painter done in by his own powers of self-abnegation:

we can see, twisted and deliberately coarsened as it is,

the exact same theme,

revisited now with an

ambition and gigantism made all the more monstrous

by the still soaring line,

instinct with delicacy and intelligence,

by the palette still fresh and strange,

the siennas and umbers

and crimsons and yellows seasoned

with the crushed carapaces of iridescent damselflies.

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