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Thank you for accompanying me in my lunacy with this newsletter.

From one poet to another --

Rebecca

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We're all in this magnificent poetical straightjacket together. Glad to have your company. —W

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As I drove south on the Taconic Parkway last night, I saw to my left the full moon and my first thought was there’s a new Lunar Dispatch awaiting me when I get home. My second thought: such a beautiful, bright moon, I almost don’t need to use my headlights.

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That's probably the single best compliment this writer has ever received. Thank you, Jeremy. Hope the moonlight always lights your way.

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Delightful, Will. I'd forgotten about Plath and Sexton being briefly in the same class. And Lowell - some of his best poems were written in Mcleans. That dry, flat, sardonic voice: 'Abramowitz ... so vegetarian / he wore rope shoes and preferred fallen fruit'.

It's mid-summer here in New Zealand. But it's also an El Nino, which means cloudy skies more often. On Friday morning, I was going to set my alarm to get up at 5 am, so I could take a look at the conjunction of Mars and Venus in the eastern sky. Mercifully I accidentally woke early the day before and took a look at the almost-conjunction around 5 am, because on the Big Day, the nor'wester was blowing early, bringing clouds, and the conjunction was hidden behind a raft of thick cloud. The Moon sailed on regardless, looking (I have to say) a bit smug behind the flying clouds in the north-western sky.

All this visible from the comfort of my own living-room!

Thinking about Lowell, Plath, Sexton, and all the people struggling with their lives – I've done a poetic version of a couple of verses from the Book of Job, Ch 7 (which started out as my Latin homework, since I worked from the Latin of the Vulgate). I especially liked the metaphor of the shuttle and the loom (such a homely image), but Job's use of it is arresting. It's here, on Substack: Anne's Newsletter 'The shuttle and the thread'.

Hope your health is better, dear Will! Thank you for this month's essay.

Thinking of you from the other side of the planet, where the Moon is the right way up

Anne

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Gosh, Anne, your translation of those Book of Job, Ch 7 verses is just stunning. As brutal and true as anything Plath and co. wrote.

I'm glad you saw the Mars/Venus conjunction, even if it was by accident. Though the way life's threads tend to twine, I'm not sure anything is totally "by accident."

Good health to you, too, and have a wonderful month!

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Greetings fellow Aotearovian! Weirdly, I just wrote in my last piece about some Northern Hemisphereans saying the moon was upside down: https://rosiewhinray.substack.com/p/the-trick-of-sinuousness

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Hi there, Rosie - a Wellingtonian, too!

Very eclectic and wonderful, your piece - but I am distraught to learn that Tapu te Ranga has burned down. I had no idea. It was amazing - I went there about 1995 or 96 with some colleagues from the Museum Project Office, and the head of design, an American, kept raving about the architecture, referring to Californian this and counter-cultural that. The rest of us stolid Kiwis took it in our stride. Harry Potter was a decade away from being written, but I think the 'Māori Hogwarts' analogy is spot on.

As for the 'upside-down Moon' - Will Dowd is absolutely delightful, but apart from you, most of his readers will never have thought that the Moon looks different from the Southern Hemisphere, so I like to cheekily remind them from time to time.

mihi aroha

Ani W

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Keep reminding us!

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See, I *knew* you'd come up with something incredible. 🪄✨✨✨✨✨✍️

Also, I now feel certain your poem wasn't in Simic's trash bin. He'd have looked up when he heard your name, his eyes would have crinkled slightly at the edges, and then he would have opened a drawer.

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Thanks, Mike! You definitely got my train of thinking started on this one. Plus you added a little social pressure that never hurts.

As for my poem, I wouldn't have been surprised if Simic had folded it up and was using it to balance his wobbly desk.

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I'm certain that in the wisdom of your later years, you've discovered the beautiful metaphor of fishing poetry out from under layers of garbage. ❤️

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Thanks, Faith. I think that's the only consolation of getting old!

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There's no way to know for sure, but it's possible that it beats the alternative.

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Let's just agree to say it does 😃

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So clever of you to weave these stories together, Will. The red jacket one is hilarious!

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Thanks, Yasmin!

Tragedy + Time + Red Jackets = Comedy.

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Fabulous piece, personal and profound, space for poetry & madnesses

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Too kind, Kenneth. Glad you liked it.

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❤️ Another delightful installment. Thanks, Will! Speaking of Robert Lowell, I recently read the book, "Great Granny Webster," by Lowell's ex, Lady Caroline Blackwood, and loved it. The book is loosely based on her childhood, growing up as an heir to the Guinness fortune and it is so funny, witty, and wild.

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My pleasure! Thank you for turning me on to "Great Granny Webster"—sounds absolutely incredible. She was such a fascinating person, I'm not surprised her writing is electric. Hope all is well!

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Beautifully interwoven stuff here! Jackets and lunatics, red threads - red ties-red lining-red jacket. Poetry in the rubbish, our earth atmosphere and our beloved scary moon. thank you again for hitting the mark so gracefully

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Wouldn't mean a thing without readers like you.

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Feb 26·edited Feb 26Liked by Will Dowd

In creative ward, I checked into School of Visual Arts to stay with my own kind of collective minds. Soon, helping a fashion buyer, a straitjacket dress of Y2K was zipped around me, a soft sheen truth-of-time quilted stitch fabric and chrome buckles, yet so comfortable and warm. Prada splurge for a moon visit is most worthy, but will there be Gucci shoes? I can only imagine the limits upon a carry-on.

Sanity is overrated. As my biggest delight of nearest the strike of full was a text message from Massachusetts, a friend since my 20s always disregarding time zone hours. Odd enough only to find in Instagram chat with a stranger, it poured gold into my soul. I prefer my friends who would scream in a street for my window over any sanity, for there is no sanity in love, or best friends. ... Happy full moon to you, howl away! 🌕✨🧚‍♀️✨🌕

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What a great synchronicity, to receive another communique from Massachusetts when the Moon swelled. Whoever it was is lucky to have a friend ready to scream into the street for them. Beautiful writing, Juliette.

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I'm trying not to let you scare me out of being a poet. :-)

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Ha! Join the tea party—we're all mad here.

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this is lunar poetry in the best possible way.

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This is one of my favorites of all the pieces you have written.

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🙏 really kind of you to say

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A delightfully engaging piece. Thanks very much!

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Thank you for reading, John!

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What a beautiful, funny and moving essay. Thank you!

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My pleasure, Rebecca. So happy you enjoyed it.

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Feb 25Liked by Will Dowd

As always, expansive and incredible. Thank you for your writing!

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Thank you for reading! Truly.

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