Volume 16 ~ Spring 2004 ~ ISSN 1543-6063

KATHLEEN OSSIP

Confession

It’s hard for me to write about unmediated experience, or the “real world,” without thinking back through the writing of others.

The impossibility of romantic love becomes its aching sweetness.

In truth, every statement should be prefaced by “I like to think that…”

I like to think that the impossibility of romantic love becomes its aching sweetness.

The challenge is a thought-challenge. The problem is how to respond with feeling to thought.

The secret of writing well and deeply is to please no one but yourself, your “inner reader.” Well, I’m going one better, I’m not even pleasing her.

Poem © Kathleen Ossip 2004. All rights reserved.

Kathleen Ossip's book The Search Engine was selected by Derek Walcott for the APR/Honickman First Book Prize. Poems have appeared in Paris Review, Kenyon Review, and the Best American Poetry 2001. She teaches poetry workshops at the New School University in New York.

Duncan Hannah
www.jamesgrahamandsons.com

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