DDCPoetry

Original poem reprinted online here:  "Said to Have Been Heard to Say Hush" by Nathaniel Mackey Originally read: October 2, 2013 More information about the Poet: Nathaniel Mackey The very first thing I write about this poem is "go back to poets.org" to understand "mu" “The ‘Mu’ series of which this poem is a part rings changes on its title’s various meanings and associations:  muthos (mouth, myth), music, muse, the emotional interjection mu, the lost continent of Mu said to have existed in the Pacific, etc.  Lately, as in this poem, a strong accent falls on its Japanese meanings, ‘not,' ‘non-,' ‘nothing,' ‘no,' and its place in the Zen tradition.” —Nathaniel Mackey And, honestly, if I didn't read that, I probably wouldn't "understand" the poem as one of play and slipstream connections. So this poem is quite hard to analyze on a stanza by stanza basis because the poem plays with lyric and narrative, image and language, noth...