Harvey Shapiro
COMMENT
Stepin Fetchit - this is from
his obituary in The Times - justifying
his life, the eyeball rolling
he had done for his movie pay,
spoke of Bill Cosby and Sidney Poitier:
"I set up thrones for them to come
and sit on." A noble quote, like,
"We are, in midmost ground, our own dead kings."
Blackmur's iambic roll to it .
That he, down the long avenue, could
find himself, in purple stuff, leading the way.
Harriet Levin
The Christmas Show
While my youngest sister lies
on a cold cellar floor
in a house whose broken windows hold back nothing
and three boys pin down her shoulders
and force their way past her belt buckle, 1 am watching
The Christmas Show at Radio City Music Hall, seeing
a full moon accentuate the otherworldliness
of children dressed as elves, skating snowmen
and cardboard reindeer.
