Example 1. Robert Lowell, “In Genesis” from History (1973) in Collected Poems / Robert Lowell, ed. Frank Bidart & David Gewanter (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2003), 423
A1 |
Blank. A camel blotting up the water. |
| A2 | God with whom nothing is design or intention. In the beginning the Sabbath could last a week, God grumbling secrecies behind Blue Hill . . . |
| B1 | The serpent walked on foot like us in Eden; glorified by the perfect Northern exposure, Eve and Adam knew their nakedness, a discovery to be repeated many times . . . |
| B2 | in joyless stupor?. . . Orpheus in Genesis hacked words from brute sound, and taught men English, plucked all the flowers, deflowered all the girls with the overemphasis of a father. |
| C | He used too many words, his sons killed him, dancing with grateful gaiety round the cookout. |
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“In Genesis” from COLLECTED POEMS by Robert Lowell. Copyright © 2003 by Harriet and Sheridan Lowell. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. |
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