Art is long, life is short and starlings are immeasurable. It is a sensible thing to want to be one. Centuries of poets have sought to come to terms with this, yet poetry has never tired of the work of starling appreciation. The last poet and the last starling will probably be found together, and for good reason — in the strange grace of starlings, lyric possibility is made concrete. In this sequence from Lisa Robertson’s book “Starlings,” the starlings of the medieval troubadours become the starlings of women who carry “delicate grammars” from city to city, quitting “stupid apartments” to seek better fates. It’s a love poem to flightiness. To read this poem is to overhear a conspiratorial whisper and want to join the conspiracy.
Untitled poem from ‘Starlings’
By Lisa Robertson
Laura
are you related to nettle
and fig are you a two-sexed salve of
code-riffling incident are you ready
to speak into time deeply are you
ingeniously fluorescent enamoured
of the poverty of tiny tiny Europes
shall you quit so many
stupid apartments filled with stupid
fate evade
timeliness next
a refrain unclasps
how it was to be young and carrying our delicate grammars
in cities and airports
Laura
let’s be Starlings
Anne Boyer is a poet and an essayist. Her memoir about cancer and care, “The Undying,” won a Pulitzer Prize in 2020 for general nonfiction. Lisa Robertson is a Canadian poet who lives in France. Her recent books are the poetry collection “Boat” and the novel “The Baudelaire Fractal,” both from Coach House Books.