Sad, but with hope …

… Erasures. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

We chose ‘Erasures’ by Maryann Corbett to be our Friday Poem this week because it’s such a beautiful story — whether it’s true or not — and beautifully told, with a lovely little kicker at the end. Corbett uses delightfully precise and evocative detail — the beast-mark, the ribbon markers, the Palmer-method script — and leaves us mourning not only the little poetry books and their long-forgotten authors but all endeavours which cost so many “blood-sweated hours” and are rewarded with indifference in the long run. It’s a joy of a poem and we like it a lot.