Frederick Turner

Spring Evening

By Frederick Turner

Above the baby-powder clouds

The sky is china blue.

Soon, young and chattering, the crowds

Of stars come pushing through.

And this is the first dispensation,

The setting up of the odds;

This is the eve of creation,

This is the time of the gods.

I had only ever been to one poetry reading before the evening with Frederick Turner so I come in unsure what to expect. The reading I went to before was an awards ceremony of local writers who each got up and read the poem that won them an award and that was it. I enjoyed Turner's poetry a lot more than I did the most of "award winning" poems at the previous poetry event I had attended. 

Class last Friday was even better than the mesmerizing spoken poetry. I had never thought about the connection between the gaining of knowledge and a woman's pain in childbirth. I was also interested by the idea that death is intimately connected with knowledge, and that knowledge of death is one of the deepest kinds of knowledge. Overall I wish Turner would have had more time to speak with us. 

Oh and apparently Epic hates incest.