From: LouisFors <LouisFors@aol.com>
Message-Id: <88da56aa.34f865bc@aol.com>
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 1998 14:30:01 EST
To: emweb@fmgmt.mgmt.utoronto.ca
Mime-Version: 1.0
Subject: # 452
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Sender: owner-emweb@fmgmt.mgmt.utoronto.ca
Precedence: bulk
Reply-To: emweb@fmgmt.mgmt.utoronto.ca
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

Jinpeng, Linda, Nancy, evabody,

I don't know the biographies intimately yet, but, based on sketchy knowledge,
and with continuing curiosity about the sexual thread,  here's another look at
# 452:

He and I wanted the same prize.
Let's call her a "pearl."
He was bolder than me and finally just dove in and got the pearl.
Let's call him 'the Malay."  They do pearl fishing.
Let's call me "The Earl" if only because it rhymes with Pearl
(I can be that playful, you know, and it obscure more than it reveals.) 
But I'm scared of taking the leap after the pearl--into that
sea--going to her--here's an unholiness about it--it's unsanctified.

Then, praying I might be worthy of this destiny--
--aware that the prize was a dear friend of mine--
The diver swam and brought "our" jewel home--
Practically to me--to the mansion next door-- 
I'll call it a "hut" to preserve the Malaysian theme, 
and because that mansion ain't not hut; nice irony.

This brave diver, a dear man, never knew the extent of
my love for the pearl.  He has, then, a dusky side to him, 
unseen by others.

                                   ***
This is a sketchy new entry to the poem, calming, but retaining the sexual
tone, yet leaving much unresolved, even in the terms of this strategy (the
vest of amber, the seeming acquiesence to fate of the prize winner in the last
stanza, the emphasis on color much greater than I have touched upon).  I
haven't named names, but in this reading they are pretty close to the surface.
Jump in, anybody.  I don't think we're doing harm. 

Cheers from a sunny Santa Fe!

Louis Forsdale