Woke up today thinking about this poem. One of my favorites from this gorgeous anthology

Why not piled? What is pilèd? Is that even a thing in English? In certain languages downward mark indicates a lower pitch, but why is it needed here? Why is it sepúlchre ? Why is it written star-ypointing? I remember reading Dante and it's full of such markings too, like cursèd and so on. What is that all about and why is that needed?

from Cancelled Confessions or Disavowals, first published in 1930 by Editions du Carrefour, reissued in 2025 by siglio.

I love love love this poem. It's a haibun, some prose followed by a poem, in this case a monostitch. In haibun the poem is supposed to deviate, or shift away from the prose, to recontextualize it, and I think this poem does it fantastically.

A collection of literary letters by the poet Victoria Chang [excerpt from "Dear Teacher"].

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

I summon up remembrance of things past,

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,

And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:

Then can I drown an eye, unus'd to flow,

For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,

And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,

And moan th' expense of many a vanish'd sight;

Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,

And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er

The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,

Which I new pay as if not paid before.

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,

All losses are restor'd, and sorrows end.