Under Scaffolding Across from Saint Nicholas Park
And plague-frightened air,
Spring threatens to attack today.
–Angelo Verga
about the poem
this is an urban haiku
also it's a covid poem, in the first cold months of the outbreak
where the trees in the park across the street
coming back to life whisper of danger and death–Angelo Verga
Angelo Verga's seventh & most recent book is Long & Short, including The Street in Your Head (2016). He was an owner of The Cornelia Street Café, where his literary programs (1997-2015) provided a home for poets & audiences alike. He is currently a resident of Harlem, USA.
The New York School Diaspora (Part Thirty-Seven): Angelo Verga
Angelo Verga’s “Under Scaffolding Across From Saint Nicholas Park” is an ultra-efficient city poem, built from primal components.
Its work begins in its title. We are placed “under scaffolding,” a temporary shelter with ominous associations. The view is of a park dedicated to the wintry saint of generosity.
The poem’s cold, rainy March (with its looming “Ides”) is the start of the pandemic’s hold on the city. Its thievery of life.
Like Emily Dickinson’s despair, it is “an imperial affliction sent us of the Air.” How chilling that the air itself fears what it carries—not spring smells, but death. Fear inverts hope.
In time of death, spring is unrelenting irony.
Instead of opening out, as traditional Haiku does, Angelo Verga’s three eloquent lines contract, locking us in a state of ominous expectation: “Spring threatens to attack today.” Inside its today, we fear for ourselves and pity our time’s victims. And rejoice in poetry’s counter-attack.–Angela Ball