X
Coming like an echo of a poem I wrote and posted just the other day, are the following paragraphs from the futuristic novel, Mockingbird, by Walter Tevis. The context is that, Paul Bentley, one of a dwindling and degraded population of human beings, in a world now populated primarily by robots, has taught himself to read; a skill that has been lost by the rest of the human race. As a result of his rare skill, he is assigned the task by his robot boss, in what is apparently the archives of the New York University Library, of viewing ancient silent films and making voice recordings of the words from the films’ frames of text. Bentley is also given the equipment necessary to keep a verbal journal of his activities. Below is the entry from Day Twenty-Two of that journal:
XXOne compelling thing that keeps appearing in the films is a collection of people called a “family.” It seems to have been a very common arrangement in ancient times. A “family” is a group of people that are often together, that even appear to live all together. There are always a man and a woman—unless one of them is dead; and even then that one is often spoken of, and images of the dead one (“photographs”) are to be found near the living, on the walls and the like. And then there are the younger ones, children of different ages. And the surprising thing, the thing that seems characteristic of these “families,” is that the man and woman are always the mother and the father of all of the children! And there are older people sometimes too, and always they seem to be the mothers and fathers of either the man or the woman! I hardly know what to make of it. Everyone seems to be related.
XXAnd further, much of the sense of feelingfulness that these films have seems profoundly connected with this being related. And it seem to be presented in the films as good.
XXI know, of course, not to try being a moral judge of anyone. And certainly not of people from another time. I know the life in the films is contrary to the dictum “Alone is best”; but that is not what bothers me. After all, I have spent days at a time with other people—have even seen the same students every day for weeks. It is not the Mistake of Proximity that bothers me about those “families.” I think it may be a kind of shock that the people take such risks. They seem to feel so much for one another.
XXI am shocked and saddened by it.
Here is the poem that I mentioned above:
sin-drome
in old times
they stayed at home
until they married
or even after
XXXXadding to
XXXXrather than subtracting from
now the glue is gone
all is aimed at separation
are we reptiles? fish?
this is wicked
asunder
a cup of filthy twigs
some molted fluff
a random feather
self is a number
XXXXit is not the number one
XXXXself is legion
covered in bright scales
***
When I compare my poem to the excerpt from Mockingbird, well… I am shocked and saddened by it.
X
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Saturday, January 8, 2011
R.I.P. - Janine Pommy Vega
X
Janine: Another Poet Down
I did not know the name. I had not read the poems. But the obituary portrait spoke to me. You know me, it said. I do not know you. I do not remember the name. I have not read the poems. You know me, she said. Find me. You are five years my senior. You arrived there a decade and more before me…You know, you know…the City already yours when I first arrived in Washington Square. You are tasked. You must find me, her portrait insisted. I found other portraits. I located one of your books in the stacks. Guided by the text, I track you. I told you, she whispered. I know what I know. Your poems of the seventies. Decade of delerious desire, debacle. Were you there when I sat with Leah? In St. Mark’s on the floor? Listening to Lowell? While your buddy Corso heckled his legend? I told you that I know you, her picture replied. July 1976, with your lover in Lima. I am in France on that Bicentennial Fourth. I stay in Europe. You fly on to Panama. To California. August in NY. You write of Hell’s Angels. In Russell Square, London, I am taking a fall. I know you. You know me. 1979, near the Bard Owl’s end. You write of the temple in the museum’s new wing. My Isis danced at Dendur’s dedication. Were you next to me there? Did I know you then? Hush, she said. Live. You are knowing me now.
X
Janine: Another Poet Down
I did not know the name. I had not read the poems. But the obituary portrait spoke to me. You know me, it said. I do not know you. I do not remember the name. I have not read the poems. You know me, she said. Find me. You are five years my senior. You arrived there a decade and more before me…You know, you know…the City already yours when I first arrived in Washington Square. You are tasked. You must find me, her portrait insisted. I found other portraits. I located one of your books in the stacks. Guided by the text, I track you. I told you, she whispered. I know what I know. Your poems of the seventies. Decade of delerious desire, debacle. Were you there when I sat with Leah? In St. Mark’s on the floor? Listening to Lowell? While your buddy Corso heckled his legend? I told you that I know you, her picture replied. July 1976, with your lover in Lima. I am in France on that Bicentennial Fourth. I stay in Europe. You fly on to Panama. To California. August in NY. You write of Hell’s Angels. In Russell Square, London, I am taking a fall. I know you. You know me. 1979, near the Bard Owl’s end. You write of the temple in the museum’s new wing. My Isis danced at Dendur’s dedication. Were you next to me there? Did I know you then? Hush, she said. Live. You are knowing me now.
X
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Quote du Jour: A Poet's Confession
X
I was just sitting here, reading Charles Bukowski’s introduction to Notes of a Dirty Old Man, the 1969 collection of his pieces for the Los Angeles underground newspaper, Open City. Bukowski was waxing enthusiastic about the freedom given him to write and publish absolutely anything he wanted to as a columnist for Open City. During the course of this he writes something that brought to mind a slightly controversial exchange I had with members of my online writers group. In that exchange I had voiced my reasons for being content to share my poems only on my blog, or on Facebook, where I have pretty much total control over them. I explained that the effort necessary to be successful in “getting published” was not worth the frustrations involved. Nor was the payoff for that success great enough to change one’s life.
It therefore amused to me to read Bukowski saying the following about writing his column for Open City:
For action, it has poetry beat all to hell. Get a poem accepted and chances are it will come out 2 to 5 years later, and a 50-50 shot it will never appear, or exact lines of it will later appear, word for word, in some famous poet’s work, and then you know the world ain’t much. Of course, this isn’t the fault of poetry; it is only that so many shits attempt to print and write it.
Btw, this introduction also contains the following paragraph:
It’s all very strange. Just think, if they hadn’t airbrushed the cock and balls off the Christ child, you wouldn’t be reading this. So, be happy.
Dig it. What Charles said.
X
I was just sitting here, reading Charles Bukowski’s introduction to Notes of a Dirty Old Man, the 1969 collection of his pieces for the Los Angeles underground newspaper, Open City. Bukowski was waxing enthusiastic about the freedom given him to write and publish absolutely anything he wanted to as a columnist for Open City. During the course of this he writes something that brought to mind a slightly controversial exchange I had with members of my online writers group. In that exchange I had voiced my reasons for being content to share my poems only on my blog, or on Facebook, where I have pretty much total control over them. I explained that the effort necessary to be successful in “getting published” was not worth the frustrations involved. Nor was the payoff for that success great enough to change one’s life.
It therefore amused to me to read Bukowski saying the following about writing his column for Open City:
For action, it has poetry beat all to hell. Get a poem accepted and chances are it will come out 2 to 5 years later, and a 50-50 shot it will never appear, or exact lines of it will later appear, word for word, in some famous poet’s work, and then you know the world ain’t much. Of course, this isn’t the fault of poetry; it is only that so many shits attempt to print and write it.
Btw, this introduction also contains the following paragraph:
It’s all very strange. Just think, if they hadn’t airbrushed the cock and balls off the Christ child, you wouldn’t be reading this. So, be happy.
Dig it. What Charles said.
X
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Readings & Writings: Seasonal Verse
X
Here is a short, appropriately seasonal, poem by Linda Gregg, from her collection Chosen by the Lion:
Winter Love
I would like to decorate this silence,
but my house grows only cleaner
and more plain. The glass chimes I hung
over the register ring a little
when the heat goes on.
I waited too long to drink my tea.
It was not hot. It was only warm.
***
Linda Gregg, a new discovery for me—via Czeslaw Milosz’s wonderful anthology A Book of Luminous Things—is a fine poet, imo. Her poems tend to work at uncovering the essential connections between the spiritual and the material, as revealed by everyday acts and things. Thus, her themes touch on the eternal universal.
Here also is a seasonal poem of mine. I have posted it before, somewhere. But this being its month, I post it again:
Ancestral January
blue cold
xxxxxcold white
xxxxxxxxxxfull moon
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxfalse light
stark, hibernal oaks
which scream at the wind
with the rage of old Lear
that all nature has sinned
cold witch in her hut
which white magic can’t warm
nor the storm’s force be tamed
by the pentagram’s form
clouds freeze to the mountain
which north winds strain to stir
frozen spikes of swift crystal
tear the forest’s stiff fur
starved wolf
xxxxxwhite hare
xxxxxxxxxxred snow
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxiron air
icy blade of the lake
bleeds the stone of the shore
fetch rags, my love, quickly
to chink fast the door
what footprints are these
what Eskimo this
who trudges toward spring
with purpling lips
woman, play on your harp
thaw the flames with your song
we’ll wrap us in skins
and drink mead until dawn
***
Stay warm, my friends, if you can’t make it hot.
X
Here is a short, appropriately seasonal, poem by Linda Gregg, from her collection Chosen by the Lion:
Winter Love
I would like to decorate this silence,
but my house grows only cleaner
and more plain. The glass chimes I hung
over the register ring a little
when the heat goes on.
I waited too long to drink my tea.
It was not hot. It was only warm.
***
Linda Gregg, a new discovery for me—via Czeslaw Milosz’s wonderful anthology A Book of Luminous Things—is a fine poet, imo. Her poems tend to work at uncovering the essential connections between the spiritual and the material, as revealed by everyday acts and things. Thus, her themes touch on the eternal universal.
Here also is a seasonal poem of mine. I have posted it before, somewhere. But this being its month, I post it again:
Ancestral January
blue cold
xxxxxcold white
xxxxxxxxxxfull moon
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxfalse light
stark, hibernal oaks
which scream at the wind
with the rage of old Lear
that all nature has sinned
cold witch in her hut
which white magic can’t warm
nor the storm’s force be tamed
by the pentagram’s form
clouds freeze to the mountain
which north winds strain to stir
frozen spikes of swift crystal
tear the forest’s stiff fur
starved wolf
xxxxxwhite hare
xxxxxxxxxxred snow
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxiron air
icy blade of the lake
bleeds the stone of the shore
fetch rags, my love, quickly
to chink fast the door
what footprints are these
what Eskimo this
who trudges toward spring
with purpling lips
woman, play on your harp
thaw the flames with your song
we’ll wrap us in skins
and drink mead until dawn
***
Stay warm, my friends, if you can’t make it hot.
X
Monday, January 3, 2011
Reflections: Solitude and Wisdom
X
As I sit poised to launch into the first work-week of the new year, I am thankful for the acquisition, at the tag end of 2010, of a new literary / spiritual / philosophical mentor – Robert Lax.
I admire Søren Kierkegaard. I am fascinated and at least partially convinced by Carl Jung and some of his disciples (e.g. Hermann Hesse). I enjoy reading the critical theory of Harold Bloom and share some of his interests (e.g. Gnosticism). And there are literally dozens, if not hundreds, of other creative writers and thinkers whose oeuvres I admire and have studied in their entirety. But, until my recent discovery of Robert Lax, Simone Weil inhabited a category in my regard of which she was the sole member.
Weil and Lax were very different. One was male; one female. One was primarily a poet; the other primarily a philosopher. They were alike in each having been a solitary. But very different types of solitary they were. Lax was gregarious in his solitude – living alone, but enjoying the company of friends and strangers alike. Weil was largely a true loner. Her primary association with other people was in the role of teacher.
So much do I admire each of these human paragons, that I most value in myself those things in which I detect their faint echoes. So much do I learn from studying their very different lives and modes of solitude, that I’ve come to an understanding that I probably went wrong in my life by not seeking solitude for myself.
Here, from a work of Lax’s entitled A Greek Journal, are two entries with which I strongly identify and which I admired greatly when I read them yesterday morning:
sometimes, i have conversations with an imaginary guru, naturally one who lives inside me. he used to be a psychiatrist: at least in the old days a lot of my conversations were started with, & a lot of my problems heard out or resolved by, an imaginary Viennese who listened carefully, often accusingly, & showed me with a few apt technical phrases how far i had erred in my thinking, or behavior. the Viennese fellow has disappeared; comes back if ever for very short visits; but has been replaced by chuang tzu (sometimes merton, or sometimes chuang tzu in merton translation) who tells me other wisdoms: usually the wisdoms of abstinence & avoidance; of retreat, prayer & preparation, of non-attachment, of “sitting quietly doing nothing,” of seeking smallness, not greatness, or of seeking nothing at all.
[…]
what he promotes is wisdom, what he promises is grace. zen wisdom, perhaps; zen grace, but certainly wisdom & grace.
Amen.
I admire Søren Kierkegaard. I am fascinated and at least partially convinced by Carl Jung and some of his disciples (e.g. Hermann Hesse). I enjoy reading the critical theory of Harold Bloom and share some of his interests (e.g. Gnosticism). And there are literally dozens, if not hundreds, of other creative writers and thinkers whose oeuvres I admire and have studied in their entirety. But, until my recent discovery of Robert Lax, Simone Weil inhabited a category in my regard of which she was the sole member.
Weil and Lax were very different. One was male; one female. One was primarily a poet; the other primarily a philosopher. They were alike in each having been a solitary. But very different types of solitary they were. Lax was gregarious in his solitude – living alone, but enjoying the company of friends and strangers alike. Weil was largely a true loner. Her primary association with other people was in the role of teacher.
So much do I admire each of these human paragons, that I most value in myself those things in which I detect their faint echoes. So much do I learn from studying their very different lives and modes of solitude, that I’ve come to an understanding that I probably went wrong in my life by not seeking solitude for myself.
Here, from a work of Lax’s entitled A Greek Journal, are two entries with which I strongly identify and which I admired greatly when I read them yesterday morning:
sometimes, i have conversations with an imaginary guru, naturally one who lives inside me. he used to be a psychiatrist: at least in the old days a lot of my conversations were started with, & a lot of my problems heard out or resolved by, an imaginary Viennese who listened carefully, often accusingly, & showed me with a few apt technical phrases how far i had erred in my thinking, or behavior. the Viennese fellow has disappeared; comes back if ever for very short visits; but has been replaced by chuang tzu (sometimes merton, or sometimes chuang tzu in merton translation) who tells me other wisdoms: usually the wisdoms of abstinence & avoidance; of retreat, prayer & preparation, of non-attachment, of “sitting quietly doing nothing,” of seeking smallness, not greatness, or of seeking nothing at all.
[…]
what he promotes is wisdom, what he promises is grace. zen wisdom, perhaps; zen grace, but certainly wisdom & grace.
Amen.
X
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Reflections: Folk Song
X
Oh, you bring the sturm
Und I’ll bring the drang, honey
You bring the sturm
Und I’ll bring the drang, babe
You bring the sturm
Und I’ll bring the drang
We’ll go down to Götterdämmerung
Oh, honey,
Oh, baby, mine.
X
Oh, you bring the sturm
Und I’ll bring the drang, honey
You bring the sturm
Und I’ll bring the drang, babe
You bring the sturm
Und I’ll bring the drang
We’ll go down to Götterdämmerung
Oh, honey,
Oh, baby, mine.
X
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Quote du Jour: Poetry
X
from “On Poetry and Language” – Robert Lax
xxx.
(language is a
phoenix
poetry a phoenix
reborn
from its
own
ashes
xxx.
(let the language
fall to ashes
& poetry
will arise)
let the language
fall to ashes
& new language
will arise
xxx.
xxx
XX[…]
Poetry may express
the poet
xxx.
It may serve as discourse
from man to man
More truly it moves
between man & God
xxx.
The psalmist David
sang for the Lord,
& the spirit of the
Lord replied
xxx.
X
from “On Poetry and Language” – Robert Lax
xxx.
(language is a
phoenix
poetry a phoenix
reborn
from its
own
ashes
xxx.
(let the language
fall to ashes
& poetry
will arise)
let the language
fall to ashes
& new language
will arise
xxx.
xxx
XX[…]
Poetry may express
the poet
xxx.
It may serve as discourse
from man to man
More truly it moves
between man & God
xxx.
The psalmist David
sang for the Lord,
& the spirit of the
Lord replied
xxx.
X
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