Here’s a poem by a guy who re-wrote and revised as much as anybody, but still, once in a while, produced poems that speak in an uncluttered voice, seemingly springing from a moment’s thought, and that work.

HE WISHES FOR THE CLOTHS OF HEAVEN

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

-William Butler Yeats

In any case, this poem raises many questions, such as what do you
really think of the grand finale at a fireworks show? Cliched?
Awesome? Worth the wait? Overwrought? Also, it reads like a sonnet but
it’s not, really. Who else writing today could fit the line “What a
joy to eat the unborn” neatly into a lyric about fireworks? -ed.

DOWNTOWN

July 4th fireworks exhale over the Hudson sadly.
It is beautiful that they have to disappear.
It’s like the time you said I love you madly.
That was an hour ago. It’s been a fervent year.
I don’t really love fireworks, not really, the flavorful floating shroud
In the nighttime sky above the river and the crowd.
This time, because of the distance upriver perhaps, they’re not loud,
Even the colors aren’t, the patterns getting pregnant and popping.
They get bigger and louder when they start stopping.
They try to rally
At the finale.
It’s the four-hundredth anniversary of Henry Hudson’s discovery—
Which is why the fireworks happen on this side of the island this year.
Shad are back, and we celebrate the Hudson’s Clean Water Act recovery.
What a joy to eat the unborn. We’re monsters, I fear. What monsters we’re.
We’ll binge on shad roe next spring in the delicious few minutes it’s here.

-2010

The best line of Robert Creeley’s (1926-2005) Wikipedia page is, “He
was a chicken farmer briefly before becoming a teacher.” Brilliant.
That, and the fact that he was almost 30 when he graduated from
college, gives me hope. I don’t know if he was struggling away on
science requirements or scraping chicken poop from a coop when he
wrote this, but anyone who produces even one piece like this can be an
American poet in my book any day. NB: I’ve been hearing the first 3
lines of this poem in my head, off and on, for something like 16
years, and only today was able to find it and identify its author. It
really IS a rhythm, and that, I believe, is why it’s stuck with me.
-ed.

THE RHYTHM

It is all a rhythm,
from the shutting
door, to the window
opening,

the seasons, the sun’s
light, the moon,
the oceans, the
growing of things,

the mind in men
personal, recurring
in them again,
thinking the end

is not the end, the
time returning,
themselves dead but
someone else coming.

If in death I am dead,
then in life also
dying, dying…
And the women cry and die.

The little children
grown only to old men.
The grass dries,
the force goes.

But is met by another
returning, oh not mine,
not mine, and
in turn dies.

The rhythm which projects
from itself continuity
bending all to its force
from window to door,
from ceiling to floor,
light at the opening,
dark at the closing.

It is so cold in New York that people are stealing other people’s
dog’s JACKETS. People are stealing dog jackets. I know this not
because I read the NY Post, but because I was reading an article about
tabloid journalism, which commented on the Post and its ability
(laudable, in the writer’s eye) to focus in on the telling detail
within each morsel of midlevel noncelebrity bad behavior. Excerpt:

“It’s valuable, I’ve found, to reflect on what the Yale English
department used to call “conspicuous irrelevancies.” Those little
disjunctions in poems that, when unlocked, open a door to some
unexpected meaning. The conspicuous irrelevancy here: Who’s gonna
fence a mini dog coat? Is there a ring of dog-coat thieves? No, the
thief really couldn’t be stealing Lexie’s outerwear because he thought
he’d make a quick buck on the illicit canine coat market, could he?
But then I thought some more about the “TERRIER-FYING CRIME,” as the
Post  had it. What if the alleged “goon” had a little dog at home in
his unheated apartment, a mutt, probably, who shivered whenever he
went out. He figured the Park Slope yuppies probably had a couple
extra dog coats in their condo at home. So, yes, it was still
stealing, it was still wrong, but maybe it was also, on some level,
selfless. A story of poverty and desperation, love and sacrifice.
(You’d kind of have to sacrifice your self-respect to steal the coat
off a tiny dog’s back, right?) Straight out of Dickens. Or maybe
Chekhov. (Think “Lady with a Lapdog.”)”

OK, it gets a little pretentious, but I like it.* And why no Gogol
reference? Then I thought for a sec about how we love those
conspicuous irrelevancies in all kinds of cultural production, not
just poetry: the producer’s role in pop music, art direction and
homage in film, comedy of all kinds–sometimes the throw-away lines
are the best. With narrators, we can think about these conspicuous
irrelevancies in terms of digression–why do certain things pop up,
why are some thoughts cut off mid-sentence, what does a character, in
trying to reveal little, actually reveal?

And I immediately thought of Browning’s “My Last Duchess,” that
heavily-anthologized “two weeks on poetry analysis” chestnut. But it’s
so awesome, and if we’ve read it here before it was in the 90′s. So I
print it today without too onerous a guiding thought: How do the
conspicuous irrelevancies–those little guys that don’t necessarily
have to do with the poem’s subject or tone–affect our sense of what
the narrator’s about? Or am I wrong–are there no conspicuous
irrelevancies to speak of here? Comments from Brooklynites who own
small dog jackets particularly encouraged.

It’s a tricky poem with some arcane language, so a bit of intro: The
poem is spoken by a man named “Ferrara,” a rich duke whose very young
first wife predeceased him. He’s now seeking as bride the daughter of
a very powerful noble, to whose representative he speaks in the poem.
There is plenty of scholarship about who these characters are (or
represent) historically, and the court representative is claimed to be
an Austrian. Though Browning was a Victorian, the poem takes place
during the Italian Renaissance, accounting for some of the consciously
arcane diction. There are so many good avenues into this poem, which
we’ll explore in future weeks if it at all intrigues. -ed.

*The entire article, which includes minor ruminations on the Hiram
Montserrate affair, is available at:
http://www.slate.com/id/2245895

MY LAST DUCHESS

Ferrara:

That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf’s hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said
“Fra Pandolf” by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)                                [10]
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, ’twas not
Her husband’s presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek: perhaps
Fra Pandolf chanced to say “Her mantle laps
Over my lady’s wrist too much,” or “Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat”: such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough                    [20]
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart—how shall I say?—too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, ’twas all one! My favour at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace—all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,                [30]
Or blush, at least. She thanked men,—good! but thanked
Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody’s gift. Who’d stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech—(which I have not)—to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, “Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark”—and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set                                [40]
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
—E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will’t please you rise? We’ll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your master’s known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence                                [50]
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we’ll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

-1842

Anywho, intrepid member Jonelle Lonergan of Somerbridge, MA, is once again running the Boston marathon (her 5th). Running the Boston marathon means training in the dead of winter, running through slush and snow for almost all of one’s training miles, and, since New England averages 4.5 hours of daylight during the winter, often running in the dark. Let me be very clear that MV does not condone or encourage this kind of activity. But, we do support charity, and Jonelle is raising money for the Dana Farber “run for the cure” team with her efforts. This is a cancer research fund. If you’d like to donate, please visit her blog. If you can’t donate, take a second to enjoy her unique blend of disillusionment and deadpan:

http://runjonellerun.blogspot.com/

Second, a couple weeks ago long-time reader Adam Sleper of Chicago, IL, sent me a link to the following poetry column in Slate by Robert Pinsky, dedicated to love poems–but love poems that implicitly or explicitly acknowledge that love is “often messy, difficult, contorted, disturbing, and out of control.” If you want to get your poetry fix today, do read the column (about 3 web pages) and the lyric poems that accompany it. Pinsky has a wonderful way of talking about poetry for folks like us–for sympathetic non-experts. He’s an accomplished poet, critic, and translator himself, and I miss the frequent readings of his own and others’ work on NPR and PBS of his poet laureate days. For those for whom an annual reading of “Blue Monday” does not suffice, then:

http://www.slate.com/id/2244053

Enjoy your week,
-ed.

Critics have written of Ms. Wakoski’s use of archetype, fantastic images, personae, and a deeply personal mythology, and I think those elements are here, too. Nebulous terrors take the form of sharks swimming in an unlikely place. Love is a banker. Dreamy images of blue trains and blue herons conjure mystery, even as they are among the most sensible of her images. More importantly, here’s what MV readers have had to say about the poem:

“well this makes me want to throw myself into oncoming traffic on valentine’s day…this one is deep.”

“mrs. wakoski rolls repetition down the page in a way that pulls you down with it.  this is nicer left on paper, i think.  it would depend who was reading it for me to so willingly trail after their voice as i do her lines.  i was always taught not to follow strangers, especially ones bearing candy or poetry.  shady folks, so i’m told.”

“Absolutely beautiful. I especially like:

blue of her teeth
that bite cold toast
and shatter on the streets“

“That is depressing. This is the first time I’ve read this one. Does the poem change point of view after the first block, or is the narrator talking about different people?”

“I love this poem! The imagery is so poignant. Depressing? I guess so but so true of Mondays when one is fixated on finding love. When we want love it does seem cold and distant–alienating.”

Without further ado, happy Monday. -ed.

BLUE MONDAY

Blue and the heaps of beads poured into her breasts
and clacking together in her elbows;
blue of the silk
that covers lily-town at night;
blue of her teeth
that bite cold toast
and shatter on the streets;
blue of the dyed flower petals with gold stamens
hanging like tongues
over the fence of her dress
at the opera/opals clasped under her lips
and the moon breaking over her head a
gush of blood-red lizards.

Blue Monday. Monday at 3:00 and
Monday at 5. Monday at 7:30 and
Monday at 10:00. Monday passed under the rippling
California fountain. Monday alone
a shark in the cold blue waters.

You are dead: wound round like a paisley shawl.
I cannot shake you out of the sheets. Your name
is still wedged in every corner of the sofa.

Monday is the first of the week,
and I think of you all week.
I beg Monday not to come
so that I will not think of you
all week.

You paint my body blue. On the balcony
in the soft muddy night, you paint me
with bat wings and the crystal
the crystal
the crystal
the crystal in your arm cuts away
the night, folds back ebony whale skin
and my face, the blue of new rifles,
and my neck, the blue of Egypt,
and my breasts, the blue of sand,
and my arms, bass-blue,
and my stomach, arsenic;

there is electricity dripping from me like cream;
there is love dripping from me I cannot use–like acacia or
jacaranda–fallen blue and gold flowers, crushed into the street.

Love passed me in a business suit
and fedora.
His glass cane, hollow and filled with
sharks and whales. . .
He wore black
patent leather shoes
and had a mustache. His hair was so black
it was almost blue.

“Love,” I said.
“I beg your pardon,” he said.
“Mr. Love,” I said.
“I beg your pardon,” he said.

So I saw there was no use bothering him on the street.

Love passed me on the street in a blue
business suit. He was a banker
I could tell.

So blue trains rush by in my sleep.
Blue herons fly overhead.
Blue paints cracks in my
arteries and sends titanium
floating into my bones.
Blue liquid pours down
my poisoned throat and blue veins
rip open my breast. Blue daggers tip
and are juggled on my palms.
Blue death lives in my fingernails.

If I could sing one last song
with water bubbling through my lips
I would sing with my throat torn open,
the blue jugular spouting that black shadow pulse,
and on my lips
I would balance volcanic rock
emptied out of my veins. At last
my children strained out
of my body. At last my blood
solidified and tumbling into the ocean.
It is blue.
It is blue.
It is blue.

-1968

I was buried under 21 inches of snow for yesterday and could not reach my computer. I kept reciting Stevens’s “The Snow Man” at the top of my lungs, but no one could hear me. Later, in the evening, I stopped by some woods.

Anyway, that’s why the tardiness. Up this week is an English poet named Glyn Maxwell, who is almost Muldoonian in his work–he can write explosively formal poems, has a good vocabulary, has at least a dash of wit, and also writes criticism and screenplays and long-form verse and opera libretti and all that kind of jazz. A poetic polymath, in other words–super annoying. He has published several volumes of poetry, and did a graduate degree at Boston U. and taught at Amherst for a while. It may have taken him a few months to land the teaching gig, perhaps the inspiration for this selection. Can anyone else out there relate to this??? And by the way, one would probably have to go back as far as Longfellow to find a poem in which the word “Massachusetts” appears 6 times, right?

Stay warm,

Matthew

GHOST OUT OF WORK

The title of this installment is AT A LOSS.

Why? Because I considered what Leah and Scott and others had to say, read a couple dictionaries, hunted around for poems, and then J.D. SALINGER UP AND DIES. My speakers have, in short, been blown on 9 billion irony ohms–and I still can’t get the input jack disconnected.

But I’ll say this: irony is broad, and I think it’s broad enough to encompass most meanings raised here. The common anti-Alanis argument goes something like this: That’s not ironic, that just sucks (valid); or, That’s not ironic, that’s just unexpected (slightly less valid). Why is the latter statement slightly less valid? Because I tend to agree with Scott that, “Whenever the reality is the opposite of what you reasonably expect… I think that’s a simple definition that works enough of the time without getting too pedantic.” Also note that Scott sounds like a gross lawyer with the phrase “reasonably expect,” WTF.

Yeah yeah yeah, that is not irony strictly defined, nor is it literary irony. But literary irony itself has so many subgroups–bathos, sarcasm, dramatic irony, romantic irony, formal irony, dialectical irony (aka “Socratic”), catachresis, situational irony, meiosis/litotes, parody, sarcasm–that to say it’s a certain technique with a certain definition seems to smack of, as Scott says, pedantry. And we’d never want to do that. And I feel like Leah is right on, too: irony can be thought of as merely the gap between what is said and what actually happens (reading/speech), or between what one expects to happen, and actually happens (events). These are both workable ways to think about irony in real life, as opposed to irony in written work. In written work, while I’d still want a broad definition, I tend to think of irony more as a sense of distance–some distance between what is actually said and what is really meant. This can happen–as the above list suggests–on any number of levels (though sarcasm is usually the clearest example). But the literary definition is never gonna hold up in real life, I suppose because there’s less at stake on the level of WORDS, and when the unexpected happens, or the expected happens in an unexpected way, that seems like a good enough translation of the literary concept to qualify as irony. Do I also feel good when I notice that the translation is not precise? Yes.

The only thing that really bugs me is when coincidence is confused for irony. A coincidence is a coincidence–and proves only itself. Now let’s read some poetry.

Put yourself in the wayback machine and consider the following 3 stanzas by John Donne (1573-1631), which make up a pretty typical 17th-century poem about trying to get laid. How many instances of irony can you find? Is there a finer sub-group of irony that you might apply? Would you call Donne’s use of irony a technique, or more of a mood/approach? Most importantly, does considering irony add to your reading of the poem? Feel free to incorporate Salinger in your responses… -ed.

THE FLEA

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deny’st me is;
It sucked me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;
Thou know’st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pampered swells with one blood made of two,
And this, alas, is more than we would do.

Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is;
Though parents grudge, and you, we’re met,
And cloistered in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that, self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it sucked from thee?
Yet thou triumph’st and say’st that thou
Find’st not thyself, nor me the weaker now;
‘Tis true, then learn how false fears be:
Just so much honor, when thou yield’st to me,
Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.

We present the last of our winter elegies today, celebrating the cracked genius of Vic Chesnutt. Vic Chesnutt was born on November 12, 1964, and learned how to play guitar from his grandfather. After a single-car drunk-driving accident when he was 18, Vic re-learned how to play guitar since he was nearly a quadriplegic. Like a lot of paralysis victims he had diaphragm weakness, and who knows how much this contributed to his froggy, vulnerable singing voice–it is definitely an acquired taste, but seems to suit a lot of his lyrics. Chesnutt was one of those song-writing heroes who had a rock-solid, cultish fan base that included a lot of other musicians, but never really gained popular renown. Michael Stipe, who produced his first record, said that Vic loved words, and that if you listen carefully you can find the one word in every song that surprises you–Chesnutt liked to mix high and low verbal arcana, from “rascally” to “paragon,” and his choices lent a sense of fun and wonder to songs that tend toward a more meditative register.

Vic Chesnutt died on Christmas after taking an overdose of his prescription painkillers. His last album, 2009′s At the Cut, was one of his most critically acclaimed, and contains the beautiful song “Flirted with You All My Life,” which appears like a regular old romance song until you realize he’s talking about his previous attempts at suicide. But for our reading (and listening, if you are able to play the attached file, below) pleasure, I’ve chosen a lighter piece, one which shows off Mr. Chesnutt’s sense of humor and wordplay, and probably the first song I heard by him, a long time ago. Those of my generation will enjoy the pitch-perfect early-90′s references. Those who appreciate poetic technique will note his use of anaphora. And those who are sympathetic to his worldview might like his resigned irony. Which reminds me of something else I wanted to tackle: What is irony? I’m serious, I love it but I struggle with understanding it, so I’m opening the line up to readers. What is irony? Is there an appropriate poem that illustrates your understanding of it? Send ‘em our way. And have a good week. -ed.

STEVE WILLOUGHBY

someday I’m gonna be rich
someday I’m gonna be bona fide
someday I’m gonna be
just like Steve Willoughby
but today I’m simply I’m simply terrified
I’m terrified

someday I’m gonna be bright
someday I’m gonna be smarter smarter than smart
someday I’ll know something
just like Larry King
but today I simply I don’t know where to start
I don’t know where to start

someday I’m gonna be hot
someday I’m gonna be bigger bigger than big
someday I’ll be adored
just like Wally George
but today I simply I ain’t worth a fig
I ain’t worth a fig

someday I’m gonna be good
someday I’m gonna be virtuous
someday I’ll be a paragon
like Louis Farrakahan
but today I simply I’m a mess
I’m in a mess

someday I’m gonna be cool
someday I’m gonna kick major major butt
someday I will transcend
just like Jane’s Addiction
but today I simply I am in a rut
I’m in a rut

someday I’ll get a career
someday I’m gonna stop wasting all my time
some day I’ll gain a skill
just like Deborah Norville
but today I simply I ain’t worth a dime I ain’t worth a dime

-1992