Source of book: I own this
I picked up several American Poetry Project hardcovers (in small format) at library sales before Covid, and this is one of them. Robert Pinsky, one of my favorite poet sorts of modern times, selected the poems from throughout WCW’s career, including the late period in the 1960s, which isn’t as well known. I previously blogged about his early poems, from a paperback from Dover Publications.
It was difficult to narrow down the poems for this post, although I also posted a few on facebook, so they could be savored by my poetically inclined friends. I discussed WCW’s biography in my previous writeup, so, except for some background to a biographical poem (see below), I will assume that the reader is familiar with his life. I find writers who had other jobs to be fascinating - maybe because I moonlight as a non-professional blogger while working a day job. But also, because life experience matters in writing, and outside experiences can inform art better than ensconcement in academia, in my experience. Frost had his farm, Dickinson her nature, and Larkin his library.
These are the ones I liked best this time around. Let’s start with an astronomy-based one.
Peace on Earth
The Archer is wake!
The Swan is flying!
Gold against blue
An Arrow is lying.
There is hunting in heaven—
Sleep safe till tomorrow.
The Bears are abroad!
The Eagle is screaming!
Gold against blue
Their eyes are gleaming!
Sleep!
Sleep safe till tomorrow.
The Sisters lie
With their arms intertwining;
Gold against blue
Their hair is shining!
The Serpent writhes!
Orion is listening!
Gold against blue
His sword is glistening!
Sleep!
There is hunting in heaven—
Sleep safe till tomorrow.
A number of friends found the line “gold against blue” particularly meaningful in light of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
Also very much on point for our times is this early poem.
Pastoral
When I was younger
it was plain to me
I must make something of myself.
Older now
I walk back streets
admiring the houses
of the very poor:
roof out of line with sides
the yards cluttered
with old chicken wire, ashes,
furniture gone wrong;
the fences and outhouses
built of barrel staves
and parts of boxes, all,
if I am fortunate,
smeared a bluish green
that properly weathered
pleases me best of all colors
No one
will believe this
of vast import to the nation.
The “rat race” is turning on itself for my children’s generation, and I am seeing a renewed sense of common humanity, even as many of my parents’ generation wail about the change.
I mentioned earlier a biographical poem. This one was written as a tribute to WCW’s grandmother, who was an important part of his life. It is an immigrant story, a messy personal story, and profoundly human. One of his best.
Dedication for a Plot of Ground
This plot of ground
facing the waters of this inlet
is dedicated to the living presence of
Emily Dickinson Wellcome
who was born in England; married;
lost her husband and with
her five year old son
sailed for New York in a two-master;
was driven to the Azores;
ran adrift on Fire Island shoal,
met her second husband
in a Brooklyn boarding house,
went with him to Puerto Rico
bore three more children, lost
her second husband, lived hard
for eight years in St. Thomas,
Puerto Rico, San Domingo, followed
the oldest son to New York,
lost her daughter, lost her "baby,"
seized the two boys of
the oldest son by the second marriage
mothered them—they being
motherless—fought for them
against the other grandmother
and the aunts, brought them here
summer after summer, defended
herself here against thieves,
storms, sun, fire,
against flies, against girls
that came smelling about, against
drought, against weeds, storm-tides,
neighbors, weasels that stole her chickens,
against the weakness of her own hands,
against the growing strength of
the boys, against wind, against
the stones, against trespassers,
against rents, against her own mind.
She grubbed this earth with her own hands,
domineered over this grass plot,
blackguarded her oldest son
into buying it, lived here fifteen years,
attained a final loneliness and—
If you can bring nothing to this place
but your carcass, keep out.
I am a sucker for a well-turned nature poem, so I had to include this one.
Willow Poem
It is a willow when summer is over,
a willow by the river
from which no leaf has fallen nor
bitten by the sun
turned orange or crimson.
The leaves cling and grow paler,
swing and grow paler
over the swirling waters of the river
as if loath to let go,
they are so cool, so drunk with
the swirl of the wind and of the river—
oblivious to winter,
the last to let go and fall
into the water and on the ground.
Oh, and a poem with a great musical metaphor.
January
Again I reply to the triple winds
running chromatic fifths of derision
outside my window:
Play louder.
You will not succeed. I am
bound more to my sentences
the more you batter at me
to follow you.
And the wind,
as before, fingers perfectly
its derisive music.
“Chromatic fifths of derision.” That’s wonderful.
There are a number of longer poems, and poem cycles, some of which are quoted in full, and others of which are given in excerpts. I loved “January Morning,” for example, but couldn’t decide what to quote. “Spring and All” was another, but I decided for that one to quote this passage:
By the road to the contagious hospital
under the surge of the blue
mottled clouds driven from the
northeast-a cold wind. Beyond, the
waste of broad, muddy fields
brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen
patches of standing water
the scattering of tall trees
All along the road the reddish
purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy
stuff of bushes and small trees
with dead, brown leaves under them
leafless vines—
Lifeless in appearance, sluggish
dazed spring approaches—
They enter the new world naked,
cold, uncertain of all
save that they enter. All about them
the cold, familiar wind—
Now the grass, tomorrow
the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf
One by one objects are defined—
It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf
But now the stark dignity of
entrance—Still, the profound change
has come upon them: rooted, they
grip down and begin to awaken
That is a really amazing description of spring, and of awakening of plant life after winter. At his best, WCW makes language sparkle and dance. Here is a shorter one that I love.
My Luv
My luv
is like
a
greenclass
insulator
on
A blue sky.
I also love those old insulators.
On a much darker note, this poem has stayed with me. It is hard to be sure of the intended meaning. Was the deceased a horrible person? Or is death so horrible it taints the body and even the memory of the departed? Or both?
Death
He's dead
the dog won't have to
sleep on his potatoes
any more to keep them
from freezing
he's dead
the old bastard—
He's a bastard because
there's nothing
legitimate in him any
more
he's dead
He's sick dead
he's
a godforsaken curio
without
any breath in it
He's nothing at all
he's dead
shrunken up to the skin
Put his head on
one chair and his
feet on another and
he'll lie there
like an acrobat—
Love's beaten. He
beat it. That's why
he's insufferable—
because
he's here needing a
shave and making love
an inside howl
of anguish and defeat—
He's come out of the man
and he's let
the man go—
the liar
Dead
his eyes
rolled up out of
the light—a mockery
which
love cannot touch—
just bury it
and hide its face
for shame.
Also dark is this poem, which seems both a prelude and counterpart to “Spring and All,” but also connects with “death.” Winter as death, but winter also as a metaphor for humankind’s stupidity - and perhaps war in particular. Stupidity and death as flip sides of the same coin, ignorance and obscurity, intellectual and physical death.
These
are the desolate, dark weeks
when nature in its barrenness
equals the stupidity of man.
The year plunges into night
and the heart plunges
lower than night
to an empty, windswept place
without sun, stars or moon
but a peculiar light as of thought
that spins a dark fire –
whirling upon itself until,
in the cold, it kindles
to make a man aware of nothing
that he knows, not loneliness
itself – Not a ghost but
would be embraced – emptiness,
despair – (They
whine and whistle) among
the flashes and booms of war;
houses of whose rooms
the cold is greater than can be thought,
the people gone that we loved,
the beds lying empty, the couches
damp, the chairs unused –
Hide it away somewhere
out of the mind, let it get roots
and grow, unrelated to jealous
ears and eyes – for itself.
In this mine they come to dig – all.
Is this the counterfoil to sweetest
music? The source of poetry that
seeing the clock stopped, says,
The clock has stopped
that ticked yesterday so well?
and hears the sound of lakewater
splashing – that is now stone.
A lot of the poems use a three line stanza. Sometimes, the breaks feel natural. In others, like the one above, they contribute to a certain emphasis, but break lines and sometimes full thoughts. It is a fascinating technique. In the hands of Williams, the result is often breathtaking, although it is too often imitated badly by lesser poets. Here is another example of that stanza form.
River Rhyme
The rumpled river
takes its course
lashed by rain
This is that now
that tortures
skeletons of weeds
and muddy waters
eat their
banks the drain
of swamps a bulk
that writhes and fat-
tens as it speeds.
Also of interest in this poem is the way that the poem - like the river - starts out in a normal course, then increasingly breaks its bounds. The first stanza is self contained. Then, the next break comes in the middle of a sentence, but between two thoughts. But then, the break is in the middle of the thought, and a line breaks in the middle of a word. All the banks are overrun by the end.
This next one contains perhaps the most famous line WCW wrote - although I doubt many know it was he that said “No ideas but in things.” At best, a few recollect it being a sort of motto for the imagists. In context, it is a devastating line.
A Sort of a Song
Let the snake wait under
his weed
and the writing
be of words, slow and quick, sharp
to strike, quiet to wait,
Sleepless.
— through metaphor to reconcile
the people and the stones.
Compose. (No ideas
but in things) Invent!
Saxifrage is my flower that splits
the rocks.
While the various species of Saxifraga are widespread, I am most familiar with one that literally breaks the granite of the Sierra Nevada. WCW moves from the patient snake that strikes suddenly to the humble and fragile weed that works for centuries at splitting the ageless rocks to the idea of words carefully planned and metaphors carefully chosen to strike and fracture the psyche. I love it.
I was also surprised to find that I enjoyed the later poems quite a bit. For many poets, the early poems make the reputation, and the later ones are either mailed in or not as revolutionary, or perhaps they are good but the world and style has moved on. It is, in some ways, a curse for an artist to live to an old age. However, I find that often the later works are as good, just not as revolutionary. In any case, the ones that follow are mostly from the last couple decades of Williams’ life.
A Woman in Front of a Bank
The bank is a matter of columns,
like . convention,
unlike invention; but the pediments
sit there in the sun
to convince the doubting of
investments “solid
as a rock” —-upon which the world
stands, the world of finance,
the only world: Just there,
talking with another woman while
rocking a baby carriage
back and forth stands a woman in
a pink cotton dress, bare legged
and headed whose legs
are two columns to hold up
her face, like Lenin’s (her loosely
arranged hair profusely blond) or
Darwin’s and there you
have it:
a woman in front of a bank.
I am reminded of the way most of our media talk as if the stock market and “the economy” were the same thing. Williams reminds us that there are other ways of thinking, and in the long run, systems of finance are far less important than the real source of wealth: human labor and caretaking. And note the period between “like” and “convention.” That is intentional, and a way of showing the columns.
I want to mention “Asphodel, That Greeny Flower,” a long poem only part of which (but still a dozen pages) is quoted in this collection. Asphodel is, of course, a classical symbol of the afterlife, and peace after death. There are an abundance of great lines, and I recommend reading the whole thing. The poem was written during a period of trouble for the poet. He suffered a heart attack and a series of strokes, leading to increasingly poor - and precarious - health. He was also jerked around regarding a job, because of the McCarthy Era witch hunts against “communists” - he was suspected of being one, whatever that meant at the time. Oh, and he became so depressed he had to have in-patient psychiatric treatment. This poem was the result of this turmoil, and also of his determination to come clean to his long-suffering wife about his many past infidelities. It is unknown exactly how she took all of this, but in any case, the poem, with her at its center, has come to be considered one of his greatest late works. I wanted to mention a few lines.
We lived long together
a life filled,
if you will,
with flowers. So that
I was cheered
when I came first to know
that there were flowers also
in hell.
And this one:
I cannot say
that I have gone to hell
for your love
but often
found myself there
in your pursuit.
I will end with an excerpt from a cycle in his last collection. Entitled “Pictures from Brueghel,” it gives poetic descriptions of certain famous paintings by that old master. I could pick any of them, but I think I will go with “Self Portrait,” because instead of the most famous painting of that name, WCW chooses a lesser known picture that I think is fabulous. Rather than show the serious painter, it portrays a jolly old man, full of good spirits.
In a red winter hat blue
eyes smiling
just the head and shoulders
crowded on the canvas
arms folded one
big ear the right showing
the face slightly tilted
a heavy wool coat
with broad buttons
gathered at the neck reveals
a bulbous nose
but the eyes red-rimmed
from over-use he must have
driven them hard
but the delicate wrists
show him to have been a
man unused to
manual labor unshaved his
blond beard half trimmed
no time for any-
thing but his painting
No comments:
Post a Comment