Source of book: I own this
I think it may have been one of my local literary friends of my parents’ generation who first suggested I read Frank Bidart. He is, after all, one of the true luminaries to come out of Bakersfield - he won the Pulitzer for his anthology, Half Light, which is the collection that I own of his. (I collect used hardbacks like a true hoarder…)
Bidart is a living poet (although he is in his 80s now), with a career that now spans seven decades. He is also gay, and that fact both informs his writing and links him with others in a specific American poetic tradition. (I’ll note Richard Howard as a contemporary, whose poems are often explicitly gay. He and Bidart both utilized the Dramatic Monologue often in their poems.)
So, what is a cishet guy like me interested in LGBTQ poets for anyway? Well, in the more intellectual sense, I have made a point of reading LGBTQ authors, because I believe that what is best in culture often arises from marginalized groups. The role of African Americans in American culture, for example, is crucial and unmistakable. Throughout history, LGBTQ people have thrived in the arts, and have created many of our most beloved works, from Messiah on down.
But perhaps more to the point, at an emotional level, I find that poetry by LGBTQ authors resonates for me. Not in a sexual-orientation way, but in a more universal human way, just like the music of gay composers often speaks to me deeply. (Related: I think lesbian and bisexual women write the best sex scenes in literature, while straight men write the worst.)
The poems are just really good, and love is love, so to speak. In this post, I will feature a few breathtaking lines that I think can represent heterosexual love as perfectly as homosexual love.
In the case of Frank Bidart, I found his writing to be truly wonderful, and his often-unusual techniques to be effective in communicating his meaning beyond the mere words.
I ended up picking a pair of collections to read this time, because neither was that long. There are two things that link them together: the word “night” in the titles, and the fact that they were both published in 1990. Arbitrary? Perhaps. But it worked.
The first poem I want to look at is “To the Dead,” from In the Western Night, which utilizes a number of Bidart’s common techniques and styles. He uses ALL CAPS liberally, but not constantly, so it doesn’t feel like yelling as much as it does a slightly stronger italics (which he also uses.) This poem also contains one of the most incredible lines I have ever read.
To the Dead
What I hope (when I hope) is that we'll
see each other again,--
. . . and again reach the VEIN
in which we loved each other . .
It existed. It existed.
There is a NIGHT within the NIGHT,--
. . . for, like the detectives (the Ritz Brothers)
in The Gorilla,
once we'd been battered by the gorilla
we searched the walls, the intricately carved
impenetrable paneling
for a button, lever, latch
that unlocks a secret door that
reveals at last the secret chambers,
CORRIDORS within WALLS,
(the disenthralling, necessary, dreamed structure
beneath the structure we see,)
that is the HOUSE within the HOUSE . . .
There is a NIGHT within the NIGHT,--
. . . there were (for example) months when I seemed only
to displease, frustrate,
disappoint you--; then, something triggered
a drunk lasting for days, and as you
slowly and shakily sobered up,
sick, throbbing with remorse and self-loathing,
insight like ashes: clung
to; useless; hated . . .
This was the viewing of the power of the waters
while the waters were asleep:--
secrets, histories of loves, betrayals, double-binds
not fit (you thought) for the light of day . . .
There is a NIGHT within the NIGHT,--
. . . for, there at times at night, still we
inhabit the secret place together . . .
Is this wisdom, or self-pity?--
The love I've known is the love of
two people staring
not at each other, but in the same direction.
Just read those last three lines again.
The love I've known is the love of
two people staring
not at each other, but in the same direction.
Good lord those are amazing. The poem apparently was directed, not at a single person, but at all of the friends and family Bidart had lost.
This next one is explicitly homoerotic, but again, it speaks of universal love, of death, of fear, and of transcendence. It is subtitled (John of the Cross), which is a fascinating reference. From what I can tell, the poem itself is loosely based on St. John of the Cross’ poem of the same name (more commonly called “Dark Night of the Soul,” which is actually St. John’s commentary on the poem.
Bidart takes some definite liberties with the poem - even more than those necessary for translation - while preserving the basic ideas.
Also fascinating here is that John of the Cross is believed to have been gay himself, and his work combines spirituality and homoeroticism much like Bidart would centuries later.
The poem is worth reproducing here:
Dark Night
(John of the Cross)
In a dark night, when the light
burning was the burning of love (fortuitous
night, fated, free,--)
as I stole from my dark house, dark
house that was silent, grave, sleeping,--
by the staircase that was secret, hidden,
safe: disguised by darkness (fortuitous
night, fated, free,--)
by darkness and by cunning, dark
house that was silent, grave, sleeping--;
in that sweet night, secret, seen by
no one and seeing
nothing, my only light or
guide
the burning in my burning heart,
night was the guide
to the place where he for whom I
waited, whom I had long ago chosen,
waits: night
brighter than noon, in which none can see--;
night was the guide
sweeter than the sun raw at
dawn, for there the burning bridegroom is
bride
and he who chose at last is chosen.
*
As he lay sleeping on my sleepless
breast, kept from the beginning for him
alone, lying on the gift I gave
as the restless
fragrant cedars moved the restless winds,--
winds from the circling parapet circling
us as I lay there touching and lifting his hair,--
with his sovereign hand, he
wounded my neck-
and my senses, when they touched that, touched nothing...
In a dark night (there where I
lost myself,--) as I leaned to rest
in his smooth white breast, everything
ceased
and left me, forgotten in the grave of forgotten lilies.
The title poem of the collection has several sections. One in particular stood out to me.
In the Western Night
3. Two Men
The man who does not know himself, who
does not know his affections that his actions
speak but that he does not
acknowledge,
who will SAY ANYTHING
and lie when he does not know that he is
lying because what he needs to believe is true
must indeed
be true,
THIS MAN IS STONE ... NOT BREAD.
STONE. NOT CAKE. NOT CHEESE. NOT BREAD ...
The man who tries to feed his hunger
by gnawing stone
is a FOOL; his hunger is
fed in ways that he knows cannot satisfy it.
That is quite the picture of fundamentalism in action. When a perceived theological need is more important than reality.
Before moving on to the second book, I want to note some lines from “In the Ruins.”
1. Man is a MORAL animal.
2. You can get human beings to do anything, - IF
you can convince them it is moral.
3. You can convince human beings anything is moral.
Moving on to the second book, The First Hour of the Night. Interestingly, the title poem (which is at the end of the collection, and makes up about two-thirds of it, is also connected to poems written later. “The Second Hour of the Night” is found in the 1997 collection, Desire; “The Third Hour of the Night” made its way into 2005’s Stardust. “The Fourth Hour of the Night” is in his final collection (so far), Thirst, from 2016. I haven’t yet read the other “hours,” but will quote a few lines from the first one. All of them are long poems, and could qualify as dramatic monologues.
Before I get to that, however, there is shorter poem I want to mention:
Long and Short Lines
You who call me to weep afresh love’s long since cancelled woe, -
. . . mock me
with you -
hypocrisy’s thirst somewhere if you’re anywhere must
now make you again pave someone’s road to hell.
Toward that design cut long ago by your several divided nature
and mine,
. . . learn I too
twist, unchanged.
The use of line length is effective, and the metaphors are worth thinking about. I am particularly haunted by the idea of hypocrisy paving someone else’s road to hell. Ouch. And true.
The rest of these are all from “The First Hour of the Night.” As I noted, it is a dramatic monologue, somewhat rambling, and very personal. It’s a beautiful read, particularly out loud. Also far too long to reproduce, so I am just going to highlight my favorite phrases. The poem starts off describing this scene where the narrator returns to the home of an older friend who has died, and talks with the son, who feels that he will never be at home in this ancient, inherited estate. From there, it goes a number of fascinating philosophical and poetical directions.
-- Then I know that each object that father
chose for this house, but absent now from it
says that everything ever
unresolved clearly FOREVER
is unresolvable between us.
There is another scene with philosophers, past and present, arguing with each other.
From this milling, mercurial crowd
(-- Hegel now looked
at one moment like
Bismarck, at another like Shelley--)
words emerge:--
Master and Slave. Predestination. Preservation of
the Species. God immanent in
Nature. Race. Blood.
Stages of absolute mind. Progress. Class.
The inexorable laws of History, the Psyche, the Age.
Logos. The world
as will and idea. The One. The inescapable
society of the dead and the living, who have made us what we are. . .
And the way the narrator eventually freaks out at this nightmare:
III
Then I wanted to shout at this destruction, this
ruin, not only
in pain, but in relief:--
Whenever human beings have felt
conviction that what they possess is indeed
‘KNOWLEDGE OF THE CAUSES OF THINGS,’--
. . . whenever this conviction has been
shared by, animated a whole
society, or significant group within society,--
the ancient hegemony of POWER and PRIESTHOOD
is reconstituted:--
implicit within each
vision of cause, a structure of power:--
an imagination not only of
where power resides, but should, must reside. . .
That’s powerful stuff. What an insight. Related to that is another passage:
The ‘moral law within’
(for Kant, the ground
of the moral life itself, certain, beautiful, fixed
like the processional of stars above our heads)
is near to MADNESS--; everything terrible
but buried in human motivation
Released, justified
by self-righteousness and fanaticism. . .
There are none so cruel as those who believe they speak for Almighty God…
I have a lot more Bidart to read from my collection, but what I did read was quite good. I look forward to future exploration.
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