Poetry – Caterina.net

August Reading

The stand out here, was of course, Middlemarch. I had read it in college and remember thinking to myself, “am I really going to expend my youth reading about agricultural practices in 19th century rural England?” But of course, it is so much more. Many people have called it the greatest English novel, and, to disprove this opinion, I would have to read a whole lot more English novels. So I provisionally agree.

Last month’s reading of Faulkner required the antidote of Morrison, and I read her essays, and her first novel The Bluest Eye. Also of undisputed greatness–though censors the world over have been trying to suppress it for years. I doubt they’ve read it.

The book that left me straddling the fence, wavering in opinion, and wondering about its suitability for prize-winning, was the International Booker Prize winner, The Discomfort of Evening–which announcement and ceremony I accidentally happened upon as it was taking place live online. Prizes invite dispute, which enlivens book reading in general, so I welcome them. The book was great, but green. I was amazed to learn that the distinguished judges read all the contenders, starting with 128 books.

And if you haven’t already read Signs Preceding the End of the World, run don’t walk to your local bookstore, and pick it up curbside.

It ceased to hurt me, though so slow

I was quite moved by this post from a friend of mine on Twitter, because the same thing has happened to me several times in my life, and its uneventfulness is striking:

There is, of course, a wonderful poem on this subject, which I happened upon this weekend in the Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson again:

It ceased to hurt me, though so slow
I could not feel the Anguish go—
But only knew by looking back—
That something—had benumbed the Track—

Nor when it altered, I could say,
For I had worn it, every day,
As constant as the Childish frock—
I hung upon the Peg, at night.

But not the Grief—that nestled close
As needles—ladies softly press
To Cushions Cheeks—
To keep their place—

Nor what consoled it, I could trace—
Except, whereas ’twas Wilderness—
It’s better—almost Peace—

Eileen Myles, an interview and a poem

Eileen-Myles-WEB It was with great satisfaction, and not without amusement that I read several recent interviews with and profiles of Eileen Myles, a poet who has always been much beloved, but who has only recently become the kind of poet profiled by the New York Times. I am always happy to see poets given big profiles in the mainstream press; right after this, I found another profile in The New Yorker. In this brief interview, from the Talk column in the Sunday Magazine, there was so much to love:

Poetry always, always, always is a key piece of democracy. It’s like the un-Trump: The poet is the charismatic loser. You’re the fool in Shakespeare; you’re the loose cannon. As things get worse, poetry gets better, because it becomes more necessary.

Which is not unlike what Ursula LeGuin said recently in the speech she gave upon receiving an award from the National Book Awards. Myles’ hyperbole is funny:

I think it would be a great time for men, basically, to go on vacation. There isn’t enough work for everybody. Certainly in the arts, in all genres, I think that men should step away. I think men should stop writing books. I think men should stop making movies or television. Say, for 50 to 100 years.

Myles ran for President a while back, as the first “openly female” candidate. This poem, related, is from her 1991 collection Not Me published by (semiotexte), An American Poem. It as satisfying much like her interview is satisfying: she says things that are profound, necessary, hyperbolic, and funny. Her poetry is accessible, and down to earth:

An American Poem

BY EILEEN MYLES

I was born in Boston in

1949. I never wanted

this fact to be known, in

fact I’ve spent the better

half of my adult life

trying to sweep my early

years under the carpet

and have a life that

was clearly just mine

and independent of

the historic fate of

my family. Can you

imagine what it was

like to be one of them,

to be built like them,

to talk like them

to have the benefits

of being born into such

a wealthy and powerful

American family. I went

to the best schools,

had all kinds of tutors

and trainers, traveled

widely, met the famous,

the controversial, and

the not-so-admirable

and I knew from

a very early age that

if there were ever any

possibility of escaping

the collective fate of this famous

Boston family I would

take that route and

I have. I hopped

on an Amtrak to New

York in the early

‘70s and I guess

you could say

my hidden years

began. I thought

Well I’ll be a poet.

What could be more

foolish and obscure.

I became a lesbian.

Every woman in my

family looks like

a dyke but it’s really

stepping off the flag

when you become one.

While holding this ignominious

pose I have seen and

I have learned and

I am beginning to think

there is no escaping

history. A woman I

am currently having

an affair with said

you know you look

like a Kennedy. I felt

the blood rising in my

cheeks. People have

always laughed at

my Boston accent

confusing “large” for

“lodge,” “party”

for “potty.” But

when this unsuspecting

woman invoked for

the first time my

family name

I knew the jig

was up. Yes, I am,

I am a Kennedy.

My attempts to remain

obscure have not served

me well. Starting as

a humble poet I

quickly climbed to the

top of my profession

assuming a position of

leadership and honor.

It is right that a

woman should call

me out now. Yes,

I am a Kennedy.

And I await

your orders.

You are the New Americans.

The homeless are wandering

the streets of our nation’s

greatest city. Homeless

men with AIDS are among

them. Is that right?

That there are no homes

for the homeless, that

there is no free medical

help for these men. And women.

That they get the message

—as they are dying—

that this is not their home?

And how are your

teeth today? Can

you afford to fix them?

How high is your rent?

If art is the highest

and most honest form

of communication of

our times and the young

artist is no longer able

to move here to speak

to her time…Yes, I could,

but that was 15 years ago

and remember—as I must

I am a Kennedy.

Shouldn’t we all be Kennedys?

This nation’s greatest city

is home of the business-

man and home of the

rich artist. People with

beautiful teeth who are not

on the streets. What shall

we do about this dilemma?

Listen, I have been educated.

I have learned about Western

Civilization. Do you know

what the message of Western

Civilization is? I am alone.

Am I alone tonight?

I don’t think so. Am I

the only one with bleeding gums

tonight. Am I the only

homosexual in this room

tonight. Am I the only

one whose friends have

died, are dying now.

And my art can’t

be supported until it is

gigantic, bigger than

everyone else’s, confirming

the audience’s feeling that they are

alone. That they alone

are good, deserved

to buy the tickets

to see this Art.

Are working,

are healthy, should

survive, and are

normal. Are you

normal tonight? Everyone

here, are we all normal.

It is not normal for

me to be a Kennedy.

But I am no longer

ashamed, no longer

alone. I am not

alone tonight because

we are all Kennedys.

And I am your President.

Right? She is the partner of Jill Soloway, the creator of the TV series Transparent, who said of Myles:

I see Eileen as a wayward walking country minister posing as a dyke poet. Her mind is the most expansive mind I’ve ever had the pleasure of being in contrast to. There is no thought or impulse of mine, be it revolutionary, feminist, radical, dirty, beautiful, silly, abstract or murderous, that feels ugly. That totally frees me up to say to myself: more, more, more.

Plus that great gummy smile. Myles is the author of a novel, Chelsea Girls, recently reissued, and the collection of poetry ‘I Must Be Living Twice: New and Selected Poems 1975 – 2014.

The Facebook Sonnet, by Sherman Alexie

Welcome to the endless high-school
Reunion. Welcome to past friends
And lovers, however kind or cruel.
Let’s undervalue and unmend

The present. Why can’t we pretend
Every stage of life is the same?
Let’s exhume, resume, and extend
Childhood. Let’s play all the games

That occupy the young. Let fame
And shame intertwine. Let one’s search
For God become public domain.
Let church.com become our church

Let’s sign up, sign in, and confess
Here at the altar of loneliness.

The Blue House, by Tomas Transtromer

It is night with glaring sunshine. I stand in the woods and look towards my house with its misty blue walls. As though I were recently dead and saw the house from a new angle.

It has stood for more than eighty summers. Its timber has been impregnated, four times with joy and three times with sorrow. When someone who has lived in the house dies it is repainted. The dead person paints it himself, without a brush, from the inside.

On the other side is open terrain. Formerly a garden, now wilderness. A still surf of weed, pagodas of weed, an unfurling body of text, Upanishades of weed, a Viking fleet of weed, dragon heads, lances, an empire of weed.

Above the overgrown garden flutters the shadow of a boomerang, thrown again and again. It is related to someone who lived in the house long before my time. Almost a child. An impulse issues from him, a thought, a thought of will: “create. . .draw. ..” In order to escape his destiny in time.

The house resembles a child’s drawing. A deputizing childishness which grew forth because someone prematurely renounced the charge of being a child. Open the doors, enter! Inside unrest dwells in the ceiling and peace in the walls. Above the bed there hangs an amateur painting representing a ship with seventeen sails, rough sea and a wind which the gilded frame cannot subdue.

It is always so early in here, it is before the crossroads, before the irrevocable choices. I am grateful for this life! And yet I miss the alternatives. All sketches wish to be real.

A motor far out on the water extends the horizon of the summer night. Both joy and sorrow swell in the magnifying glass of the dew. We do not actually know it, but we sense it: our life has a sister vessel which plies an entirely different route. While the sun burns behind the islands.

Jack Gilbert and H.D.

Poetry! Just this week I’ve met two other poetry fans. It makes me happy to meet other poetry fans. Especially when they recommend poets I’m not familiar with. One of them recommended Jack Gilbert’s Collected Poems this week, and sent this lovely poem:

Failing and Flying

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It’s the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.

Another new friend recommended H.D. to me. I’ve never read her poetry, but found Eurydice, which is a dark and powerful poem about hell. It concludes:

At least I have the flowers of myself,
and my thoughts, no god
can take that;
I have the fervour of myself for a presence
and my own spirit for light;

and my spirit with its loss
knows this;
though small against the black,
small against the formless rocks,
hell must break before I am lost;

before I am lost,
hell must open like a red rose
for the dead to pass.

The masters of information have forgotten about poetry

The masters of information have forgotten about poetry, where words may have a meaning quite different from what the lexicon says, where the metaphoric spark is always one jump ahead of the decoding function, where another, unforeseen reading is always possible.

– J.M. Coetzee, Diary of a Bad Year

Also:

Poets and artists live on frontiers. They have no feedback, only feedforward. They have no identities. They are probes.

– Marshall McLuhan

Also:

the verses of Kabir have four different senses; illusion, spirit, intellect, and the exoteric doctrine of the Vedas; but in this part of the world it is considered a ground for complaint if a man’s writings admit of more than one interpretation.

– Thoreau

via Roberto Greco

A WORD ON STATISTICS by Wislawa Szymborska

Out of every hundred people,

those who always know better:
fifty-two.

Unsure of every step:
almost all the rest.

Ready to help,
if it doesn’t take long:
forty-nine.

Always good,
because they cannot be otherwise:
four — well, maybe five.

Able to admire without envy:
eighteen.

Led to error
by youth (which passes):
sixty, plus or minus.

Those not to be messed with:
four-and-forty.

Living in constant fear
of someone or something:
seventy-seven.

Capable of happiness:
twenty-some-odd at most.

Harmless alone,
turning savage in crowds:
more than half, for sure.

Cruel
when forced by circumstances:
it’s better not to know,
not even approximately.

Wise in hindsight:
not many more
than wise in foresight.

Getting nothing out of life except things:
thirty
(though I would like to be wrong).

Balled up in pain
and without a flashlight in the dark:
eighty-three, sooner or later.

Those who are just:
quite a few, thirty-five.

But if it takes effort to understand:
three.

Worthy of empathy:
ninety-nine.

Mortal:
one hundred out of one hundred —
a figure that has never varied yet.