read that nyrb article when that issue came out and definitely made me interested. how is it?
― k3vin k., Friday, 30 July 2021 22:44 (two years ago) link
Clayton Eshleman died last year. Years ago on ILB I posted the single fact I knew about him, found in the biography of Zukofsky by Scroggins. The poem mentioned was called "The Moistinsplendour" and it appeared in the Spring 1968 issue of Caterpillar. Last month I read the biography of Lorine Niedecker by Peters, and Niedecker disliked that poem too. That motivated me to dig it up. Google found the title in Eshleman's book Indiana, published in 1969, which would be right. Google didn't lie, but it turns out Eshleman used the word in a different poem, and the poem of that title isn't collected there. It's a nice-looking book from Black Sparrow, and at 178 pages it's a substantial collection of poetry. I've been trying to understand why so little of the poetry worked. The bad judgment evidenced by that anecdote wasn't a one-off, it's throughout the book. Separately, I was waiting for a transfiguration of all those personal musings into poetry. Eshleman never managed it, though he tried very hard (possibly too hard). I was reminded of watching someone flick his cigarette lighter over and over but never start a flame. There were some fun passages, though.
I come in fury against Robert Bly & the Falsifiers of the animal.Swindle cloaked in spiritum - Robert Kelly - but more true:I see Robert Kelly exercising in the Valley of Death.Robert Lowell is the Wickerman of Scandinavia: Merton theSpectre of Hart Crane.Must Barbara be expelled to cast out Johnson?
Swindle cloaked in spiritum - Robert Kelly - but more true:I see Robert Kelly exercising in the Valley of Death.
Robert Lowell is the Wickerman of Scandinavia: Merton theSpectre of Hart Crane.
Must Barbara be expelled to cast out Johnson?
It was all an unnecessary detour, because the issue of Caterpillar is here with the poem I was looking for. Relevant sample:
OUR MASSTURBINED INTO MAREEEEEEEE,flunkingyou,fuckit outa you,fuckit outa you,our Lady in the Seaops groindorueating, at the base of the treethere aint no Artaud thing to rehearseno Louis eating Celia wirejawed retrieverlocked in its curse, lower level,to aim at who are human,now regenerated youd suckoff Zukofskywho wld suckoff you means you nolonger play by their games.
lower level,to aim at who are human,now regenerated youd suckoff Zukofskywho wld suckoff you means you no
longer play by their games.
Well, that would put off the hypersensitive, uxorious, 64-year-old Zukofsky. Eshleman really does seem to be purging himself of him.
This is a kristMassDECK THE HALLS Out old Fustum out ZukofskyOut old Blakam
Out old Fustum out ZukofskyOut old Blakam
Eshleman reminds me of Vachel Lindsay, a sort of headlong un-self-aware carrying on in the wrong direction.
― alimosina, Wednesday, 2 March 2022 02:55 (two years ago) link
Eshleman was a terrible poet but a fine editor and an incredible translator-- his work on Césaire is enough to endear him to me for life.
But yeah, his poetry is...awful. Jerry Rothenberg his friend was the same way, incredible editor and critic, but his poetry was just abysmal
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Wednesday, 2 March 2022 03:03 (two years ago) link
Reading Robert Kelly pic.twitter.com/nK4bqpOWGa— Charlotte Mandell (@avecsesdoigts) March 18, 2022
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 28 March 2022 22:42 (two years ago) link
"Clayton Eshleman died last year"
I love his work on Vallejo's poetry.
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 28 March 2022 22:43 (two years ago) link
can't say i much liked the one kelly collection i've read, but should give him another go, i guess.
still need to make a start on the césaire translation mentioned above. have had it sitting around for over a decade now.
only poetry i've read in an age is orlando furioso which probably doesn't count as it was translated into prose (still good though!)
& mention of clark coolidge's name here/other ilb threads was ringing a bell for me... turns out it's because he played drums for serpent power :-O
― no lime tangier, Tuesday, 29 March 2022 05:41 (two years ago) link
nlt, Coolidge is/was a very accomplished jazz drummer. He's written some about jazz, too.
Kelly is very hit or miss for me. There's a bit too much self-conscious feeling "mysticism" in his work for me to really latch onto anything too much, tho a friend of mine was his student and swears by him, and one of my favorite poets (Kenneth Irby) was good friends with him.
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Tuesday, 29 March 2022 14:38 (two years ago) link
I've only encountered Kelly via Charlotte's twitter. In the main I really connect with what is flowing out of him but I've not actually sat down with a book of his.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 31 March 2022 07:08 (two years ago) link
Or not reading.
Across the hall was Hannah. She'd been a normal, middle class housewife, married to an accountant or something in Connecticut or somewhere. Then she had taken LSD, or lots of LSD, and her life had gone on a little detour. Now she lived alone in the East Village, saw words on her forehead, and made poems out of them.Years later, I was in a used book store and actually saw her book. There was a picture of Hannah's pleasant, loppy face beaming out from the cover. Written on her forehead in crayon was, "I See Words on My Forehead." I wonder how many copies were sold.
Years later, I was in a used book store and actually saw her book. There was a picture of Hannah's pleasant, loppy face beaming out from the cover. Written on her forehead in crayon was, "I See Words on My Forehead." I wonder how many copies were sold.
-- John Lurie
Lurie might well have been bemused. I have looked into Hannah Weiner's Open House and it was painful to read. Code Poems was great, but what the poetry world makes of her later ramblings I don't know. Having been the lifeline for nearly 20 years of a close friend suffering from schizophrenia, I loathe mental illness and all its works.
― alimosina, Monday, 30 May 2022 22:06 (two years ago) link
fwiw that book he mentions goes for a fair amount of money these days
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Monday, 30 May 2022 23:44 (two years ago) link
i've read 'spoke' and 'the fast' by hannah weiner in the last couple of years, both - the latter particularly - are great
― dogs, Wednesday, 1 June 2022 17:48 (one year ago) link
Ammons, Tape for the Turn of the YearAmmons, Sphere
― alimosina, Friday, 9 September 2022 19:15 (one year ago) link
I Share My Bed with a Large Dog
After I’ve rumpled the sheetswrestled and tossed and turnedAfter I’ve seen you shake in your dreamsand pulled you back from your apprehensions
After the deep breathing and chests heaving stretching and whining and wide yawning snoresAfter the first sun shows on the ceilingslips down the wall, the dresser, the floor
After your nose starts to sound like a whistle I raise my phone to check in on the weatherAfter you have seen me move you feel betterYour brown eyes wide open and paw pads like leather
only after that —and after the your sharp elbows rib my core —only after all of that could we crawl out of bed
― Karl Malone, Wednesday, 5 October 2022 02:14 (one year ago) link
sorry, i meant that for another thread
sure you did
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 5 October 2022 02:23 (one year ago) link
for me: Beowulf!
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 5 October 2022 02:24 (one year ago) link
i truly did!
which translation?
― Karl Malone, Wednesday, 5 October 2022 02:33 (one year ago) link
The Heaney one after a friend said I must.
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 5 October 2022 09:31 (one year ago) link
Saner, So This Is The Map
― alimosina, Sunday, 30 October 2022 00:18 (one year ago) link
I picked up a collection of Robinson Jeffers's poetry lately and have been reading his epic narrative poem, Tamar. I guess I don't read a lot of narrative poems, especially 20th century ones, but the material strikes as being a rather strange basis for writing a long poem about. A family living on an isolated stretch of the California coast is troubled by incest and madness. Maybe the point will become clearer by the end.
― o. nate, Monday, 31 October 2022 02:35 (one year ago) link
picked up Louis MacNiece's Autumn Journal last night. been a while since i read it, but it turns out i was exactly in the right mood. the mixture of poetic and more, well, 'journal' like cadences is very appealing - the a, b, c, b rhymes and half rhymes in the first section are one example of that, but so are the slightly awkward quotidian observations and considerations that don't quite fit into the poetic - either for reasons of scansion or register. the 'then, but then again' arguments – little palinodes, to use a word MacNeice uses early on of the retraction of summer to autumn - appropriate to someone observing and discussing with themselves. Emotional content closely linked with the immediate context and reminders, whether on the train up to London with his dog.
One line early on doesn't make sense to me, and I was going to take it to the poetry interpretation thread, but it's difficult to state the problem without citing all of the first section. That first section is very clear, and then, in that train up to London with his dog, 'a symbol of the abandoned order' who
Lies on the carriage floor,Her eyes inept and glamorous as a film star's, Who wants to live, ie wants morePresents, jewellery, furs, gadgets, solicitations As if to live were notFollowing the curve of a planet or controlled water But a leap in the dark, a tangent, a stray shot.
Although there are some complications here, they're not hugely difficult, but I actually understand what 'controlled water' means. By analogy of the eliptical orbit 'curve of a planet', the 'controlled water' might mean a similar arc - but making water, that is having a piss, seems, to say the least, not right here. so is he talking about water out of a hose? That's as good as I can manage here, but it's not very satisfactory. Otherwise, i'm not at all clear.
― Fizzles, Monday, 31 October 2022 07:51 (one year ago) link
Controlled water is a weird term that does exist. In the context of this I read it two ways:As if to live were notFollowing the curve of a planet or controlled waterSo the first refers to the tides, no? The moon is earth’s satellite and in its orbit. However the moon also influences the tides. The tides exist as they do because the moon’s gravitational pull controls them. Tides are gradual, they erode cliffs and carve out the coastline over time. Controlled water is a really weird term. Could refer to a lot of things within this context - rivers carving their pathways out, the effect of water on the natural landscape, the efforts to keep said bodies of water fit for consumption or to manage them in some way. It’s a long term project because of the delicacy of the ecosystem. Idk, that’s the best I have. It is a weird line.
― barry sito (gyac), Monday, 31 October 2022 08:54 (one year ago) link
I don't know that poem, but coming after "curve of a planet" the phrase "controlled water" suggests to me the idea of the curious way gravity keeps all the water on the planet, trapped in a ball. It seems impossible that it all stays so neatly in shape rather than spilling out into space, but that is how physics works. And if that is the way the whole universe is set up, how crazy is it to expect (as the dog doesm as we do) that we might defy those forces and leap into the dark, go off on tangents, etc.
― Eyeball Kicks, Monday, 31 October 2022 10:34 (one year ago) link
yep, i hadn't considered tides or that wider gravitational effect - seems very possible. my overall reading of the passage is that there is a difference between the life that recognises it follows a curve of forces and tensions torquing against each other, creating a defined, if mysterious, path, rather than a set of more or less accidental or arbitrary incidents, almost frivolous, without connexion.
the implication is not fate at work, as such, but capturing the path between intersecting movements... from summer to autumn, in the train's movement, in *movement's* movement, in people's movement:
Close and slow, summer is ending in Hampshire,Ebbing away down ramps of shaven lawn where close-clipped yewInsulates the lives of retired generals and admirals
(the opening lines)
And the rebels and the youngHave taken the train to town or the two-seaterUnravelling rails or roadLosing the thread deliberately behind them -Autumnal palinode.And I am in the train nowq too and summer is goingSouth as I go north
^ those last lines exactly what I mean by that torque created by intersecting forces.
― Fizzles, Monday, 31 October 2022 11:30 (one year ago) link
this has now turned into a post that sits better on the other thread!
As if to live were notFollowing the curve of a planet or controlled water
I agree that the use of "controlled water" is perplexing. I like the suggestion of the arc of water from a hose or from a man taking a piss, but I suspect he probably meant something about navigating a river or canal, e.g. following the bend in a river.
It seems the prevalence of the term "controlled water" was rising rapidly in the 1930s, and has since fallen.
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=controlled+water&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=29&smoothing=3&case_insensitive=true&direct_url=t4%3B%2Ccontrolled%20water%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bcontrolled%20water%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BControlled%20Water%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BControlled%20water%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BCONTROLLED%20WATER%3B%2Cc0
― o. nate, Friday, 4 November 2022 15:29 (one year ago) link
The Early Poems of Yvor Winters 1920-28
― alimosina, Sunday, 21 May 2023 04:36 (one year ago) link
Now we’ve no hope of going back,cutter, to that grey quaywhere we moored twice and twice unwillingly cast off our cables to put out at the slack when the sea’s laugh was choked to a mutter and the leach lifted hesitantly with a stutter and sulky clack, how desolate the swatchways look, cutter …
… We have no course to set,only to drift too long, watch too glumly, and wait,wait.
Basil Bunting, Perche no Spero
― Slays two. Found gassed. Thinks of cat. (Chinaski), Saturday, 9 September 2023 21:16 (eight months ago) link
why would he want to go back to that? Does he say?
― dow, Saturday, 9 September 2023 23:18 (eight months ago) link
Oh wait, at least he wasn't here, right? I know the feeling.
― dow, Saturday, 9 September 2023 23:19 (eight months ago) link
McMichael, Four Good Things
― alimosina, Tuesday, 31 October 2023 22:28 (six months ago) link
was at the museum of contemporary art in barcelona this afternoon, and there’s an exhibit that features this poem, by forough farrokhad, which I found almost unbearably moving
My entire soul is a murky verseReiterating you within itselfCarrying you to the dawn of eternal burstings and blossomingsIn this verse, I sighed you, AH!In this verse,I grafted you to trees, water and fire
Perhaps life isA long street along which a womanWith a basket passes every day
Perhaps lifeIs a rope with which a man hangs himself from a branchPerhaps life is a child returning home from school
Perhaps life is the lighting of a cigaretteBetween the narcotic repose of two lovemakingsOr the puzzled passage of a passerbyTipping his hatSaying good morning to another passerby with a vacant smile
Perhaps life is that blocked momentWhen my look destroys itself in the pupils of your eyesAnd in this there is a senseWhich I will mingle with the perception of the moonAnd the reception of darknessIn a room the size of one solitudeMy heartThe size of one loveLooks at the simple pretexts of its own happiness,At the pretty withering of flowers in the flower potsAt the sapling you planted in our flowerbedAt the songs of the canariesWho sing the size of one window.AhThis is my lotThis is my lotMy lotIs a sky, which the dropping of a curtain seizes from meMy lot is going down an abandoned stairwayAnd joining with something in decay and nostalgiaMy lot is a cheerless walk in the garden of memoriesAnd dying in the sorrow of a voice that tells me:“I loveYour hands”I will plant my hands in the flowerbedI will sprout, I know, I know, I knowAnd the sparrows will lay eggsIn the hollows of my inky fingersI will hang a pair of earrings of red twin cherriesRound my earsI will put dahlia petals on my nailsThere is an alleyWhere the boys who were once in love with me,With those disheveled hairs, thin necks and gaunt legsStill think of the innocent smiles of a little girlWho was one night blown away by the windThere is an alley which my heartHas stolen from places of my childhoodThe journey of a volume along the line of timeAnd impregnating the barren line of time with a volumeA volume conscious of an imageReturning from the feast of a mirrorThis is the waySomeone diesAnd someone remainsNo fisherman will catch pearlsFrom a little stream flowing into a ditchI Know a sad little mermaidDwelling in the oceanSoftly, gently blowingHer heart into a wooden fluteA sad little mermaidWho dies with a kiss at night
her name sounded vaguely familiar, and it’s the director who made THE HOUSE IS BLACK — what a remarkable, regrettably brief life
― brony james (k3vin k.), Friday, 29 March 2024 16:02 (two months ago) link
Slowly reading my way through the 2022 Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers anthology. The longer narrative poems tend to feature lots of death and weird sex, and the shorter lyric ones are defiantly nihilistic in a sort of zen way. Recommended.
― o. nate, Monday, 1 April 2024 20:16 (one month ago) link
correction: 2002, not 2022.
― o. nate, Monday, 1 April 2024 20:18 (one month ago) link