a little bit more Schuyler

So what happened is this. I have a notebook where I keep things I like from things I've read. I mean I have many notebooks. I fill one every couple of years. I can't find the most recent one where I put things, so for now I will put things here. That will solve my current indexing issues. But there is something inherently satisfying about writing out by hand the things I love. There is an intimacy to physically forming the words that is not replicated in the experience of typing.

Or maybe I just like hand cramps.

This is the rest of what I loved from James Schuyler's The Home Book.

The second of "Two Meditations" - there is something magical that happens when Schulyer boxes words into prose poems. Through compression that one doesn't generally get in his lineated poems (perhaps this is a natural inclination in prose poetry? toward compression?), the words push and shove at each other, the sounds explode. At least this is my experience.

From "Two Meditations"

Out of the gray bay gray rocks, close spaced and each a little black green north tree forest. This became denser until it was the color of a hole. The trawler anchored and they scrambled ashore in an inlet closed by a little white sand beach like a Negro's very white palm, the guide experienced and dignified last in laced boots with moccasin bottoms. The clarity of the water reelected a dead tree while he boiled great lake trout in a galvanized bucket on a resinous fire. A green flame. Everyone has planned to change his "way of life" until he tasted the fish, which was tasteless. Scales on the dull sand like garbage, or rain. It began raining, a drop at a time, big as cod liver oil capsules. The two boys' knees lichened and their shrills faded high and out into the falls of shot grouse curving into a November wet matchstick field. Burrs, unfinished houses.

Like that: ending on the parataxis of a two-item list... Burrs, unfinished houses. And the sentence before. (And not just for the use of the word "lichened.") The end seems that much more truncated by the volley of small (I would generally argue in poetry and for the sake of compression, unnecessary) words in the previous sentence. "The two boys' knees lichened and their shrills faded high and out into the falls of shot grouse curving into a November wet matchstick field." November wet matchstick field. Resinous fire. A green flame. The fish was tasteless. Out of the gray bay gray rocks. To say "gray waves" would be too much, but it's where the mind goes when presented with the triple rhyme, the mind bends naturally to the fourth slant rhyme. Or this mind does. I'm glad it didn't happen. In not happening, it happened anyway.

I should say this is a weirdly cohesive book for being a smattering of unpublished work (prose, poetry, prose poetry, drama even, a sonnet) from the 1950s and 60s.

From the title piece "The Home Book," which is unspecified prose.

"I know what troubles me. It is so simple: I don't want to give myself away. I don't want to confess, to say I am my history and it is mine, something I made, because as long as I don't I can pretend that I could change and become some other person I won't ever be. I don't want to give myself because to give is to lose and that is like dying; I don't want to lose any human love or pleasure through a deal with that which is invisible and by which I may gain nothing."

The speaker is talking about religion, but it strikes home pretty hard out of this context for me.

And then (from "Four Poems for Frank O'Hara"...

It's quarter of five

and the Fucking Tree has birds in its hair.

I wonder if I can claim influence after the fact. This happened while reading The Cantos also, that something was a nearly word-for-word echo of something in MFS.

(image "Fire Walk With Me" by Martin Wittfooth)

Jelly Jelly - James Schuyler

Summer apples, showy and sugary, mealy and touchy

a finger bruise on the thin skin

brown and silently reproachful as your wife's black eye.

But if September apples ripen

and the sun coats the sights with crinkling sheets

of cold while the waves come yapping

something about "wine dark"

evening primroses in clefts of rocks they lap

in a space labeled, "August 27th 1965

pay on demand," why then it is

September

when pebbles turn, shedding a summer snow

of salt, palely glowing in the first fall beaches.

The wind is pendant-breasted as a naked Swede.

A frosted fox grape shows where a bird shat as it ate.

Blackberry canes arch and obtrude big nipped.

And the chaste tree blooms.

Back before I made the egg test

I thought the world as flat and very like an elderberry umbel

crying "Hi!" and "Meet you in the jelly!"

or "Under the lid of an elderberry pie."

***

A prose section ("A Home Book") follows this poem. There is a lot of the beach, some of trees, no elderberry, no naked Swede. That here Schuyler possibly makes fun of the overwrought or overused "wine dark" becomes even more tongue-in-cheek when he uses a dark wine metaphor in this next section. Though the metaphor he uses, though a little hard to see--"The sun hit the sea like a cork slipping into a dark green bottle one-quarter full of wine"--is not one overused.

I started reading this book (The Home Book) last Sunday afternoon before heading out to see Eileen Myles read. It seemed an appropriate way to start a day of words, an appropriate connection. The cover of this book is horrible. Like a drawing I might have done of someone's father when I was in middle school. My apologies to the artist. Perhaps this is why I am unable to find a decent image to include here. But the book is lovely inside.

H.D. - from the Tribute to the Angels section of Trilogy

[13]

"What is that jewel color?"

green-white, opalescent,

with under-layer of changing blue,

with rose-vein; a white agate

with a pulse uncooled that beats yet,

faint blue-violet;

it lives, it breathes,

it gives off--fragrance?

I do not know what it gives,

a vibration that we can not name

for there is no name for it;

my patron said, "name it";

I said, I can not name it,

there is no name;

he said,

"invent it".

[14]

I can not invent it,

I said it was agate,

I said, it lived, it gave--

fragrance--was near enough

to explain that quality

for which there is no name;

I do not want to name it,

I want to watch its faint

heart-beat, pulse-beat

as it quivers, I do not want

to talk about it,

I want to minimize thought,

concentrate on it

till I shrink,

dematerialize

and am drawn into it.

-----

THIS is how I feel about poetry. It's okay. I can get into breaking it down, getting to Meaning. But generally I want to minimize thought, concentrate on it till I shrink, dematerialize and am drawn into it.

Dream Song 47: April Fool's Day, or, St Mary of Egypt

—Thass a funny title, Mr Bones.

—When down she saw her feet, sweet fish, on the threshold,
she considered her fair shoulders
and all them hundreds who have them, all
the more who to her mime thickened & maled
from the supple stage,

and seeing her feet, in a visit, side by side
paused on the sill of The Tomb, she shrank: 'No.
They are not worthy,
fondled by many' and rushed from The Crucified
back through her followers out of the city ho
across the suburbs, plucky

to dare my desert in her late daylight
of animals and sands. She fall prone.
Only wind whistled.
And forty-seven years with our caps on,
whom God has not visited.

(John Berryman)

CHORUS FOR ONE VOICE - Charles Simic

I'm going to lie down next to you.

It cannot grow colder than this hour.

Strange men are gathered again

Drinking and singing. A different young man

Sits in their midst dressed in a uniform.

We are well into the night. Black moon.

With candle and spoon they examine its mouth.

A man with dead soul and dog-licked knuckles

Eats from a paper plate.

I'm going to lie down next to you

As if nothing has happened:

Boot, shoemaker's knife, woman,

Your point bearing to my heart's true north.

*

This is a tale with a kernel.

You'll have to use your own teeth to crack it.

The Year that Was

So it was a pretty good year. Dear Mother Monster, Dear Daughter Mistake came out (in They Could No Longer Contain Themselves, which was #2 this Summer on SPD's best seller list). I did 17 readings. Which seems impossible to believe. But it was a busy, busy year in that way. The highlights were: reading at Good Luck Bar with Lidia Yuknavitch (I have to say, I am a little bit in love with her), reading at the QAF in Vancouver BC with Wayne Koestenbaum (I was totally geeked out to be reading with him, and was in the middle of one of the most horrible weeks of my life. The result of that reading was half a dozen people coming up to me after and telling me the reading made them cry. I did feel while I was reading that I had never read better, which felt good). The best reading was in Kansas though at Pages. The community I found there in Newton almost made me want to move there. Almost. The whole evening was just fantastic: the hosts, the turnout, my fellow readers, how the Q&A after turned more into a whole-audience conversation, then the porch drinking/talking until I had to leave for the train at 2am, just fantastic.

Last year I spent less time focused on getting stuff published, which was good for my sanity. That whole scrambling race is pretty tiring. I sent less individual pieces out and, once Conspiracies got picked up by Jaded Ibis Press in June, I quit sending the newer ms out as well. I spent more time revising it. I also spent some time making a few new poems for Conspiracies and reworking the stuff that I had initially cut to make it the palatable-sized <80-page ms (JI is happy to have it longer if it works that way). I traveled a lot. Focused inward on where I am in life and what I want. Which was good. Good to have some balance when the world out there doesn't always cooperate.

I am a little worried about getting everything done each week for the next three months. That is, getting everything done without getting an ulcer, having a breakdown, or becoming completely intolerable to the people around me. I woke this morning with a hot ball of stress riding high in my chest. I am working through the long to-do list I made at 3am.

I spent too much money last year, something I don't think will rectify this year. I read a lot, though sadly the quick clip slowed in Fall; I don't expect I'll read this much in 2012. Several were books I reread (The Book of Frank, Crush, Mule - which are three of my favorite books ever, btw). New to me favorites were probably: Reasons to Live - Amy Hempel, The Chronology of Water – Lidia Yuknavitch, Bone Pagoda - Susan Tichy, The Madeleine Poems - Paul Legault, and A Natural History of the Senses - Diane Ackerman, which just had so much trivia for my brain to absorb.

1. Where We Think It Should Go – Claire Becker

2. Doctor Copernicus – John Banville

3. The Book of Frank – CA Conrad

4. The Irrationalist – Suzanne Buffam

5. Bobcat Country – Brandi Homan

6. The Book of Questions – Pablo Neruda

7. The History of Violets - Marosa di Giorgio

8. Octopus – Tom C. Hunley

9. The Planets – Dava Sobel

10. Accident – Nicholas Mosley

11. A Natural History of the Senses – Diane Ackerman

12. Crash Dome – Alex Phillips

13. The Country of Loneliness – Dawn Paul

14. Dayglo – James Meetze

15. Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrl Revolution – Sara Marcus

16. The Terror of Living – Urban Waite

17. Tocqueville – Khaled Mattawa

18. The Island of the Colorblind – Oliver Sacks

19. Black-Eyed Heifer – Shelly Taylor

20. Stalin in Aruba – Shelley Pahuk

21. Breaking the Map – Kim-An Lieberman

22. The Last Waltz in Santiago: And Other Poems of Exile and Disappearance – Ariel Dorfman

23. What Kind – Martha Zweig

24. Sasquatch Stories – Mike Topp

25. Coming Through Slaughter – Michael Ondaatje

26. Gallowglass – Susan Tichy

27. Models of the Universe: An Anthology of the Prose Poem – ed. Stuart Friebert & David Young

28. Nox – Anne Carson

29. A Moveable Feast – Earnest Hemingway

30. Hunter Mnemonics – Deborah Woodard

31. Easter Rabbit – Joseph Young

32. The Worse-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Travel – Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht

33. Recipes for Endangered Species – Traci O’Connor

34. Blue for the Plough – Dara Weir

35. The Bodyfeel Lexicon – Jessica Bozek

36. The Myth of the Simple Machines – Laurel Snyder

37. Green Cammie – Crysta Casey

38. Mad to Live – Randall Brown

39. The Nightyard – Stephanie Anderson

40. The Energy of Slaves – Leonard Cohen

41. Pee on Water – Rachel B. Glaser

42. The Tiny Wife – Andrew Kaufman

43. Chelsea Girls – Eileen Myles

44. Hinge & Sign – Heather McHugh

45. A History of the Human Family – Sasha Steensen

46. Man’s Companions – Joanna Rucco

47. Sing, Mongrel – Claire Hero

48. The Bugging Watch & Other Exhibits – Kim Gek Lin Short

49. One More Theory About Happiness – Paul Guest

50. The Spell of the Sensuous – David Abram

51. Cut Away – Catherine Kirkwood

52. Chicken, Shadow, Moon & More – Mark Strand

53. Autobiography of Red – Anne Carson

54. The Field Guide to Flash Fiction – ed. Tara Masih

55. Alive and Dead in Indiana – Michael Martone

56. The Long-Legged Fly – James Sallis

57. The Father of the Predicaments – Heather McHugh

58. People are Tiny in Paintings of China – Cynthia Arrieu-King

59. Invitation to a Beheading – Vladimir Nabokov

60. The Art Lover – Carol Maso

61. The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence – Victor Marchetti & John D. Marks

62. Halfsteps + Cloudfang – Daniela Olszewska

63. Strange as This Weather Has Been – Ann Pancake

64. Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives – David Eagleman

65. Soot- Jeff Walt

66. The Inquisition Yours – Jen Currin

67. The Tears of Eros – Georges Bataille

68. Advanced ELVIS Course – CAConrad

69. Theory of Religion – Georges Bataille

70. Vertical Hold – Jeff Simpson

71. The Dragonfly: A Selection of Poems 1953-1981 – Amelia Rosselli

72. How the Broken Lead the Blind – Matt Bell

73. Reality Hunger: A Manifesto – David Shields

74. At the Point – Joseph Massey

75. Rust Or Go Missing – Lily Brown

76. Reasons to Live – Amy Hempel

77. Dunstan Thompson: On the Life and Work of a Lost American Master – Kevin Prufer & D.A. Powell, eds.

78. Goat Song – Brad Kessler

79. Deviant Propulsion – CAConrad

80. 2666 – Roberto Bolano

81. Saint Monica – Mary Biddinger

82. Refinery – Claudia Keelan

83. The Jiri Chronicles & Other Fictions – Debra Di Blasi

84. Dear Ra – Johannes Goransson

85. When You Are Engulfed in Flames – David Sedaris

86. The Chronology of Water – Lidia Yuknavitch

87. Everlasting Quail – Sam Witt

88. Discipline – Dawn Lundy Martin

89. Speech Acts – Laura McCullough

90. Mascara – Ariel Dorfman

91. The Nights Also – Anna Swanson

92. No one belongs here more than you – Miranda July

93. Ask the Pilot: Everything You Need to Know About Air Travel – Patrick Smith

94. Glean – Joshua Kryah

95. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World – Haruki Murakami

96. Lord Brain – Bruce Beasley

97. Dien Cai Dau – Yusef Komunyakaa

98. The Good-Neighbor Policy - Charles Ardai

99. Coal Miner’s Daughter – Loretta Lynn (with George Vecsey)

100. Humiliation – Wayne Koestenbaum

101. This is What Happened in Our Other Life – Achy Obejas

102. Bossypants – Tina Fey

103. Reality Sandwiches – Allen Ginsberg

104. Daughter – Janice Lee

105. Notes from the Red Zone – Christine Pacosz

106. Citizen – Andrew Feld

107. Feel This Book – Janeane Garofalo and Ben Stiller

108. Birdland: The Story of a World Famous Bird Sanctuary – Len Hill and Emma Wood

109. The Descent – Sophie Cabot Black

110. April Galleon – John Ashbery

111. The Price of Light – Pimone Triplett

112. Betty Superman – Tiff Holland

113. Bone Pagoda – Susan Tichy

114. Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality – Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha

115. Music and Suicide– Jeff Clark

116. The History of Sexuality: An Introduction – Michel Foucault

117. Times Square Red, Times Square Blue – Samuel Delaney

118. Shoulder Season – Ange Mlinko

119. Epistemology of the Closet – Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick

120. The Queer Art of Failure – Judith Halberstam

121. The Cloud Corporation – Timothy Donnelly

122. The Madeleine Poems – Paul Legault

123. Predatory – Glenn Shaheen

124. Freedom with Violence: Race, Sexuality, and the US State – Chandan Reddy

125. Crush – Richard Siken

126. Earth Day Suite – Joseph Harrington

127. The Rest of Love – Carl Phillips

128. The Displaced of Capital – Anne Winters

129. Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination – Avery Gordon

130. Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex – Stanley A. Stanley & Nat Smith (eds.)

131. Cruel Optimism – Lauren Berlant

132. A Wreath of Down and Drops of Blood – Allen Braden

133. The Evolution of the Flightless Bird - Richard Kenney

134. Tell me the Truth About Love – W.H. Auden

135. Mule – Shane McCrae

136. The Grief Performance – Emily Kendal Frey

137. A Little White Shadow – Mary Ruefle

138. Awe – Dorothea Lasky

139. Lake Antiquity – Brandon Downing

On top of this, Distraction.

So it's been a month and a half since my last post. The one word that describes life right now would be: Stress. It is hard not to put that in all caps, but I don't want you to think I'm yelling at you. It is capitalized. It is big and has fingers reaching into every part of life.

Hard as it has been to shift from doing part-time editing work (from home) and focusing so much on my own writing and spending hours every day just reading whatever it occurred to me to read to (continuing work while) becoming busier than I have ever been (including reading 30+ hours of theory each week and driving 500 miles), I try to focus on the positive each day. I have good people in my life. I have met some new good people. It is nice to be around people who get geeked out about writing, for sure. I wrote one new poem. That's good, right?

Good golly, I miss free time. Free time for me never meant lazing about watching TV. But it meant lazing about getting stuff done. It meant having The Things I Have To Do stretched out over some plains of time where I could watch everything. Now I literally do not have enough hours in the day. Every day I make decisions on what gets cut, on what Does Not Get Done. This is a hard thing. I am more of a perfectionist than I ever realized.

As such, I also continue to tinker with Conspiracies, while also letting anxiety build that next quarter will be busier, and that will likely come to the forefront as well.

(image above by Alessandro Pagani)