At least, I tell myself, it’s better than nothing.

I just realized that in my first BAP11 post I mentioned that I recognized a poem from 2010, but didn’t say which poem it was. Here it is:

Toadstools

by Charles Wright

The toadstools are starting to come up,
                                                     circular and dry.
Nothing will touch them,
Gophers or chipmunks, wasps or swallows.
They glow in the twilight like rooted will-o’-the-wisps.
Nothing will touch them.
As though little roundabouts from the bunched unburiable,
Powers, dominions,
As though orphans rode herd in the short grass,
                                                   as though they had heard the call,
They will always be with us,
                                          transcenders of the world.
Someone will try to stick his beak into their otherworldly styrofoam.
Someone may try to taste a taste of forever.
For some it’s a refuge, for some a shady place to fall down.
Grief is a floating barge-boat,
                                            who knows where it’s going to moor?

I’m keeping this pretty informal, ’cause that’s all I have time for. Here’s some of what I like about this poem:

1. Clear imagery
2. Sound, e.g., consonance in “glow in the twilight like rooted will-o’-the-wisps” and “try to stick his beak”, “try to taste a taste”; phonetic stops in “As though little roundabouts from the bunched unburiable, / Powers, dominions,”
3. The dichotomies that may or may not include false dilemmas (“Nothing will touch them” and “Someone will try…”, life and decay, power and lowness, “refuge” and “grief”)
4. Quietness, irresolution

Chris and I have reviewed Best American Poetry anthologies for a few years now, typically as an end-of-year activity in December. We didn’t in 2011, so I was glad when Chris agreed to add that to his month’s activities.

In his BAP11/12 kick-off post, Chris mentioned how odd it is to read poetry from 2010 in a “Best of 2011″ anthology in the year 2012. It doesn’t really matter, I guess, since the date range itself is not typically meaningful or significant, but I actually recognized one of the poems in BAP11 this time around.

Before I get to the poem, I need to both lament and celebrate that statement, because it is unusual.

First, it means I don’t read a lot of poetry, period. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I read poetry when I can, when I get around to it, between fiction and non-fiction, which themselves are crammed between work, travel, and family. So, yeah.

Second, I don’t read a lot of contemporary poetry. Probably 3/4 of the poetry I read is over 5 years old, and at least half of it is over 40 years old.

It should be no surprise, then, that I can read through most of an anthology such as this and not recognize more than one poem. There is the possibility that I’ve read more than one of the poems in this year’s BAP, but, if so, they weren’t memorable enough to trigger a reaction.

And yet I don’t find this to be necessarily indicative of either the vulgarity of my lifestyle, or of the general quality of contemporary poetry. Rather, it reminds me of the wealth of writing that is available to me, if only I were to reach out and touch it. I can’t guess whether the US is producing more poetry than ever before, but I would guess it’s producing about as much per year as ever. And maybe the general reading public is ignoring poetry more and more, in favor of more accessible entertainment and sources of enlightenment.

So, as I begin NaPoMo12, and I dive into BAP11 (and, hopefully, some additional work in the craft) I’m not entirely sure of my surroundings, and, as Chris also expressed, nowadays I feel less certain of my own ability to read, understand, and appreciate poetry than perhaps ever before. But unlike Chris, who seems to have been reading more than ever, I’ve been reading less than ever, and I planned to blame my weaknesses on that. But diving back in I feel that this place in general feels right; it feels more open and richer in opportunities than the places for poetry that I’ve either dwelt or built in the past.

Before I begin (or, really, because I haven’t begun) I want to share my first-pass shortlist of dog-eared poems from BAP 2010:

Todd Boss – My Dog Has No Nose
Anne Carson – Wildly Constant
> David Clewell – This Poem Had Better Be about the World We Actually Live In
> Billy Collins – Grave
Peter Davis – Four “Addresses”
Lynn Emanuel – Dear Final Journey,
> Vievee Francis – Smoke under the Bale
Sonia Greenfield – Passing the Barnyard Graveyard
Corinne Lee – Six from “Birds of Self-Knowledge”
> Hailey Leithauser – The Old Woman Gets Drunk with the Moon
> Jeffrey McDaniel – The Grudge
W.S. Merwin – Identity
> James Richardson – Vectors 2.3: 50 Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays
Charles Simic -Carrying on like a Crow
David Trinidad – Black Telephone
Derek Walcott – 21
> Catherine Wing – The Darker Sooner
Mark Wunderlich – Coyote, with Mange

> Indicates a poem that was also on Chris’s first-pass list.

There’s not a chance that I’ll cover all of these poems this month–I’ll be lucky to hit my five favorites. But for one reason or another I found these poems noteworthy enough to take a second or third look at, and it is likely from this pool that I’ll release some totally unauthorized audio recordings.

An early, but not unwelcome, arrival. I haven’t had time this past summer for many of the literary endeavors that I strive for and enjoy, but autumn may give me a chance to read and write about The Best American Poetry 2010′s selections (as Chris and I did in last year’s BAP09 project).

But I will list a handful of notable poems from BAP 09 that I either thought about or planned to review before the year was out (from top to bottom):

1. J. D. McClatchey, “Lingering Doubts” (p 84). Incredibly dense and curious. I’m still several readings from comprehending this one, but I want to.
2. Pattiann Rogers, “A Blind Astronomer in the Age of Stars” (p 108). A moving, human poem that uses language to explore, in and out, as well as describe.
3. P. Hurshell, “In Winter” (p 60). Because it is winter, and beacuse it cuts so sharply from image to image while maintaining its theme.
4. Jeanne Murray Walker, “Holding Action” (p 137). It may be sentimental, simplistic, or just another metapoem, but I liked the collection of imagery all tied to the potential of letters (ambiguity intended, I think) to preserve that which we love.
5. Christine Marshall, “Sweat” (p 80). Because unlike the man in the introductory quote, I’m OK (and more) with a sweating girl.
6. Phillis Levin, “Open Field” (p 70). I didn’t have enough time to decipher it, but I still like it.
7. Mitch Sisskind, “Like a Monkey” (p 117). After too many mediocre Adam/Eve/Eden poems I rashly dismissed this amusing and poignant postmodern love poem on first read.
8. Sarah Lindsay, “Tell the Bees” (p 74). Leads an intimate, enigmatic path through a local environment that is both alien and familiar.
9. Albert Goldbarth, “Zones” (p 31). Bizarre and memorable imagery.
10. Denise Duhamel, “How It Will End” (p 24). I didn’t want it to, but this poem stuck with me for weeks.

There may be a couple on this list that I’d cut on another reading, but there are probably a couple from BAP 09 that I missed, either from failed memory or misunderstanding. Until BAP10 in December…

Knowing he was soon to be executed
the condemned man asked if first he might
					please
have something to drink, if first he might
be drunk.
	So the soldiers brought him a drink
and because there was no hurry, another,
and one for each of them, to.
				Soon they were all
very drunk, and this was merciful
because the man probably didn't understand
when they put him to the wall
				and shot him.

+

I'll marry the man who can prove this happened,
the dying leaves said
			in their descent.

I'll marry the man who looks through that window,
the waiting grasstips said.

But the sun went on with its golden rays
like a zealous child

and the camera-eyed bees jittered mercifully
in the distant branches

+

The man slept on the floor
and the little mouse in his head also slept.

The soldiers didn't know who would drag him away
or where they should hide him
so they laughed nervously and one
offered the body a drink, Ha ha,
					a toast!

then left him by the rich lady's liquor cabinet
where she'd find him when she returned from the hills.

+

I'll marry the girl who kisses the lips
and brings a breath to them,
the starving horses said from their fields.

I'll marry the man who pounds the chest
and starts the heart,
			the caved-in houses said.

And the window let the light in
until the sun failed in the branches
and, like mercy,
		darkness smothered the town.

+

Later in the story, her grown son wrapped him
in a parachute
		and dumped him in a neighbor's yard.

Later, that neighbor, who understood bad luck,
dragged the man to another's lawn.

And so he traveled, yard-to-yard,
				to the edge of town
where at last he slept by a little-traveled road
in a merciful ditch

while bombers unzipped the sky.

And when the town burned, he missed it,
and when the treetops bloomed and charred, he missed it.

I'll marry the man,
the grasstips said in the hot wind,

I'll marry the girl,
the horses said, running from their burning barn, aflame,

their bodies glowing bluely in the dusk.

+

And no one proved it happened,
which was merciful for us all,

the road forgotten, the man gone to root and weed,
to marrow and tooth.

+

And if it had--
		Who would find his jawbone in the loam?
Who would pick out his bullet shells and fillings,
like glitter in the new wood?

And if a man should string them
like words on a golden chain

and make from them a charm,
			and give them to his wife,
wouldn't that be mercy, too?

I’ve seen just enough of Prufer’s poems to recognize the broken lines, such as one would see in dramatic dialogue persisting a meter; these force a slightly longer pause, giving a different body to the shape of the poem. The poem itself is regulated by an undertone of Nature’s incanted whisperings as a man is executed, and his body dumped from one location to another, until the town itself is destroyed by fire bombing.

What really caught me in this poem was its quick narrative style and sharp language. Prufer’s simple, accurate phrasing of descriptions smacks of realism without getting tangled in useless details. The diction walks the line between useful recognition and cliche, or even empathy and sentimentality. Many of his descriptions are personifying: the grasstips wait, the sun is “like a zealous child”, there are “camera-eyed bees”, houses and horses alike speak, “bombers unzipped the sky”.

The most remarkable anthropomorphizing is the reference to the corpse as “the man”, where most would use “body” or at least add the adjective “dead”. This drew my attention to usage of nouns to describe the dead, and I thought of how friends and family of the dead refer to them as if they were still alive, by title (“dad”) or by name (“Nate”), and often in the present tense. We rarely grant this privilege to strangers, using nouns as far removed from the person as possible, like “police found the girl’s body” or “we’ll take a tendon from a cadaver”, etc.

By using “the man” rather than “the body”, “the corpse”, or “the man’s body” the poet is being conscientiously compassionate to the man, and this is a kind of mercy. In general, the poem’s personification of various limbs of Nature would be uncomfortable if not for their contrast with the humans’ actions, which seem less thoughtful and only merciful by accident. The soldiers, probably out of duty more than mercy, grant the condemned man’s last request and give him alcohol. This is as much a chance for them to get drunk themselves as it is born of any mercy for the condemned. They did so “because there was no hurry”, then:

...another,
and one for each of them, to.
				Soon they were all
very drunk, and this was merciful
because the man probably didn't understand
when they put him to the wall
				and shot him.

The soldiers’ drunkenness spares them from terrible anticipation of and guilty conscience after their act, but like Cain realizing what they have done must hide the body, and thus dump it in a civilian’s house. The “rich lady’s” son:

wrapped him
in a parachute
	and dumped him in a neighbor's yard.
Later, that neighbor, who understood bad luck,
dragged the man to another's lawn.

And so he traveled, yard-to-yard,

None of this passing of the corpse is done with any intention of mercy; rather, it is the method by which each household passes responsibility for or connection to the dead away from themselves. In context of war, if the town itself was occupied by the enemy, the condemned man was likely one of their own, but discovered and captured and therefore not to be associated with for fear of reprisal by the occupiers. If the town is in a defensive position, we can guess the man was an enemy, or, perhaps worse, a traitor.

The passing of the body is a fascinating action, however, one that forces each to at least look upon, even touch the man’s body. Though they take no responsibility for the man, the townsfolk are sharing the news of his death from house to house, like gossip. The passing of the body inadvertently requires each household to share in the burden of disposing the corpse, and for a moment I wonder if the people might not fulfill nature’s first requests: “I’ll marry the man who can prove this happened”. Yet to no avail, for the bombers soon come and wipe out the town, and the man is forgotten.

What of the man’s “bullet shells and fillings” strung “like words on a golden chain”, given as “a charm” for “his wife”? It’s difficult for me to guess what the poet intends here, and I range from a abdication of human intention based on love, to an accusation of human ignorance to the past. This closing asks the read “wouldn’t that be mercy, too?”, suggesting the idea that the poet–and the reader–is not certain of what mercy means. I have defined “mercy” implicitly here to mean a kind of conscious compassion, a leniency linked to a degree of forgiveness for one who has done wrong, and this is supported by the poem. But there’s more to it, and I think the poet composed the images and actions with the intent of disrupting some of our assumptions about the meaning of mercy. We believe that humans are capable of mercy; animals are not, primarily because mercy’s core distinguishing feature is defined by positions of power–one can not be merciful if one has no power to enact a change in condition.

The theme of “mercy”, then, becomes confusing in light of Prufer’s personifications of the dumb plants and animals as yearning for compassion and order, and the portrayals of humans as callous and entrapped in themselves. This personification was difficult for me, but I’ve concluded that this may be Prufer’s way of saying that sometimes mercy comes without conscious thought or overt action (as with the soldiers’ drinking), through the functioning of Nature (the alcohol’s effect, the whisperings of the natural observers), or as the unintended consequences of an act of love (the man’s stringing together of fillings and shells for his wife). It’s hard to accept that these are the only ways mercy can be accomplished, and indeed the bargaining whispers and urgings of the plants and animals claim that there is a more active mercy that can be achieved. But why do none act on it in the poem?

I don’t believe this sort of active mercy is so rare as to be unrepresentable in the poem; rather it didn’t fit the poet’s narrative intent, or by making it elusive the poet teaches us to regret inaction, and anticipate opportunities to act for mercy in the future.

This is why the final stanza begins with “And if it had–”. Curious! This question suggests the entire poem is supposition, not history. This confounded me at first: why “if”? What good does “if” for the meaning of the poem, except disturb the narrative? I think Prufer gives us “if” only to propose to the reader that these things have happened, yes, just as the poet has described them, but it’s not just history; it’s also the future, and we can speculate as to what we might do when faced with either the dead man’s body, or the ruins of the town.

I still have many questions about “On Mercy”, not the least of which is the persistent offering to “marry” the merciful actor, yet the poem is satisfying, and the nagging of these questions will likely keep the poem in my mind after I’ve closed BAP 09, and return my thoughts to not only the theme of the poem, but something of this poet’s craft, too.

P. S. Another mild curiosity, the pluses (+) provide an addition to the stanza breaks, like the whisperings, urging “more” — this rings familiar, as I know Prufer has used somewhat unusual characters in the past to separate stanzas, but I also wonder what other poets, if any, have used specifically the +?

Beasts and Violins

I wandered the house looking for a blank notebook
today, until I found one of the small spiral ones
I prefer. It had tacky shots of mountain climbers
on the cover, and read "Dig In!" with bright letters.
I don't prefer the styling, but appreciate the portability.
And though it was in my house, the notebook
wasn't mine, and wasn't empty.

Inside it had lists. Lists of bands, places, problems
--with notes detailing why my ex-girlfriend was unhappy.
My name appeared on most pages. It was hers,
left on a bookshelf for over one year.
She always kept lists, as if her life could be categorized
into columns of good and bad, written repeatedly
like an incantation, banishment spell, or scale.

There was a section detailing which albums
were best of the year, another with her all-time favorite
movies. One more with the pros and cons
of her parents, and a paragraph on how
I was controlling and didn't care. There was a travelogue
of notable locations in the desert Southwest,
filled out with names of people we had known
in a little town. I even found some suggestions
that, by now, she was only with me for the dogs.

Still, it was only a quarter full of this shit,
and I wanted the notebook. So I ripped out her pages,
stuck them in the winter fire. It made me
happy. Filled me up, like I was drunk
in a train-car lounge, and every time I checked my wallet,
I would find another twenty. Maybe there
would be weeper country music playing
and I'd be hoping the fiddle would take the melody,
and in the last thirty seconds, it would.
The suspense would be all worth it. The heartache
would become transcendent. I'd jump
off my stool and dance right there on the train.
The snow would be too high for the wolves
to give chase. Their eyes would cut tree limbs
as they raised their heads to howl.

I actually disliked this poem on the first reading. But I left it confused, thanks to those wonderful closing lines, and came back to it within the hour. I’ve re-read it several times since, each time wondering if what I like about the poem is stronger than what I dislike, or if what I dislike is only what the poet intends for me to dislike in the narrator, or if perhaps what I like is only that image of the wolves.

(You may have noticed I’m often indecisive about a poem.)

The poem is written in a casual, narrative style, and without much of the musicality or rhythm that I prefer in a poem. The poetics are instead concentrated in the poet’s emphasis on lines, which serve the poem’s story. The story itself is irritating. The narrator is a writer, who, searching for a notebook, finds his ex-girlfriend’s journals composed of a series of lists. The narrator reads many of the entries, finds himself accused in them, burns the offending pages, then imagines how that feeling has set him free.

Though the reading of the journal goes on a bit long, it does provide insight into the ex-girlfriend’s world views and desires in order to contrast this perspective with the narrator’s later on. This perspective is summarized by, “She always kept lists, as if her life could be categorized”, explaining a stubbornness to cling to past events and force at least a superficial order on a resistant world. There are also complaints about the narrator, “–with notes detailing why my ex-girlfriend was unhappy. /
My name appeared on most pages.” It may be the accusatory nature of notes, but I think it is also the simple attention to the past that disgusts the narrator, and he sees the notebook as a kind of emotional baggage. Indeed, the “portability” of the notebook emphasizes that the ex carried all of these things of the past around with her.

In contrast to his ex, the narrator seems to focus on the future, not the past, and does not interested in cataloging the good and the bad of his life. Instead, he liberates himself even of the ex’s lists by burning the pages, and imagining himself somewhere else. The narrator also appreciates that aspect of portability because it allows him to be on the move. The imagined train-car near the end of the poem reinforces this desire for mobility, and is a nice contrast with the ex’s “travelogue”. For the narrator, the train is a vehicle for the realization of his immediate desires, a manifestation of escape, trundling on the scene just as he liberates himself from the lists and their exposure of the past.

Whereas the ex valued the notebook for its collection of remembrances, it appears the narrator values the notebook for it’s potential, it’s blankness. After reading the compiled complaints, he doesn’t destroy the notebook:

Still, it was only a quarter full of this shit,
and I wanted the notebook. So I ripped out her pages,
stuck them in the winter fire.

He keeps the notebook for his own writing–a canvas for his artistic powers. This desire for aesthetic potential is revisited at the end of the poem, when the narrator anticipates the climax of the “weeper country” song, a projection not unlike how the poet sometimes magically projects an aesthetic desire through a poem onto a blank page.

This inclination to project into the future describes the narrator as a character of hope. Commenting on the conclusion of the song on the train:

The suspense would be all worth it. The heartache
would become transcendent

This is interesting, because its an imagined song on an imagined train, and the narrator imagines that he predicts–rather, controls its ending.

I’d be hoping the fiddle would take the melody,
and in the last thirty seconds, it would.

And yet this projective desire echoes the ex’s complaint, “I was controlling and didn’t care.” Does he care? No. He doesn’t care to reflect, any way. He doesn’t care about his ex-girlfriend’s honest perspective, or about his own personal flaws (“this shit”, he calls the lists in the notebook), nor the notebook itself as her personal property (“I wanted the notebook. So I ripped out her pages”). The narrator’s obliviousness to these character failings contributed heavily to the voice of the poem in my reading, and it was this voice that annoyed me almost to the point of abandoning the poem.

I’m glad I did not, however, for as I finished the poem I speculated as to the fictitiousness of the poem. I couldn’t imagine that the narrator reflected the poet absolutely, for we are self-conscious, and rarely present ourselves in a bad light. This poem, in my mind, sets the narrator as a fairly unlikeable, oblivious character, and so I watched closely for some evidence that this portrait was intentional by the poet. Cut, then, to the bar on the train, where the narrator imagines himself alone, happy, anticipating nothing but good fortune, leaving behind his ex, her burned pages and the evidence they may have spoken against him. Then the ending lines:

The snow would be too high for the wolves
to give chase. Their eyes would cut tree limbs
as they raised their heads to howl.

This piercing image of the chasing wolves is almost too lovely for me to comment on. As far as the narrative goes, it does suggest one of two things: either the narrator believes he is hounded for simply being who he is (prey to hungry wolves), or he is fleeing from those who might rightly hunt and seek revenge upon him. If the latter, the narrator finally reveals what I at least insisted on throughout the poem: the narrator is imperfect, indeed, has done wrong, and there is a kind of karmic justice that he must elude. “Their eyes would cut tree limbs” I take to be an equivalent of the expression “go pound sand”, and so, with the pages burnt and the train barreling along the track to some far off land, the narrator is free–for now. That he celebrates this escape in drunkenness, transcending “heartache” to dance a jig, seems to befit his character, one who chooses ignorance for the sake of personal pleasure. The theme of personal liberation is the capstone of the poem, and it shines with a delightful image. But the tempered, or at least complicated, by what dim view of the imperfect narrator one may take from the preceding narrative.

Enjambment

I noticed that this poem’s poetics were concentrated on the line, and this is apparent especially through the poet’s use of enjambment. “My name appeared on most pages. It was hers,”. “It” refers to the notebook, but is made ambiguous because of the line break, thus pointing to “My name”. If the contents of the notebook is any indication, his name does belong to her. She has made it hers in part by writing it onto the pages, in lists, “written repeatedly / like an incantation, banishment spell, or scale.”

Enjambment also serves to emphasize how the narrator is made free: after he’s had too much of her lists, “I ripped out her pages, / stuck them in the winter fire. It made me” The end of this sentence, on the next line, is “happy.” But I think the act also defines him, so in a way it does make (or remake) him.

Speculation on the title

Anytime I encounter the phrase “___ and violins” I think of the Talking Heads song, “Sax and Violins” composed for the excellent soundtrack to Wim Wender’s film “Until the End of the World”. “Sax and Violins” is, of course, a play on the phrase “sex and violence”, a strange pairing of topics meant to suggest a certain morality. From there it’s not too far of a leap to connect “beasts” with carnality, and thus sex. This connection is made stronger by an understanding of the ex-girlfriend associated with the wolves that chase the narrator–the only literal beasts in the poem. Strangely, a conversion of “sex” to “beasts” (and their association with the guilt and displeasure from his ex) defeats much of the allure of the noun, and performs a useful reversal from the narrator’s point of view, where the ex-girlfriend is no longer an object of desire, but rather one of passive vindictiveness. In the poem the violins become the “fiddle”, the instrument that plays a triumphant, climactic, physically loosed ending to the “weeper country song”. “Violins” is thus released or ameliorated from the paired word “violence”, signaling escape and beauty. If I’m not reading too much into the title, it’s a curious reversal in a poem that is carved out of contrasts and reversals.

Indeed, the few reading experiences I have had with The Best American Poetry series have left me underwhelmed if not more cynical than I began, and so I thought it best to leave the anthologies as a sort of in-poetry-crowd A-list (or, an out-poetry-crowd X-list) and indulge in poems either singly as they are recommended to me, or in collections, or in periodicals.

It is my habit to read more canonical poetry than modern poetry–especially so in the last few years, as I have realized large historical holes in my aesthetic education and have sought to cover them, albeit with sticks and torn grass and leaves which I stand in danger of breaking an ankle in during some future conversation. It’s no surprise then that I have felt sometimes inadequate to have the sort of conversations about contemporary poetry with friends as I would like. I decided what better place to start than with the latest, best year’s latest, best anthology of American poetry?

In a beautiful stroke of synchronicity, as I was examining and preparing to purchase The Best American Poetry 2009 in, a hand-written letter was on its way from Alaska, including an invitation from Chris to finish the year by reading and discussing that very anthology, definitely through our blogs, perhaps with audio podcasts, maybe even live audio exchanges.

I am easily excitable, and I agreed.

I am also quickly distracted, irresolute, and moody, and so rather than commit to a post a day (as we’ve done in the past), Chris and I have agreed to make a minimum of 2-3 posts each week. So far that’s the only "rule", but I had to break it down to give myself a more digestible set of objectives. The anthology consists of 151 pages, approximately 75 poems, or 2-3 poems a day: a perfect measure.

I’ve been pushing myself to write by hand more, and so I intend to make notes in a notebook, rather than sit down at the computer and collect my thoughts as I type (as is my habit). This, I hope, will encourage slothfulness in my response to the poems, but not in my reflections on them. Indeed, the portability of a notebook will encourage me to reflect whenever I’m bored, which is more often than you might think.

The anthology won’t be all I’m reading this month. I have a wall of boxes of unpacked books in my study, and every month I like to look through them, rearrange them, and pull books to the top. There are several books (e.g. Lanham’s A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms, Pound’s ABC of Reading, etc.) I’ve set on my night stand to help me warm back up to the topic, if they ever get opened.

This is starting to sound like a New Year’s Resolution list, and it ain’t even December yet! But why not? We start tomorrow. Join us if you wish. I don’t think we talked about a common tag, so I’m using bestampo09bap09.