Well, I’ve been working my way through my A.R. Ammons book (The Selected Poems) and what a surprise – I find that I enjoy his poems more when I read silently. I usually read all poems out loud, since the sensuality of sounds is a major component of poetry enjoyment for me, but Ammons is very different – very cerebral. It is almost as if he is whispering secrets to you through the poems and you can only hear them if you’re very quiet. I know that is a very fanciful way of describing it, but it as close as I can get to explain how I feel.
I think this is a collection that I’ll come back to again and again. Even though he is making me work a bit, whenever I do work, I’m always rewarded.
Here are several poems that I really enjoyed straight off when I picked up the book again today, to read a few more:
Still
I said I will find what is lowly and put the roots of my identity down there: each day I'll wake up and find the lowly nearby, a handy focus and reminder, a ready measure of my significance, the voice by which I would be heard, the wills, the kinds of selfishness I could freely adopt as my own:
but though I have looked everywhere, I can find nothing to give myself to: everything is
magnificent with existence, is in surfeit of glory: nothing is diminished, nothing has been diminished for me:
I said what is more lowly than the grass: ah, underneath, a ground-crust of dry-burnt moss: I looked at it closely and said this can be my habitat: but nestling in I found below the brown exterior green mechanisms beyond the intellect awaiting resurrection in rain: so I got up
and ran saying there is nothing lowly in the universe: I found a beggar: he had stumps for legs: nobody was paying him any attention: everybody went on by: I nestled in and found his life: there, love shook his body like a devastation: I said though I have looked everywhere I can find nothing lowly in the universe:
I whirled though transfigurations up and down, transfigurations of size and shape and place: at one sudden point came still, stood in wonder: moss, beggar, weed, tick, pine, self, magnificent with being!
I love the beggar in this piece, and the line breaks and use of colons haunt me as I try to discover their sense but then decide it really doesn't matter! There’s a really interesting piece about him and how he wrote in the Guardian, here.
Winter Scene
There is now not a single leaf on the cherry tree:
except when the jay plummets in, lights, and,
in pure clarity, squalls: then every branch
quivers and breaks out in blue leaves.
The image of the naked tree quivering to the “squall” of the jay seems both playful and delightful.
Loss
When the sun falls behind the sumac thicket the wild yellow daisies in diffuse evening shade lose their rigorous attention and half-wild with loss turn any way the wind does and lift their petals up to float off their stems and go
Although the very short lines turned me right off this one at first, the idea of the daisies being “half-wild” due to the loss of the sun, kind of took my breath away – such a simple yet dramatic image.
So, if you don’t know much about Ammons, I recommend you take a look – I’m finding him pretty fascinating. This web site is a decent place to start.
It’s some weeks since I mentioned that I’d been kicking around an idea for another poem in my ‘serial’ series but, finally, I’ve put fingers to keyboard and come up with a first draft.
Writing a series is weird. On the one hand, you have the ease of writing within a pre-decided set of parameters (in this case, I know who my narrator will be and what he will do, or will have done, or is about to do!) but, on the other, until you’ve completed the series, you don’t truly know who the hell your narrator is. Well, that has been my experience with this series, at any rate. My frustration as the writer is that I know a little more about him every time I write a piece and therefore, I might not do him justice in any piece, until all the pieces are written. But context is probably the biggest issue for editing and revision because most of my readers and commenters are aware of the whole series, so each piece is seldom read independently. See – weird.
I’m tortured because I can't stop worrying about whether I might not be tortured enough to match up to some folks’ ideas of what a poet should be. I don’t suffer from depression, angst, soul searching, navel gazing, or any of those kind of emotional gewgaws that seem to be so precious to the ‘true’ poet.
Okay, I'm not really worried about it, but does having a cheerful disposition make me an impostor poet? Should I weep rather than laugh and flow rather than craft? See that? It rhymes – I must be a poet!
This is an aspect of poetry that occasionally bothers me – why do so many people feel that ‘true’ poetry is a matter of heart and soul rather than head and intellect? Is a poem that touches on some insightful philosophical question worth any less than one that touches one’s heart? Neither are easy to write, nor so common. But I would much rather read a thoughtful piece that failed to reach insightful, than an emotionally soaked piece that failed to touch any part of my left ventricle.
I wonder if it’s normal to feel pleased with a rejection? On the advice of (the very kind) Rob Mackenzie, I submitted a couple of poems to the magazine Anonand today, I heard they hadn’t made it (they've taken some of Rob's work though). However, they were short listed and, I just can’t help it, that makes me really pleased!
The poems I sent were ‘Dante’s Café Bar’ and ‘The Gypsy’s Devoted Son’ and I hadn’t sent them anywhere before. In fact, this is the only submission I’ve made in almost a year – I just never feel the need to send things out usually – but I was feeling quite pleased with where I’d got these two to and thought it’d be fun.
So, glad I nearly made it – and maybe I’ll send them somewhere else some day. For now, they’ve returned to the ‘work in progress’ folder, and here’s the Dante one (never can get those line breaks right):
At Dante’s Café Bar
I. Superbia At six o’clock the host lights up each table’s centrepiece, and edging chairs with the toe of one lustrous shoe, marvels at his creation of such a homely mood. By seven, he’s polishing his palms for the diners at five tables, and glowing with resplendent satisfaction, he welcomes II. Invidia the latest customer who takes the sixth with an awkward air, a meandering step. As she twists her body into a chair, smiles at him without her eyes and orders a green salad; she stifles her desire for his polished silverware, condiment bottles and convivial surroundings. Appetite aroused, she appraises the possessions III. Ira of the man seated at the next table, stabbing ravioli to a staccato ceramic screech. His concentration, splendidly absolute, colours his skin the same vermilion shade that smears his plate. He forces a gulp of yielding sweetness past the garrotte that is his shirt collar and, unappeased, he growls deep in his chest, disturbs his neighbour, IV. Acedia who sighs. She pushes her fork around the dish she has eaten countless times, and wishes for something more than equilibrium, but her transitory hope subsides. Complacency returned, she eats (remembers to chew), a daub of sauce escapes the slackness of her lips, oils her blouse. She spreads the stain with languid fingertips, shrugs V. Avaritia as a man across the room takes a moment from his Blackberry to notice her and suppress his distaste. His dinner pushed aside, he immerses himself in thoughts of greater pleasures, of the market’s thrills and tides. He taps at numbers on the screen, checks his balance; his surplus succour an indulgent need. His coffee arrives, the aromatic tendrils drift VI. Gula to the receptive nostrils of a fellow patron who pauses, fork in hand, to anticipate delights yet to come. Returning to her unstinting plate, she eats with large and steady eyes, punctuating pasta with generous draughts of wine, that hint at an excess of summer in European climes. Numb, her nourishment ever incomplete, she watches
VII. Luxuria a couple move from table to bar, perch on stools, order Amaretto over ice. The woman’s foot, heel hooked, bends until the satin of her shoe gapes wide; the man’s shoelace sprawls untied. Leaning forward, muscle straining the red silk cover of her thigh, teeth pressed against her bottom lip, unconscious of the sin she is enraptured by; she loosens the restraining knot of her married lover’s tie.
Some people have very relaxing jobs – like the lovely Elle here. Sadly, I do not. I spent no more than one hour on line for my own amusement this week, and about the same last week.
As for writing, well – not a chance. My usual thinking time for blog and poetry subjects was safe though (it's usually when I do the weekend hoovering) however, I never then had the energy to follow them up. Last weekend, I was thinking about Marcus Aurelius and wondering if his Meditations might count as the very first blog, but I never had the energy to follow it up after I’d finished the housework. Mindless crochet projects have taken over – they are about the only thing that can make me relax after work when I’m really busy – anything involving thought is just too much!
Anyway, the good news is that I have an idea for another poem in my serial killer series – just a few images so far, but it is starting to come together in my head. It always helps me to have something to focus on when I don’t have much free thinking time.
Hmm, wonder how one goes about getting a job that involves a lot of reclining, other than modelling? Although maybe I shouldn’t be too hard on myself – I could model, perhaps I could get a few gigs doing photo shoots for ‘Crochet Today’ or something?
I’ve had very little time on line for the last few weeks, and when I popped on to read the selections for this month’s Guardian Workshop (well done again Victoria – “bones of my news” will stay with me for quite some time) and revisited my own entry a little later, I positively squirmed. Self-editing after a few weeks break, certainly seems to breed contempt!
Although I was pleased with my little offering at the time, mostly because it expressed a sentiment that I deeply felt and have never before attempted to express, it now seems, well; trite. In fact, so much so that I can’t even face posting it here.
Note to self – when writing on personal themes, take a very long time to edit and refine. If you think it’s bordering on hackneyed now, just wait and see how much worse it’ll look in a couple of weeks!
