The Earth With A City In Her Hair

I think it was in 1976 when the State University of New York at Buffalo Student Association Poetry Committee (isn't it great that there was such an entity--I imagine that there isn't one now)--invited Robin Blaser (May 1925-May 2009) to be part of its reading series and he graciously accepted. I don't think that any of the other people we invited from outside the University were from such a distance as Vancouver, British Columbia--the other Student Association poetry reader from that year that I remember was Armand Schwerner, from New York City. (I don't think I was an official member of the Poetry Committee but I attended some of the meetings and otherwise heard about developments through my committee-person friends).

All of us on or close to the Committee were absolutely horrified when the student-artist who had been tapped to create a poster unveiled his or her creation: the visual art component was fine, but the print read "ROBIN BLAZER: THE BEST-KNOWN UNKNOWN POET". The Poetry Committee member(s) who spoke to the artist had indeed used the offending phrase at one point, attemping to deliniate RB's status in the Poetry World. It certainly wasn't desired though that such a phrase appear on the actual poster--nor that Blaser's name by mis-spelled. I told my best friend on the Committee that "The Best-Known Unknown Poet" formula sounded like Madison Avenue; she said what do you mean Madison Avenue, it was like Chippewa Street (at that time the Buffalo street most associated with hookers).

We were braced for trouble, but, surprise, surprise, the first words out of Blaser's mouth when he reached the microphone were "I liked that poster!" Or at least he liked the "best known unknown" characterization. He said he could do without the mistaken "z" since that evoked a long history of unfortunate Germanic/French entanglements...And then, what can I say, the absolute enchantment of a Robin Blaser poetry reading.

Various people I knew, including of course the Poetry Committe people, and the professor I most venerated, John Clarke, hung out with Blaser at a bar that evening. My God!--I have no idea why I wasn't there; some frigging test I had to study for? (Btw, I don't think Robert Creeley was present at the reading or at the bar, I think he was out of town at the time). Later, of course, I heard a little bit about what was discussed that night, which I learned included the question of why the Working Class wasn't more interested in listening to Beethoven.

My Best Friend from the Poetry Committee said she enjoyed sharing stories with Robin that night about Disappointing Men. And wow, the next day she arrived at the scheduled final meeting without the check she was supposed to hand him. He was gracious about even that; other arrangements were made.

Labels: Blaser, Buffalo

The other day I was strolling leisurely down Fifth Avenue after seeing the Francis Bacon show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art when I came upon the vivid sight of the carriage horses lined up on 59th Street (Central Park South) eating their oats. Each oat-pail had ten or twenty pigeons clustered around it. I directed my attention to one of the pails and saw that the horse would bury its head in it and munch for a while, but then would slowly raise its head until it reached its straight-ahead position, which it would maintain for a fairly long time, teeth still deliberatively chewing. Soon after the horse's head would begin rising, the pigeons would quickly fly in, sans objection from gracious horse. The horse would start to lower its head again; the pigeons of course quickly vacated the pail.

I watched this pattern three or four times, then walked forward to set my eyes upon another oat-pail, to see if the situation would be different. Well, yes. This horse would hardly ever raise its head from the pail; when it did it was for a very brief moment, just in order to spit out some of what was in its mouth--and this periodic ejection was what the pigeons gathered around that pail had to look forward to: the flock would race over to swallow up the grains of food newly scattered upon the ground. So this too seemed a rather cheerful sight, especially since when the horse would spit I could somehow see only food-grains flying, and not any saliva.

Labels: maybe a poem--you tell me, New York City

This being the Jewish High Holiday season--Rosh Hashanah, the New Year (literally "Head of the Year") having been last week, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, beginning this very evening, I thought it would be nice to post my most Biblical poem, written in 1984, and later published in John (Jack) Clarke's poetry journal intent., which was fitting, because it is also the most Clarkean poem I ever wrote.

Beginning with yesterday's first imagining of this post, I wanted some sort of title such as the one I have finally chosen, "poem for the new year". When I finally laid my hands on a copy of the poem (I couldn't find one in my apartment, nor my copy of the appropriate issue of intent., so I had to go to my Safe Deposit Box at the Dime Savings Bank for the copies secured there), it was a charming surprise to be reminded by the date at the bottom of the poem that it was written very close to the start of a New Year as in January.

I am probably not telling the reader anything that she or he does not already know, but allow me to point out that "minyan" refers to the quorom of ten men that traditionally is needed to conduct a Jewish prayer service, and here connects with the Biblical narrative of Abraham pleading with The Lord to save the two condemned cities if there are ten worthy people there. "Intellectual tears" evokes Blake's lines from "The Grey Monk": "For a Tear is an intellectual thing,/And a Sigh is the sword of an Angel King".

Lot's Wife Turns to the Lot of the City

Murderous fire and sulfer from the skies
not deflected by the force of enough
satisfactory citizens forming a minyan
as minimum constellation to
serve as shield of wonderful light for
the city's living flesh against
the knuckles of judging flame
the lucky woman couldn't take in her
stride, so halted,
turned to witness, with body and heart
bleeding as instantly she
solidified to
bitter intellectual tears standing
firm as eternal
saving saline
mercy of all
health and preservation.

2 January 1984

Labels: Blake, Hebrew Bible, Jewishness, John Clarke, my own poems

"i'll meet you at the zoo & we'll xerox" is a line that has long intrigued me from Bernadette Mayer's 2005 book, Scarlet Tanager. It's from "Stanzas In Meditation", a thirteen line poem that appropriates--or better said, activates--certain elements from Part I, Stanza I of Gertrude Stein's book-length poem of that name.

There seems to me something somehow very right about the image of xeroxing at the zoo; I like to visualize someone going into a special room at a zoo containing a public xerox machine and making all the copies s/he needs. The image is mysteriously pleasing; and likely popped into Mayer's mind because of the animal species name at the end of the word "xerox". One could leave it at that.

But I'd like to suggest that the image also points to the way that a zoo must reproduce as best as possible the physical environment each of its animals would be inhabiting in the Wild. That, I think, is the secret of why the image has always "worked" for me.

And when I look at the poem as a whole I think truly there is further support for my reading of the image. But we won't get into that now; to look at the poem properly I'd have to examine it in the light of the Stein poem, & I'll save that for later.

But I'll note that I have written the check to help Ms. Mayer and Mr. Good attain assurance that as the weather grows colder they will have (see the previous post) the domestic heat environment needed by human beings, and that very truthfully, it's in the mail.

Labels: Mayer

In the October/November (St. Mark's Church In-The-Bowery) Poetry Project Newsletter, which came to my mailbox today, there is the following notice:

ASSISTANCE NEEDED

Bernadette Mayer and Philip Good need to raise money to pay for heating fuel. Already three months behind in monthly payments. People can send money to Giorno Poetry Systems (222 Bowery, 3rd Fl., New York, NY, 10012, United States); write "Bernadette Mayer Fund" in the memo.

______________________

I heartily recommend that people reading this here do send along a check.

I am going to send a check for $50. (I will report, dear reader, when I actually
have sent it).

I frankly was not very conscious of Mayer's work until the cerebral aneurysm she suffered in 1994. The outpouring of love for Bernadette as person and writer that then ensued motivated me to study her work and I was not disappointed with what I found.

But of this I am ashamed: I kept telling myself that I would contribute to the fund for Mayer's medical expenses that was set up at that time, and never did I do so.

(However in mitigation I can state that I did participate in the first Workshop that Bernadette taught at St. Mark's after her medical emergency and so at least the fee I paid for the Workshop was of some monetary help to her).

Labels: good causes, Mayer, St. Mark's

Arbeit und Liebe--
Toil and Trouble.

Labels: mordant observations

I'm among several people standing in the aisle of an Amtrak train-car. It isn't clear why we are standing up; we don't seem to be waiting to use the bathroom, and there are plenty of empty seats. In fact, I do have a seat to return to, which I imagine is true also for the three or four other standees.

As I stand there on the train, my thoughts are about how I would love to immerse myself in the study of British Literature of the Middle Ages. I murmur the word "daughter" as I am pretty sure it would be pronounced in Middle English--with the "gh" forming a "ch" shound like Yiddish chutzpah or Scottish loch. A woman standing near me comprehends my quiet utterance perfectly--she says to me, "you like Chaucer, don't you?" I say, yes I do.

She is wearing a very cheery blouse, with a white background and large patches of bright color. We talk in the aisle for a while, then I follow her to her seat. I don't necessarily sit down next to her, probably I sit in the row of seats behind her. As we are getting seated, I notice that she is wearing a wedding ring, and I'm dissapointed, as I had so much wanted to ask this balanced, erudite, delightful woman on a date. (I noticed also that she wore another ring on the middle finger of her opposite hand).

As we speak further, I learn that she is an expert on male sexuality and the misadventures thereof. This becomes another reason I would like to have her as a friend--at some point she could provide much-needed guidance/information in regard to such matters.

note: some time after dreaming the dream I realized that "daughter" as I pronounced it on the train--dauCH-ter--suggests also "doctor". (& btw, when I consulted a Middle English glossary I noted that the M.E. word was not "daughter" but "doghter").

Labels: Chaucer, dreams