The Year
First comes
Broken Branches Moon
the snow is heavy
next
Snowless Road Moon
it snows
but it doesn’t stick to the road
next
Little Wind Moon
when the snow is in patches
next
Big Wind Moon
next
Nameless Moon
next
Turnabout Moon
next
Broken Branches Moon
also called Rooster Pull
the time of the rodeo
next
Snowless Road Moon
also called Get-together
Look-at-one-another
next
Little Wind Moon
next
Big Wind Moon
also called Pick-the-ears-of-corn
next
Nameless Moon
when they set the date for the dancers
next
Turnabout Moon
All these twelve together are called
time-surpasses-itself.
Winter Solstice
Here is the place of fear
for four days
no greasy foods are eaten
there is no coffee
no trade
all places of business are closed
for ten days
no sweepings
no garbage is taken out of the house
no fire is taken out of the house
not even cigarettes are lighted outside
people shouldn’t use their cars
the street lights are all turned out
this is the middle of time.
Recipe
Fill a bowl with hot water
add, to taste:
dried leaves of wild mint
ground chili
onions
dried chinchweed flowers
wolfberries
& venison jerky.
This is called
hot-bowl
it is
an ancient dish.
Cornshucking
Pull down the husk
all around
then twist it all off at once
with the stem
put the dry ears in this pile
for us
put the damp ears
the moldy ears in this one
for the hogs
& throw the shucks out there
some of the ears are yellow
some are blue
red
white
some are pretty
the multicolored ones
some are black
look for the Fully-Finished-Ear
without a single kernel missing
right to the very tip
a deer, a buck
wears that one on his breast
& the Flat-Ear
with a forked tip
a doe wears that one on her breast
& the Road-Ear
with a groove down its whole length
runners wear that one on their backs
now here it is
a Fully-Finished-Ear
but it’s wet
I’ll put it at the edge of the good pile
& here is an ear
yellow, but
each kernel
is tinged with red
it’s sort of pretty
there’s no name for this one
I’ll put it here on the fence rail
maybe I’ll do something with it later.
When The Witches Are Out
On the road at night
we caught a deer in the headlights
he didn’t know which way to go
he came toward us
turning left & right
in the lights
we stopped
he cut left through the sunflowers
into the dark
we went up to the house
so our nephew could get his rifle
on our way back down the road
there was another car coming
far off
his lights went out
we rode all the way down past
where the deer was
& there was no deer
& no car.
The Two Of Them
The Zuni
& the anthropologist
walk a narrow road
to the tip of the mesa
to see the Hopi Snake Dance
between two sheer drops
the Zuni says
to the anthropologist
- Both sides!
You jump one way
& I’ll jump the other.
[Additional poems from this series -- with a note on Dennis Tedlock -- appeared earlier in Poems and Poetics.]
Ian Keenan: On E.E. Cummings, Velimir Khlebnikov, & Related Matters (A Response)
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[Originally posted on Keenan's blog, Piri' Miri' Muli', for 08 August 2010]
Jerome Rothenberg just posted the meaty second part of a 1994 talk on e.e. cummings, ending it with an excerpt from a Navajo horse-blessing song he translated in the 1970s:
(Nnnnn N ghan) because I was the boynging raised ing the dawn & nnnn but some there are mine all (ghan) & some (gwing) there 'rrr mine there
The gerundization of “boy” and “raised” reminds me of Velimir Khlebnikov's “Там, где жили свиристели (Where the Waxwings Used to Dwell),” where Khlebnikov uses suffixes and formed words to convey specific meanings, with the word “momentwill (времирей),” a word he made up which sounds Bergsonian, relating to the joined words around it: “warblewingish,” “waxwings,” “beguilish.” Russian like German has larger words than English, so Khlebnikov is using this composite diction to combine two concepts generally kept separate: time and will, the will of the past enduring, befitting his wish for an eternal present and his belief that language has been a divisive force, which he set out to resolve by way of his zaum language, the sort of representation of cosmological unity that Foucault criticized in Les Mots et les choses.
In addition to works of his composed entirely in the zaum language, Khlebnikov uses made-up words in contexts of existing words that elaborate their possible meaning, as in “Grasshopper” and “Bo-beh-o-bi sang the lips,” assigning a non-connotive language to animals, objects, body parts, and sensory stimuli. Roman Jakobson said “The question of the interplay between speech sounds and letters and the possibility to utilize these interplays in verbal art, particularly on its supraconscious (zaum) level, vividly preoccupied me in 1912-14, and they were intensely discussed in my correspondence of 1914 with Krutchenyk and Khlebnikov."
In a way, the combination of cummings being the major figure of typographic innovation in America and that the content he used it for didn't inspire, may have had some sort of effect on the use of typographic effects thereafter. Creeley spoke of this in a 1963 interview (which I typed out for a conversation with Curtis Faville about cummings last April):
“Cummings' battle with the typographical set of the poem was one in which, once people were willing to admit typography could be variable and could have a useful effect, the particular value was lost... I like some of his earlier poems very much, both the uses of the sonnet and some of the straight wise-guy poems where you get this beautiful jargon and slang, but I feel that he's always been limited by being a real college boy, by which that his thinking, curiously, has never really gone deeper than the kind of, oh! let's say junior, sophomore, college wit... cummings, despite all his insistence on the single identity of the "i," is speaking for almost a class.”
As Creeley found cummings' content wanting, Joanna Drucker complains that Khlebnikov “was not interested in the contents of the individual psyche, but in himself as a priestly figure working in the service of profound truth,” though Julia Kristeva and Jakobson find a stylistic imprint of sexuality in Khlebnikov's frequent use of “mech-mjach” (sword-bullet) as in lines like “mecha stat' mjachom” “(Impatience) of the sword to become a bullet,” a psyche perhaps too impulsive and not sufficiently reflective for Drucker's tastes. Kristeva also credits Khlebnikov among others for the “resurgence of an ‘I’ coming back to rebuild an ephemeral structure in which the constituting struggle of language and society can be spelled out.”
Osip Manselstam said Khlebnikov wrote “one enormous all-Russian book of prayers and icons from which, for centuries and centuries to come, everyone who may will find something to draw on.” Included in everyone are the Soviets and their more religious successors. The Soviet association most likely caused Joseph Brodsky to brand Khlebnikov taboo to the poetic foot soldiers of Reagan-era Cold War triumphalism, but a Khlebnikov revival in Russia seems afoot in the music and theater worlds that see in him a spiritual guide. The composer Vladimir Martynov was recently asked to compose a fusion piece for symphony orchestra and the Tuvan throat singing ensemble Huun Huur Tu and decided to use as his libretto Khlebnikov's creation myth Children of the Otter, and the work premiered in 2009, based on the myths of the Altay region. Martynov states in an interview that he finds in this Asian music and Russian traditions a model for "the end of the era of the composer," the preservation of cultures without humanist authors, a far cry from the “resurgence of the 'I'” Kristeva found in the artist Martynov is adapting.
Martynov describes Khlebnikov's vison of the “super-saga” as “the synthesis of different planes, or as in Children of the Otter, “sails.'” Kristeva describes the drama as “a mother, coming to the aid of her children in their fight against the sun. The Otter's children are squared off against three suns, one white, one purple, the other dark green.”
Also there's a splendid trailer for a new production of Victory Over the Sun, with attempts made by the editor to incorporate the visuals of Kazimir Malevich and others as well as Malevich's costumes.
Jerome Rothenberg just posted the meaty second part of a 1994 talk on e.e. cummings, ending it with an excerpt from a Navajo horse-blessing song he translated in the 1970s:
(Nnnnn N ghan) because I was the boynging raised ing the dawn & nnnn but some there are mine all (ghan) & some (gwing) there 'rrr mine there
The gerundization of “boy” and “raised” reminds me of Velimir Khlebnikov's “Там, где жили свиристели (Where the Waxwings Used to Dwell),” where Khlebnikov uses suffixes and formed words to convey specific meanings, with the word “momentwill (времирей),” a word he made up which sounds Bergsonian, relating to the joined words around it: “warblewingish,” “waxwings,” “beguilish.” Russian like German has larger words than English, so Khlebnikov is using this composite diction to combine two concepts generally kept separate: time and will, the will of the past enduring, befitting his wish for an eternal present and his belief that language has been a divisive force, which he set out to resolve by way of his zaum language, the sort of representation of cosmological unity that Foucault criticized in Les Mots et les choses.
In addition to works of his composed entirely in the zaum language, Khlebnikov uses made-up words in contexts of existing words that elaborate their possible meaning, as in “Grasshopper” and “Bo-beh-o-bi sang the lips,” assigning a non-connotive language to animals, objects, body parts, and sensory stimuli. Roman Jakobson said “The question of the interplay between speech sounds and letters and the possibility to utilize these interplays in verbal art, particularly on its supraconscious (zaum) level, vividly preoccupied me in 1912-14, and they were intensely discussed in my correspondence of 1914 with Krutchenyk and Khlebnikov."
In a way, the combination of cummings being the major figure of typographic innovation in America and that the content he used it for didn't inspire, may have had some sort of effect on the use of typographic effects thereafter. Creeley spoke of this in a 1963 interview (which I typed out for a conversation with Curtis Faville about cummings last April):
“Cummings' battle with the typographical set of the poem was one in which, once people were willing to admit typography could be variable and could have a useful effect, the particular value was lost... I like some of his earlier poems very much, both the uses of the sonnet and some of the straight wise-guy poems where you get this beautiful jargon and slang, but I feel that he's always been limited by being a real college boy, by which that his thinking, curiously, has never really gone deeper than the kind of, oh! let's say junior, sophomore, college wit... cummings, despite all his insistence on the single identity of the "i," is speaking for almost a class.”
As Creeley found cummings' content wanting, Joanna Drucker complains that Khlebnikov “was not interested in the contents of the individual psyche, but in himself as a priestly figure working in the service of profound truth,” though Julia Kristeva and Jakobson find a stylistic imprint of sexuality in Khlebnikov's frequent use of “mech-mjach” (sword-bullet) as in lines like “mecha stat' mjachom” “(Impatience) of the sword to become a bullet,” a psyche perhaps too impulsive and not sufficiently reflective for Drucker's tastes. Kristeva also credits Khlebnikov among others for the “resurgence of an ‘I’ coming back to rebuild an ephemeral structure in which the constituting struggle of language and society can be spelled out.”
Osip Manselstam said Khlebnikov wrote “one enormous all-Russian book of prayers and icons from which, for centuries and centuries to come, everyone who may will find something to draw on.” Included in everyone are the Soviets and their more religious successors. The Soviet association most likely caused Joseph Brodsky to brand Khlebnikov taboo to the poetic foot soldiers of Reagan-era Cold War triumphalism, but a Khlebnikov revival in Russia seems afoot in the music and theater worlds that see in him a spiritual guide. The composer Vladimir Martynov was recently asked to compose a fusion piece for symphony orchestra and the Tuvan throat singing ensemble Huun Huur Tu and decided to use as his libretto Khlebnikov's creation myth Children of the Otter, and the work premiered in 2009, based on the myths of the Altay region. Martynov states in an interview that he finds in this Asian music and Russian traditions a model for "the end of the era of the composer," the preservation of cultures without humanist authors, a far cry from the “resurgence of the 'I'” Kristeva found in the artist Martynov is adapting.
Martynov describes Khlebnikov's vison of the “super-saga” as “the synthesis of different planes, or as in Children of the Otter, “sails.'” Kristeva describes the drama as “a mother, coming to the aid of her children in their fight against the sun. The Otter's children are squared off against three suns, one white, one purple, the other dark green.”
Also there's a splendid trailer for a new production of Victory Over the Sun, with attempts made by the editor to incorporate the visuals of Kazimir Malevich and others as well as Malevich's costumes.
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Outsider Poems, a Mini-Anthology in Progress (17): Ranter Visions, from Abiezer Coppe, A Fiery Flying Roll (1649)
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[with a commentary by John Bloomberg-Rissman on Coppe and the Ranters]
***Behold, behold, behold, I the eternal God, the Lord of Hosts, who am that mighty Leveler, am coming (yea, even at the doors) to level in good earnest, to level to some purpose, to level with a witness, to level the hills with the valleys, and to lay the mountains low.
High mountains! lofty cedars! it’s high time for you to enter into the rocks and to hide you in the dust for fear of the Lord and for the glory of his majesty. For the lofty looks of man shall be humbled and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the Lord ALONE shall be exalted in that day.***
Hills! Mountains! Cedars! Mighty men! Your breath is in your nostrils.
Those that have admired, adored, idolized, magnified, set you up, fought for you, ventured goods and good name, limb and life for you, shall cease from you.
You shall not at all be accounted of (not one of you), ye sturdy oaks who bow not down before eternal Majesty—Universal Love, whose service is perfect freedom, and who hath put down the mighty (remember, remember your forerunner), and who is putting down the mighty from their seats, and exalting them of low degree. ***
And the prime leveling is laying low the mountains and leveling the hills in Man.
The eternal God, the mighty Leveler is coming, yea come, even at the door; and what will you do in that day?***
Mine ears are filled brimful with cries of poor prisoners, Newgate, Ludgate cries (of late) are seldom out of mine ears. Those doleful cries, Bread, bread, bread for the Lord’s sake, pierce mine ears and heart, I can no longer forbear.
Wherefore hie you apace to all prisons in the kingdom.
Bow before those poor, nasty, lousy, ragged wretches, say to them, your humble servants, sirs (without a compliment), we let you go free and serve you, &c.
Do this or (as I live, saith the Lord) thine eyes (at least) shall be bored out, and thou carried captive into a strange land.
***Loose the bonds of wickedness, undo the heavy burdens, let the oppressed go free, and break every yoke. Deal thy bread to the hungry, and bring the poor that are cast out (both of houses and synagogues) to thy house.
Cover the naked: hide not thyself from thine own flesh, from a cripple, a rogue, a beggar, he’s thine own flesh. From a whoremonger, a thief, &c., he’s flesh of thy flesh, and his flesh and whoredom is flesh of thy flesh also, thine own flesh. Thou mayest have ten times more of each within thee than he that acts outwardly in either. Remember, turn not away thine eyes from thine OWN FLESH.
Give over, give over thy midnight mischief.
Let branding with the letter B alone.
Be no longer so horridly, hellishly, impudently, arrogantly wicked as to judge what is sin, what not, what evil and what not, what blasphemy and what not.
For thou and all thy reverend divines, so-called (who divine for tithes, hire, and money, and serve the Lord Jesus Christ for their own bellies), are ignorant of this one thing:
That sin and transgression is finished, it’s a mere riddle that they with all their human learning can never read.
Neither can they understand what pure honor is wrapped up in the king’s motto, Honi soit qui mal y pense. Evil to him that evil thinks.
Some there are who are accounted the offscouring of all things, who are Noble Knights of the Garter. Since which—they could see no evil, think no evil, do no evil, know no evil.
ALL is religion that they speak, and honor that they do.
* * *
A strange yet most true story; under which is couched that Lion whose roaring shall make all the beasts of the field tremble, and all the kingdoms of the earth quake. ***
Follow me, who last Lord’s day, Septem. 30, 1649, met him in open field, a most strange deformed man, clad with patched clouts; who looking wishly on me, mine eye pitied him; and my heart, or the day of the Lord, which burned as an oven in me, set my tongue on flame to speak to him, as followeth:
How now friend, art thou poor?
He answered, yea Master very poor.
Whereupon my bowels trembled within me, and quivering fell upon the worm-eaten chest (my corpse, I mean), that I could not hold a joint still. And my great love within me (who is the great God within that chest or corpse) was burning hot toward him; and made the lock-hole of the chest, to wit the mouth of the corpse, again to open, thus:
Art poor?
Yea, very poor, said he.
Whereupon the strange woman who flattereth with her lips and is subtle of heart said within me,
It’s a poor wretch, give him twopence.
But my EXCELLENCY and MAJESTY (in me) scorned her words, confounded her language, and kicked her out of his presence.
But immediately the WELL-FAVORED HARLOT, whom I carried not upon my horse behind me, but who rose up in me, said:
—It’s a poor wretch, give him sixpence and that’s enough for a squire or knight to give to one poor body.
—Besides (saith the holy Scripturian whore), he’s worse than an infidel that provides not for his own family.
—True love begins at home, &c.
—Thou and thy family are fed as the young ravens, strangely, though thou hast been a constant preacher, yet thou hast abhorred both tithes and hire; and thou knowest not aforehand who will give thee the worth of a penny.
—Have a care of the main chance.
And thus she flattereth with her lips and her words being smoother than oil; and her lips dropping as the honeycomb, I was fired to hasten my hand into my pocket; and, pulling out a shilling, said to the poor wretch,
Give me sixpence, here’s a shilling for thee.
He answered, I cannot, I have never a penny.
Whereupon I said, I would fain have given thee something if thou couldst have changed my money.
Then saith he, God bless you.
Whereupon with much reluctancy, with much love, and with amazement (of the right stamp) I turned my horse head from him, riding away. But a while after I was turned back (being advised by my Demilance) to wish him call for sixpence, which I would leave at the next town at one’s house, which I thought he might know—Sapphira-like, keeping back part.
But (as God judged me) I, as she, was struck down dead.
And behold the plague of God fell into my pocket, and the rust of my silver rose up against me and consumed my flesh as with fire; so that I and my money perished with me.
I being cast into that lake of fire and brimstone.
And all the money I had about me to a penny (though I thought through the instigation of my quondam Mistress to have reserved some, having rode about 8 miles, not eating one mouthful of bread that day, and had drunk but one small draught of drink, and had between 8 and 9 miles more to ride ere I came to my journey’s end; my horse being lame, the ways dirty, it raining all the way, and I not knowing what extraordinary occasion I might have for money). Yet (I say) the rust of my silver did so rise up in judgment against me, and burnt my flesh like fire; and the 5th of James thundered such an alarm in mine ears, that I was fain to cast all I had into the hands of him, whose visage was more marred than any man’s that I ever saw.
This is a true story, most true in the history.
It’s true also in the mystery.
And there are deep ones couched under it, for it’s a shadow of various, glorious (though strange) good things to come.
Well!—to return—after I had thrown my rusty cankered money into the poor wretch’s hands, I rode away from him, being filled with trembling, joy, and amazement, feeling the sparkles of a great glory arising up from under these ashes.
After this, I was made (by that divine power which dwelleth in this Ark or chest) to turn my horse head—whereupon I beheld this poor deformed wretch looking earnestly after me; and upon that, was made to put off my hat, and bow to him seven times, and was (at that strange posture) filled with trembling and amazement, some sparkles of glory arising up also from under this, as also from under these ashes; yet I rode back once more to the poor wretch, saying, Because I am a King I have done this, but you need not tell anyone.
The day’s our own.
This was done on the last LORD’S DAY, Septem. 30 in the year 1649, which is the year of the Lord’s recompenses for Zion, and the day of his Vengeance, the dreadful day of Judgment. But I have done (for the present) with this story, for it is the latter end of the year 1649.
COMMENTARY
The selection above is taken from a regularized-spelling version of Abiezer Coppe’s [First] Fiery Flying Roll (1649, according to Lady Day Dating; the Thomason Tract copy in the British Library [E.587 (13,14)] is dated January 4, 1650, and Thomason’s dates are very accurate).
Abiezer Coppe is often identified as a Ranter; it is important to remember that Ranter is a term of abuse that was given to certain radical Christians who believed that adherence to the Law was inessential for salvation (aka antinomians). Those who labeled Coppe and others like him Ranters constituted what John Carey describes as ‘authority’. To take at face value what Authority had (and has) to say about the Ranters (most notably Coppe, Laurence Clarkson, Joseph Salmon, Jacob Bauthumley …) would be akin to accepting as unbiased all that was said by Spanish Falangists about the Barcelona anarchists during and after the Spanish Civil War.
The emphasis on “sin” (in which the Ranters did not believe) in the description of them found in The Norton Anthology of English Literature Archive [on-line] could have been written by said Authority: “…extremists, like Abiezer Coppe (1619–1672) and his fellow Ranters, held that the elect, saved by grace and inhabited by God, are perfect, are incapable of sin, and have a religious duty, by sinning freely, frequently and publicly, to demonstrate their sanctity. Drawn largely from the ranks of apprentices, distressed urban artisans, and itinerants of various sorts, Ranters flourished from 1649 to about 1654: some cursed and blasphemed constantly, others drank to excess, smoked strong tobacco in their meetings, ran naked in the streets, and fornicated openly, often, and with multiple mates.”
Authority was right; what else is this spitting in the face of Calvinist proprieties besides apocalyptic antinomian class warfare? Of interest here too – and even more so in the present context – is Ranter language, which supplies the context for Ranter behavior. As The Norton puts it again, “They earned their name, Ranters, by their random, hectic, ‘inspired’ discourse, rooted heavily in the Bible and the experiential; the Ranter prophetic voice attempts to escape from the usual forms and conventions of language.” (The later relation to William Blake might also be noted.)
“‘My great desire (and that wherein I most delight) is to say and see nothing’ [Joseph Salmon, Heights in Depths and Depths in Heights, 1651]. The naming process becomes hollow, void of meaning, and for [Laurence] Clarkson [(1615–1667)], even the imagination, when employed, is nothing compared with the infinite state of knowing God within: To ‘arise into the Letter of the letters’ … is to outstep oneself.’” [Both quoted by Nigel Smith in the introduction to his A Collection of Ranter Writings from the 17th Century (London: Junction Books, 1983)]
Whereas Wittgenstein was forced (by philosophical convention?) to close his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus with “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent”, the Ranters refused such silence, and preferred to engage fully with “the breath’s transparent coinages” (Gustaf Sobin).
***Behold, behold, behold, I the eternal God, the Lord of Hosts, who am that mighty Leveler, am coming (yea, even at the doors) to level in good earnest, to level to some purpose, to level with a witness, to level the hills with the valleys, and to lay the mountains low.
High mountains! lofty cedars! it’s high time for you to enter into the rocks and to hide you in the dust for fear of the Lord and for the glory of his majesty. For the lofty looks of man shall be humbled and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the Lord ALONE shall be exalted in that day.***
Hills! Mountains! Cedars! Mighty men! Your breath is in your nostrils.
Those that have admired, adored, idolized, magnified, set you up, fought for you, ventured goods and good name, limb and life for you, shall cease from you.
You shall not at all be accounted of (not one of you), ye sturdy oaks who bow not down before eternal Majesty—Universal Love, whose service is perfect freedom, and who hath put down the mighty (remember, remember your forerunner), and who is putting down the mighty from their seats, and exalting them of low degree. ***
And the prime leveling is laying low the mountains and leveling the hills in Man.
The eternal God, the mighty Leveler is coming, yea come, even at the door; and what will you do in that day?***
Mine ears are filled brimful with cries of poor prisoners, Newgate, Ludgate cries (of late) are seldom out of mine ears. Those doleful cries, Bread, bread, bread for the Lord’s sake, pierce mine ears and heart, I can no longer forbear.
Wherefore hie you apace to all prisons in the kingdom.
Bow before those poor, nasty, lousy, ragged wretches, say to them, your humble servants, sirs (without a compliment), we let you go free and serve you, &c.
Do this or (as I live, saith the Lord) thine eyes (at least) shall be bored out, and thou carried captive into a strange land.
***Loose the bonds of wickedness, undo the heavy burdens, let the oppressed go free, and break every yoke. Deal thy bread to the hungry, and bring the poor that are cast out (both of houses and synagogues) to thy house.
Cover the naked: hide not thyself from thine own flesh, from a cripple, a rogue, a beggar, he’s thine own flesh. From a whoremonger, a thief, &c., he’s flesh of thy flesh, and his flesh and whoredom is flesh of thy flesh also, thine own flesh. Thou mayest have ten times more of each within thee than he that acts outwardly in either. Remember, turn not away thine eyes from thine OWN FLESH.
Give over, give over thy midnight mischief.
Let branding with the letter B alone.
Be no longer so horridly, hellishly, impudently, arrogantly wicked as to judge what is sin, what not, what evil and what not, what blasphemy and what not.
For thou and all thy reverend divines, so-called (who divine for tithes, hire, and money, and serve the Lord Jesus Christ for their own bellies), are ignorant of this one thing:
That sin and transgression is finished, it’s a mere riddle that they with all their human learning can never read.
Neither can they understand what pure honor is wrapped up in the king’s motto, Honi soit qui mal y pense. Evil to him that evil thinks.
Some there are who are accounted the offscouring of all things, who are Noble Knights of the Garter. Since which—they could see no evil, think no evil, do no evil, know no evil.
ALL is religion that they speak, and honor that they do.
* * *
A strange yet most true story; under which is couched that Lion whose roaring shall make all the beasts of the field tremble, and all the kingdoms of the earth quake. ***
Follow me, who last Lord’s day, Septem. 30, 1649, met him in open field, a most strange deformed man, clad with patched clouts; who looking wishly on me, mine eye pitied him; and my heart, or the day of the Lord, which burned as an oven in me, set my tongue on flame to speak to him, as followeth:
How now friend, art thou poor?
He answered, yea Master very poor.
Whereupon my bowels trembled within me, and quivering fell upon the worm-eaten chest (my corpse, I mean), that I could not hold a joint still. And my great love within me (who is the great God within that chest or corpse) was burning hot toward him; and made the lock-hole of the chest, to wit the mouth of the corpse, again to open, thus:
Art poor?
Yea, very poor, said he.
Whereupon the strange woman who flattereth with her lips and is subtle of heart said within me,
It’s a poor wretch, give him twopence.
But my EXCELLENCY and MAJESTY (in me) scorned her words, confounded her language, and kicked her out of his presence.
But immediately the WELL-FAVORED HARLOT, whom I carried not upon my horse behind me, but who rose up in me, said:
—It’s a poor wretch, give him sixpence and that’s enough for a squire or knight to give to one poor body.
—Besides (saith the holy Scripturian whore), he’s worse than an infidel that provides not for his own family.
—True love begins at home, &c.
—Thou and thy family are fed as the young ravens, strangely, though thou hast been a constant preacher, yet thou hast abhorred both tithes and hire; and thou knowest not aforehand who will give thee the worth of a penny.
—Have a care of the main chance.
And thus she flattereth with her lips and her words being smoother than oil; and her lips dropping as the honeycomb, I was fired to hasten my hand into my pocket; and, pulling out a shilling, said to the poor wretch,
Give me sixpence, here’s a shilling for thee.
He answered, I cannot, I have never a penny.
Whereupon I said, I would fain have given thee something if thou couldst have changed my money.
Then saith he, God bless you.
Whereupon with much reluctancy, with much love, and with amazement (of the right stamp) I turned my horse head from him, riding away. But a while after I was turned back (being advised by my Demilance) to wish him call for sixpence, which I would leave at the next town at one’s house, which I thought he might know—Sapphira-like, keeping back part.
But (as God judged me) I, as she, was struck down dead.
And behold the plague of God fell into my pocket, and the rust of my silver rose up against me and consumed my flesh as with fire; so that I and my money perished with me.
I being cast into that lake of fire and brimstone.
And all the money I had about me to a penny (though I thought through the instigation of my quondam Mistress to have reserved some, having rode about 8 miles, not eating one mouthful of bread that day, and had drunk but one small draught of drink, and had between 8 and 9 miles more to ride ere I came to my journey’s end; my horse being lame, the ways dirty, it raining all the way, and I not knowing what extraordinary occasion I might have for money). Yet (I say) the rust of my silver did so rise up in judgment against me, and burnt my flesh like fire; and the 5th of James thundered such an alarm in mine ears, that I was fain to cast all I had into the hands of him, whose visage was more marred than any man’s that I ever saw.
This is a true story, most true in the history.
It’s true also in the mystery.
And there are deep ones couched under it, for it’s a shadow of various, glorious (though strange) good things to come.
Well!—to return—after I had thrown my rusty cankered money into the poor wretch’s hands, I rode away from him, being filled with trembling, joy, and amazement, feeling the sparkles of a great glory arising up from under these ashes.
After this, I was made (by that divine power which dwelleth in this Ark or chest) to turn my horse head—whereupon I beheld this poor deformed wretch looking earnestly after me; and upon that, was made to put off my hat, and bow to him seven times, and was (at that strange posture) filled with trembling and amazement, some sparkles of glory arising up also from under this, as also from under these ashes; yet I rode back once more to the poor wretch, saying, Because I am a King I have done this, but you need not tell anyone.
The day’s our own.
This was done on the last LORD’S DAY, Septem. 30 in the year 1649, which is the year of the Lord’s recompenses for Zion, and the day of his Vengeance, the dreadful day of Judgment. But I have done (for the present) with this story, for it is the latter end of the year 1649.
COMMENTARY
The selection above is taken from a regularized-spelling version of Abiezer Coppe’s [First] Fiery Flying Roll (1649, according to Lady Day Dating; the Thomason Tract copy in the British Library [E.587 (13,14)] is dated January 4, 1650, and Thomason’s dates are very accurate).
Abiezer Coppe is often identified as a Ranter; it is important to remember that Ranter is a term of abuse that was given to certain radical Christians who believed that adherence to the Law was inessential for salvation (aka antinomians). Those who labeled Coppe and others like him Ranters constituted what John Carey describes as ‘authority’. To take at face value what Authority had (and has) to say about the Ranters (most notably Coppe, Laurence Clarkson, Joseph Salmon, Jacob Bauthumley …) would be akin to accepting as unbiased all that was said by Spanish Falangists about the Barcelona anarchists during and after the Spanish Civil War.
The emphasis on “sin” (in which the Ranters did not believe) in the description of them found in The Norton Anthology of English Literature Archive [on-line] could have been written by said Authority: “…extremists, like Abiezer Coppe (1619–1672) and his fellow Ranters, held that the elect, saved by grace and inhabited by God, are perfect, are incapable of sin, and have a religious duty, by sinning freely, frequently and publicly, to demonstrate their sanctity. Drawn largely from the ranks of apprentices, distressed urban artisans, and itinerants of various sorts, Ranters flourished from 1649 to about 1654: some cursed and blasphemed constantly, others drank to excess, smoked strong tobacco in their meetings, ran naked in the streets, and fornicated openly, often, and with multiple mates.”
Authority was right; what else is this spitting in the face of Calvinist proprieties besides apocalyptic antinomian class warfare? Of interest here too – and even more so in the present context – is Ranter language, which supplies the context for Ranter behavior. As The Norton puts it again, “They earned their name, Ranters, by their random, hectic, ‘inspired’ discourse, rooted heavily in the Bible and the experiential; the Ranter prophetic voice attempts to escape from the usual forms and conventions of language.” (The later relation to William Blake might also be noted.)
“‘My great desire (and that wherein I most delight) is to say and see nothing’ [Joseph Salmon, Heights in Depths and Depths in Heights, 1651]. The naming process becomes hollow, void of meaning, and for [Laurence] Clarkson [(1615–1667)], even the imagination, when employed, is nothing compared with the infinite state of knowing God within: To ‘arise into the Letter of the letters’ … is to outstep oneself.’” [Both quoted by Nigel Smith in the introduction to his A Collection of Ranter Writings from the 17th Century (London: Junction Books, 1983)]
Whereas Wittgenstein was forced (by philosophical convention?) to close his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus with “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent”, the Ranters refused such silence, and preferred to engage fully with “the breath’s transparent coinages” (Gustaf Sobin).
|
In advance of an official announcement, this is to report that Poems for the Millennium, volume 3: The University of California Book of Romantic and Postromantic Poetry, edited by myself and Jeffrey Robinson, will receive a 2010 American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. It’s my understanding that there will be thirteen such awards over all, including Amiri Baraka’s Digging: The Afro-American Soul of American Classical Music and Dave Eggers’ non-fiction narrative Zeitoun, as well as a lifetime achievement award for our old comrade-in-poetry Quincy Troupe.
The nominating statement for Poems for the Millennium reads as follows:
“Modernism rejected Romanticism in the way that one political leader rejects another—not because it is any different but because it wishes to win the same audience. This book demonstrates that the only thing that happened in Modernism was that a door opened onto still another aspect of the immense cultural experiment that Romanticism was—or as Rothenberg and Robinson might insist, as Romanticisms were (are). Central issues were what Rousseau called conscience de soi, self-awareness (but a self-awareness which deliberately did not separate itself from ‘world’), a new interest in ethnicity and the local, and a shift from thinking of poetry as a ‘craft’ and of the poet as ‘maker,’ to thinking of it as a provoker of consciousness—even a creator of consciousness—and of the poet as Bard, Shaman. To know the work so carefully, lovingly and brilliantly assembled in this book is to know ourselves in a new and newly conscious way.”
A note on the Before Columbus Foundation and the American Book Award is also worth including here. Founded in 1976 by Ishmael Reed, Victor Hernández Cruz, Rudolfo Anaya, and others, the Before Columbus Foundation’s long-term strategy has been to promote "a multi-ethnic” and “pan-cultural view of America,” especially through the promotion of “multicultural writers.” This led two years later to the establishment of the American Book Award, for which the following statement acts as a kind of official history and manifesto:
“America was intended to be a place where freedom from discrimination was the means by which equality was achieved. Today, American culture is the most diverse ever on the face of this earth. Recognizing literary excellence demands a panoramic perspective. A narrow view strictly to the mainstream ignores all the tributaries that feed it. American literature is not one tradition but all traditions. From those who have been here for thousands of years to the most recent immigrants, we are all contributing to American culture. We are all being translated into a new language. Everyone should know by now that Columbus did not ‘discover’ America. Rather, we are all still discovering America-and we must continue to do so.
“The Before Columbus Foundation was founded in 1976 as a nonprofit educational and service organization dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of contemporary American multicultural literature. The goals of BCF are to provide recognition and a wider audience for the wealth of cultural and ethnic diversity that constitutes American writing. BCF has always employed the term ‘multicultural’ not as a description of an aspect of American literature, but as a definition of all American literature. BCF believes that the ingredients of America’s so-called ‘melting pot’ are not only distinct, but integral to the unique constitution of American Culture-the whole comprises the parts.
“In 1978, the Board of Directors of BCF (authors, editors, and publishers representing the multicultural diversity of American Literature) decided that one of its programs should be a book award that would, for the first time, respect and honor excellence in American literature without restriction or bias with regard to race, sex, creed, cultural origin, size of press or ad budget, or even genre. There would be no requirements, restrictions, limitations, or second places. There would be no categories (i.e., no ‘best’ novel or only one ‘best’ of anything). The winners would not be selected by any set quota for diversity (nor would ‘mainstream white anglo male’ authors be excluded), because diversity happens naturally. Finally, there would be no losers, only winners. The only criteria would be outstanding contribution to American literature in the opinion of the judges.
“All winners are accorded equal standing. Their publishers are also to be honored for both their commitment to quality and their willingness to take the risks that accompany publishing outstanding books and authors that may not prove ‘cost-effective’ in the short run. There are special Award designations (such as Lifetime Achievement) for contributions to American literature beyond a recently published book. The American Book Awards Program is not associated with any industry group or trade organization. The American Book Awards offer no cash prize nor do they require any financial commitments from the authors or their publishers. The Award winners are nominated and selected by a panel of writers, editors, and publishers who also represent the diversity of American literary culture.”
An awards ceremony and reception will take place on Sunday, September 19th from 1-4 p.m. at the Koret Auditorium, San Francisco Main Library, 100 Larkin Street, San Francisco, CA. A reception will take place following the ceremony. Free and open to the public.
Addenda. The following is the complete list of award recipients, just released:
Amiri Baraka, Digging: The Afro-American Soul of American Classical Music (University of California Press)
Sherwin Bitsui, Flood Song (Copper Canyon Press)
Nancy Carnevale, A New Language, A New World: Italian Immigrants in the United States, 1890-1945 (University of Illinois Press)
Dave Eggers, Zeitoun (McSweeney’s/Vintage)
Sesshu Foster, World Ball Notebook (City Lights)
Stephen D. Gutierrez, Live from Fresno y Los (Bear Star Press)
Victor Lavalle, The Big Machine (Spiegel & Grau)
François Mandeville, This Is What They Say, translated from the Chipewyan by Ron Scollon (University of Washington Press)
Bich Minh Nguyen, Short Girls (Viking)
Franklin Rosemont and Robin D.G. Kelley, editors, Black, Brown & Beige: Surrealist Writings from Africa and the Diaspora (University of Texas)
Jerome Rothenberg and Jeffrey C. Robinson, editors, Poems for the Millennium: Volume Three: The University of California Book of Romantic & Postromantic Poetry (University of California Press)
Kathryn Waddell Takara, Pacific Raven: Hawai`i Poems (Pacific Raven Press)
Pamela Uschuk, Crazy Love: New Poems (Wings Press)
Lifetime Achievement:
Quincy Troupe
Katha Pollitt
The nominating statement for Poems for the Millennium reads as follows:
“Modernism rejected Romanticism in the way that one political leader rejects another—not because it is any different but because it wishes to win the same audience. This book demonstrates that the only thing that happened in Modernism was that a door opened onto still another aspect of the immense cultural experiment that Romanticism was—or as Rothenberg and Robinson might insist, as Romanticisms were (are). Central issues were what Rousseau called conscience de soi, self-awareness (but a self-awareness which deliberately did not separate itself from ‘world’), a new interest in ethnicity and the local, and a shift from thinking of poetry as a ‘craft’ and of the poet as ‘maker,’ to thinking of it as a provoker of consciousness—even a creator of consciousness—and of the poet as Bard, Shaman. To know the work so carefully, lovingly and brilliantly assembled in this book is to know ourselves in a new and newly conscious way.”
A note on the Before Columbus Foundation and the American Book Award is also worth including here. Founded in 1976 by Ishmael Reed, Victor Hernández Cruz, Rudolfo Anaya, and others, the Before Columbus Foundation’s long-term strategy has been to promote "a multi-ethnic” and “pan-cultural view of America,” especially through the promotion of “multicultural writers.” This led two years later to the establishment of the American Book Award, for which the following statement acts as a kind of official history and manifesto:
“America was intended to be a place where freedom from discrimination was the means by which equality was achieved. Today, American culture is the most diverse ever on the face of this earth. Recognizing literary excellence demands a panoramic perspective. A narrow view strictly to the mainstream ignores all the tributaries that feed it. American literature is not one tradition but all traditions. From those who have been here for thousands of years to the most recent immigrants, we are all contributing to American culture. We are all being translated into a new language. Everyone should know by now that Columbus did not ‘discover’ America. Rather, we are all still discovering America-and we must continue to do so.
“The Before Columbus Foundation was founded in 1976 as a nonprofit educational and service organization dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of contemporary American multicultural literature. The goals of BCF are to provide recognition and a wider audience for the wealth of cultural and ethnic diversity that constitutes American writing. BCF has always employed the term ‘multicultural’ not as a description of an aspect of American literature, but as a definition of all American literature. BCF believes that the ingredients of America’s so-called ‘melting pot’ are not only distinct, but integral to the unique constitution of American Culture-the whole comprises the parts.
“In 1978, the Board of Directors of BCF (authors, editors, and publishers representing the multicultural diversity of American Literature) decided that one of its programs should be a book award that would, for the first time, respect and honor excellence in American literature without restriction or bias with regard to race, sex, creed, cultural origin, size of press or ad budget, or even genre. There would be no requirements, restrictions, limitations, or second places. There would be no categories (i.e., no ‘best’ novel or only one ‘best’ of anything). The winners would not be selected by any set quota for diversity (nor would ‘mainstream white anglo male’ authors be excluded), because diversity happens naturally. Finally, there would be no losers, only winners. The only criteria would be outstanding contribution to American literature in the opinion of the judges.
“All winners are accorded equal standing. Their publishers are also to be honored for both their commitment to quality and their willingness to take the risks that accompany publishing outstanding books and authors that may not prove ‘cost-effective’ in the short run. There are special Award designations (such as Lifetime Achievement) for contributions to American literature beyond a recently published book. The American Book Awards Program is not associated with any industry group or trade organization. The American Book Awards offer no cash prize nor do they require any financial commitments from the authors or their publishers. The Award winners are nominated and selected by a panel of writers, editors, and publishers who also represent the diversity of American literary culture.”
An awards ceremony and reception will take place on Sunday, September 19th from 1-4 p.m. at the Koret Auditorium, San Francisco Main Library, 100 Larkin Street, San Francisco, CA. A reception will take place following the ceremony. Free and open to the public.
Addenda. The following is the complete list of award recipients, just released:
Amiri Baraka, Digging: The Afro-American Soul of American Classical Music (University of California Press)
Sherwin Bitsui, Flood Song (Copper Canyon Press)
Nancy Carnevale, A New Language, A New World: Italian Immigrants in the United States, 1890-1945 (University of Illinois Press)
Dave Eggers, Zeitoun (McSweeney’s/Vintage)
Sesshu Foster, World Ball Notebook (City Lights)
Stephen D. Gutierrez, Live from Fresno y Los (Bear Star Press)
Victor Lavalle, The Big Machine (Spiegel & Grau)
François Mandeville, This Is What They Say, translated from the Chipewyan by Ron Scollon (University of Washington Press)
Bich Minh Nguyen, Short Girls (Viking)
Franklin Rosemont and Robin D.G. Kelley, editors, Black, Brown & Beige: Surrealist Writings from Africa and the Diaspora (University of Texas)
Jerome Rothenberg and Jeffrey C. Robinson, editors, Poems for the Millennium: Volume Three: The University of California Book of Romantic & Postromantic Poetry (University of California Press)
Kathryn Waddell Takara, Pacific Raven: Hawai`i Poems (Pacific Raven Press)
Pamela Uschuk, Crazy Love: New Poems (Wings Press)
Lifetime Achievement:
Quincy Troupe
Katha Pollitt
|
geometry
circling
this lake
to left
counter
clockwise
~
log—
hollow
long time
now
down
to this
empty
skin
~
fallen trunk
my path’s one
straight stretch
~
beaver dam—
farther on
fire circle
!
~
wood
pecker
yes
way
up
beaver-
girdled
oak
~
burrow—
room for
5 words
~
beaver
blue heron
bald eagle
& you
~
beavers too—
chisel-tooth’d
pen
~
that
beaver
dam’s
human
look—
~
cdnt do better
than this beaver dam
yrself
~
but this
beaver dam’s
conical
symmetry—
this beaver dam’s
geometry
~
beaver dam—
ought to
bathe today!
~
adding 9 words
to this beaver dam
here’s a poem
-- john martone
november, 2009
NOTE. For some years now, John Martone has been an indomitable worker in the pursuit of poetry, whose autonomous publications, many of them under the chosen logo of tel-let have come out in simple handstitched versions and since 2005 in an ongoing on-line format. In his own accounting: “ [Tel-let] began in 1987 as an extension of correspondence among poets. Over 100 numbers have appeared, originally in a simple 8.5/11 side-stapled format. During this time, the range of formats has grown, but the impulse has remained to provide a meeting place for exiles. The current print form reaches upwards of 100 correspondents in the US, UK, Canada, Germany, Japan, Korea, and Slovenia. Poets represented include Bob Arnold ° Ed Baker ° Michael Basinski ° MJ Bender ° Cid Corman ° Simon Cutts ° Larry Eigner ° Theodore Enslin ° Clive Faust ° Robert Fitterman ° Bob Grumman ° Gary Hotham ° Stefan Hyner ° Karl Kempton ° Robert Lax ° David Levi Strauss ° John Levy ° Rupert Loydell ° Giovanni Malito ° Lissa McLaughlin ° David Miller ° Peter Money ° Barbara Moraff ° Frank Samperi ° George Quasha ° Jerome Rothenberg ° John Vieira ° Phyllis Walsh ° Scott Watson.”
In the present blogger format, a few of the poems presented above have had to do without occasional indentations, but it’s my hope that the fineness of the work comes through in spite of this. He remains throughout our greatest living miniaturist -- his art a scaled-down work of nearly epic dimensions. (J.R.)
circling
this lake
to left
counter
clockwise
~
log—
hollow
long time
now
down
to this
empty
skin
~
fallen trunk
my path’s one
straight stretch
~
beaver dam—
farther on
fire circle
!
~
wood
pecker
yes
way
up
beaver-
girdled
oak
~
burrow—
room for
5 words
~
beaver
blue heron
bald eagle
& you
~
beavers too—
chisel-tooth’d
pen
~
that
beaver
dam’s
human
look—
~
cdnt do better
than this beaver dam
yrself
~
but this
beaver dam’s
conical
symmetry—
this beaver dam’s
geometry
~
beaver dam—
ought to
bathe today!
~
adding 9 words
to this beaver dam
here’s a poem
-- john martone
november, 2009
NOTE. For some years now, John Martone has been an indomitable worker in the pursuit of poetry, whose autonomous publications, many of them under the chosen logo of tel-let have come out in simple handstitched versions and since 2005 in an ongoing on-line format. In his own accounting: “ [Tel-let] began in 1987 as an extension of correspondence among poets. Over 100 numbers have appeared, originally in a simple 8.5/11 side-stapled format. During this time, the range of formats has grown, but the impulse has remained to provide a meeting place for exiles. The current print form reaches upwards of 100 correspondents in the US, UK, Canada, Germany, Japan, Korea, and Slovenia. Poets represented include Bob Arnold ° Ed Baker ° Michael Basinski ° MJ Bender ° Cid Corman ° Simon Cutts ° Larry Eigner ° Theodore Enslin ° Clive Faust ° Robert Fitterman ° Bob Grumman ° Gary Hotham ° Stefan Hyner ° Karl Kempton ° Robert Lax ° David Levi Strauss ° John Levy ° Rupert Loydell ° Giovanni Malito ° Lissa McLaughlin ° David Miller ° Peter Money ° Barbara Moraff ° Frank Samperi ° George Quasha ° Jerome Rothenberg ° John Vieira ° Phyllis Walsh ° Scott Watson.”
In the present blogger format, a few of the poems presented above have had to do without occasional indentations, but it’s my hope that the fineness of the work comes through in spite of this. He remains throughout our greatest living miniaturist -- his art a scaled-down work of nearly epic dimensions. (J.R.)
|
Milton’s declaration, right from the start, was that he was a painter who had given up painting in favor of poetry & that he thought that I & my fellow poets should now give up poetry in favor of painting. I took him at his word – or pretended to – & for a part of the next year I busied myself with photomontage or collage & even got into painting for a spell, when Diane & I hid away for a week on a small island (Picton) in the St. Lawrence River. My commitment to painting wasn’t very deep of course, but I learned something from Milton & from the actual feel of doing it, the act (however brief for me) of being in it. I wrote about it too, as follows, though I think it got into my poetry in other ways as well:
I sweat too much, I have
a long way left
& I would like to know death
not as this fear
but as my hand touched form
when painting
opening, the shadow of a color
on my arm
[from “Three Interiors” in Between, 1963]
But what was much more important for me was Milton’s work & presence – a ferocious devotion to painting & to whatever else it was that drove his own work. He was uncompromising & quickly dismissive of what he didn’t love – a temperament in that sense very different from my own – but his loves were also powerful & contagious. It was his enthusiasm, I know, that first turned me to the paintings of Arshile Gorky & led to a book-length gathering of mine I called The Gorky Poems. I didn’t dedicate the book to Milton, as possibly I should have, but I have a sense that I borrowed from him a certain ferocity – something of his rant, I thought, more than of mine or Gorky’s, or something in the mix along with ours:
What men!
What stone in their voices!
What glass in their blood!
What iron! What flesh!
What bright eyes!
This stone, this iron
in a dream
Still worse when no one dreams it.
[from “The Pirate (II),” in The Gorky Poems]
I was also deeply moved by Milton’s poetry, to which my first response, as often the case in those days, was to publish a group of his poems in the magazine I was then publishing & editing, Poems from the Floating World. I had an idea, even then, of the ways in which certain artists had crossed or blurred the line between poetry & painting (or between poetry & art, to put it that way) – Arp, Picabia, Kandinsky, Ernst, among the ones whom I was then pursuing, & Schwitters & Picasso the ones I would pursue much later. In Milton’s four small books – Up & Down, followed by Journal of Voyages 1, 2, & 3, all published consecutively in 1961 – I found an equivalent shift from one genre to another. It was not a question of mixing genres, which began to interest me in work by other poets & artists who were then emerging, but of carrying the intensity he had lavished on painting into a new medium – that of words. That he did it instantly & with equivalent grace & fury astonished me, as did his natural & credible assumption of the poet’s [bardic] voice:
I release my poems upon cities
upon cities
a human soul circles
towers of smoke
lance the sky
& again, from a place of anxiety shared by many a poet/artist “in advance of techne”:
yellow fingers scratch showers of sweat
I make a noise in my throat
black be blacker be feared
fear teaches poetry
whose double pin hooks deep into all of us
Some of that fear, I came to think, was a Jewish thing – at least that image came up very strongly when he & Pat Passlof moved from the East Village into the abandoned synagogue they bought, circa 1963, on Forsythe Street. I had begun to work, however tentatively, toward Poland/1931, which would be my attempt to resuscitate Jewish “identity” & simultaneously to put it into question, so the synagogue (one of many in what had been the heavily Jewish Lower East Side) was a point of fascination for me. It was for him also, something that he described to me as a “return” – to a place where he could go & “be a kike again.” That was exactly how he put it, though by the time he got there, Forsythe Street had turned heavily hispanic & was – their block at least – a dangerous part of a notoriously dangerous neighborhood. In the midst of that Milton & Pat turned their synagogue into a green paradise, filled with plants & birds, a workplace & oasis in a hostile world.
Our last dinner at their place – before Milton got his own synagogue on Eldridge Street & the neighborhood turned decidedly Chinese – was one that still stands out in recollection. It was late into the evening & we were sitting in the sunken part of the house, a large high room below street level but with tall windows facing onto Forsythe Street. There had been some talk about drug pushers & other local dangers, all of which Milton put down in favor of his sense of a “return.” It was in the middle of that talk or soon thereafter – with dinner, I think, already over – that we heard several loud bangs from the street outside & looked up – startled – to see a body, illuminated by a street light, dropping to the ground. We continued to watch in silence as other murky figures loomed up & the rotating colored lights of a squad car came on the scene with siren blasting.
I hardly remember what else we saw – an ambulance at some point & the movements & voices of shadowy spectators after the fact. Finally the street emptied out & there were no sounds coming back at us. No one seemed ready to say anything, the rest of us looking toward Milton to see how he would respond. There was a long pause – very long – & Milton then said – to no one in particular I thought: “I have never felt so safe in my whole life.”
I treasure that moment in memory, as I treasure his art & the devotion he gave to it even when he turned from it in anger. That anger I think never left him but I would also like to believe that he maintained alongside it the determination to be the master of his life & death against all odds. He will be remembered for the beauty & reality that his art brought into the world, & in my mind at least he will remain a real poet, a fellow poet, as he was when I met him back in some mutually vanished past.
Jerome Rothenberg
Encinitas, California
July 2004
|
Advice Received
Don’t ask too many questions.
Don’t ask questions about religion.
Don’t take notes in front of people.
If someone is chopping wood
don’t just stand there.
Dialogue
- I could tell you a story.
It’s the story told to all boys when they are initiated.
Do you want me to tell it? -
- If you want to tell it go ahead. -
- Don’t say that.
Say you want me to tell the story.
The Hunter’s Wife
1
She looks out the window
the snow is falling
her husband went hunting for elk
the boy went along too
a neighbor thinks he saw them at Red Hill
she hasn’t seen the sun all day.
2
She was out in the woods
gathering pine nuts
and there
under a tree
was a fawn
the fawn said
- Tie me up. –
3
The men left her in camp for the day
a wounded buck
charged right into the fire
she hit him over the head with a frying pan.
When Only The Breath Is Left
On the third day after her grandson died
she thought she heard his
transistor radio playing
but that wasn’t even in the house
it was already
broken and buried.
On the fourth night
the door was left open for her grandson
she dreamed of masked dancers
in a row
she heard the cry of the deer
they all walked away
he was the one in the middle.
The Fire in Your Fireplace
You started it right up
with one match, it must be
your aunt loves you
it was quiet for awhile
but now
listen to that fire!
The flames go straight up
it roars!
Someone is hungry, it must be your
great-grandparents
every time you eat
take a little bread
a little meat
throw it in the fire, say
- Great-grandparents!
Eat! -
That’s the shortest prayer there is.
While Eating Mutton
Here are the eyes
but that means weak eyes
here is the fat around the eyes
but that means getting tears in the wind
here is the tongue
but that means getting thirsty all the time
here is the brain
but that means snoring all night
here is the heart
but that means forgetfulness
here is a bone with marrow in it
but that means hangnails
now here is the meat on the palate, with this
I’ll be able to eat cactus fruit.
Spiders
1
A spider walked across the table
he lit a match and burned it
then he said
- Bluebird!
That handsome Bluebird!
He’s the one who killed you!
Shrivel up his eyes!
2
A spider bit the girl
there were big red bumps down her arm
but her aunt knew the right medicine
it was the juice of the burnt Bluebird.
NOTE. Dennis Tedlock’s work as one of the co-founders of contemporary ethnopoetics is internationally known & regarded as a singular achievement of twentieth & twenty-first century poetry. By the time of our first meeting in 1970 Tedlock had already started his own pioneering work in what I soon came to call “total translation” – the still remarkable presentation in Finding the Center of spoken Zuni narrative performances as lineated compositions. Afterwards, in the manner of true poetic innovators (& with a scholar’s skills to back that up), he created a new translation of the Mayan classic, Popol Vuh, that drew on the knowledge of contemporary Mayan speakers & his own study of Mayan language & culture. This was followed by his translation of the ancient Mayan drama, Rabinal Achi, & most recently his 2000 Years of Mayan Poetry has exposed for us the full range of Mayan writing from the earliest hieroglyphic inscriptions to the works of later writers using the Roman alphabet. Sometimes overshadowed by these groundbreaking works, Tedlock’s own poetry forms a continuum with them, as in these poems, informed by his years of association with the Zunis in New Mexico & first published in Alcheringa, the journal of ethnopoetics that he & I published & edited in the 1970s. (J.R.)
Further poems by Dennis Tedlock will soon appear here.
Don’t ask too many questions.
Don’t ask questions about religion.
Don’t take notes in front of people.
If someone is chopping wood
don’t just stand there.
Dialogue
- I could tell you a story.
It’s the story told to all boys when they are initiated.
Do you want me to tell it? -
- If you want to tell it go ahead. -
- Don’t say that.
Say you want me to tell the story.
The Hunter’s Wife
1
She looks out the window
the snow is falling
her husband went hunting for elk
the boy went along too
a neighbor thinks he saw them at Red Hill
she hasn’t seen the sun all day.
2
She was out in the woods
gathering pine nuts
and there
under a tree
was a fawn
the fawn said
- Tie me up. –
3
The men left her in camp for the day
a wounded buck
charged right into the fire
she hit him over the head with a frying pan.
When Only The Breath Is Left
On the third day after her grandson died
she thought she heard his
transistor radio playing
but that wasn’t even in the house
it was already
broken and buried.
On the fourth night
the door was left open for her grandson
she dreamed of masked dancers
in a row
she heard the cry of the deer
they all walked away
he was the one in the middle.
The Fire in Your Fireplace
You started it right up
with one match, it must be
your aunt loves you
it was quiet for awhile
but now
listen to that fire!
The flames go straight up
it roars!
Someone is hungry, it must be your
great-grandparents
every time you eat
take a little bread
a little meat
throw it in the fire, say
- Great-grandparents!
Eat! -
That’s the shortest prayer there is.
While Eating Mutton
Here are the eyes
but that means weak eyes
here is the fat around the eyes
but that means getting tears in the wind
here is the tongue
but that means getting thirsty all the time
here is the brain
but that means snoring all night
here is the heart
but that means forgetfulness
here is a bone with marrow in it
but that means hangnails
now here is the meat on the palate, with this
I’ll be able to eat cactus fruit.
Spiders
1
A spider walked across the table
he lit a match and burned it
then he said
- Bluebird!
That handsome Bluebird!
He’s the one who killed you!
Shrivel up his eyes!
2
A spider bit the girl
there were big red bumps down her arm
but her aunt knew the right medicine
it was the juice of the burnt Bluebird.
NOTE. Dennis Tedlock’s work as one of the co-founders of contemporary ethnopoetics is internationally known & regarded as a singular achievement of twentieth & twenty-first century poetry. By the time of our first meeting in 1970 Tedlock had already started his own pioneering work in what I soon came to call “total translation” – the still remarkable presentation in Finding the Center of spoken Zuni narrative performances as lineated compositions. Afterwards, in the manner of true poetic innovators (& with a scholar’s skills to back that up), he created a new translation of the Mayan classic, Popol Vuh, that drew on the knowledge of contemporary Mayan speakers & his own study of Mayan language & culture. This was followed by his translation of the ancient Mayan drama, Rabinal Achi, & most recently his 2000 Years of Mayan Poetry has exposed for us the full range of Mayan writing from the earliest hieroglyphic inscriptions to the works of later writers using the Roman alphabet. Sometimes overshadowed by these groundbreaking works, Tedlock’s own poetry forms a continuum with them, as in these poems, informed by his years of association with the Zunis in New Mexico & first published in Alcheringa, the journal of ethnopoetics that he & I published & edited in the 1970s. (J.R.)
Further poems by Dennis Tedlock will soon appear here.
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