Poet of today (John Berryman).

Published on by taylor mardis katz1 Comment

The excerpt below is from a poem entitled “In Loving Memory of the Late Author of Dream Songs.” It was written by John Berryman’s good friend, William Meredith. William Meredith taught at Connecticut College for many years, and when he died our school held a memorial for him. I  picked up Richard Wilbur at his house in Connecticut in my 1998 Toyota Camry LXE so that he could read a poem at Meredith’s memorial service. His house was in the beautiful Connecticut countryside, and I was a little early so a woman who I assumed was his caretaker had me wait in the sitting room. It was late autumn. I sat on a very stiff couch and his Siamese cats entered while I waited, upright on the sofa: two of them. They stared into my soul with their four blue eyes. Richard Wilbur was much easier to be around than his cats. We talked about weather and dangerous curves of the highway, and he told me a story that took place in Key West, and he told me another story where the punch line involved some sentence which proved a poet he admired knew Latin even better than he did. His voice was very soft and I did not mention that I wrote poetry, or that I had found poetry relatively recently and now knew I had to study it and  keep writing poems. I stole a line from something he said to me during that car ride and put it in a poem, but I changed the phrase by taking out a word, and I didn’t credit him, though there’s an invisible footnote there that only I can see. I can show you to that poem, it’s in my thesis.  It’s a love poem, but that doesn’t help you much: they all are, especially the ones since the thesis.

Do we wave back now, or what do we do?
You were never reluctant to instruct.
I do what’s in character, I look for things
to praise on the riverbanks and I praise them.
We are all relicts, of some great joy, wearing black,
but this book is full of marvelous songs.
Don’t let us contract your dread recidivism
and start falling from our own iron railings.
Wave from the fat book again, make us wave back.

We are all relicts of some great joy, some of us even newer than relics–some of us perhaps just made.

Poem fragment (James Schuyler).

Published on by taylor mardis katzLeave a comment

(From the 48-page poem “The Morning of the Poem,” a poem of epic chitchat, a poem of window-watching and beverages and plants and seasons, which I read on the airplane and adored noisily in my cramped airplane seat.)

So many lousy poets
So few good ones
What’s the problem?
No innate love for
Words, no sense of
How the thing said
Is in the words, how
The words are themselves
The thing said: love,
Mistake, promise, auto
Crack-up, color, petal,
The color in the petal
Is merely light
And that’s refraction:
A word, that’s the poem.
A blackish-red nasturtium.
Roses shed on
A kitchen floor, a
Cool and scented bed
To loll and roll on,
I wish I had a rose
Or butterfly tattoo:
But where? Here on
My arm or my inner
Thigh, small, where
Only the happy few
might see it? I’ll
never forget that
Moving man, naked to
The waist a prize-
Fight buckle on his
Belt (Panama) and
Flying high on each
Pectoral a bluebird
On tan sky skin. I
Wanted to eat him up:
No such luck. East
28th Street, 1950.
How the roses pass.

Home poem (mine).

Published on by taylor mardis katzLeave a comment

An Almanac
after Schuyler

The yeasty closet where
the wine is kept. The
greasy iron skillet in its
allday dress of fat. The
soap that’s lengthened
by dilution. The sole
Haggadah on the shelf
above the mugs. It’s
illustrated. The empty
bourbon bottles staunch
in the last days of their
labels. The Buddha’s
mounted on a spoke.
The wok utensils, the
tipping photos on the
stained refrigerator’s
doors. Four avocadoes
in the highest hanging
basket. Four chairs of
lusty patterned velvet.
The teapot with its half
-filled silver belly. The
poppy flowers sipping
pertly in a liquor glass.
The books that wait for
us below the toaster.
The drying rag strung
through the grip of
the refrigerator. Dried
wildflowers in a tea
decanter atop the tallest
cabinets. There’s tape left
on the window from the
flier for the party. The
doubled over tablecloth
with specks of soup and
breakfast. Three pens
from which to choose
from. The pinkish salt
and labeled pepper. A
clock that’s impossible
to hook back on its
nail. It’s slow. We’re
slow to change its
battery. The tiny bowls
of seeds that could
be planted. The tapestry
of red batik: naked
woman with the stars
that mingle with her
hair (the artist is in
residence). The wire
rooster on the wall above
the table. The wooden
bowl of over twenty
oranges. The burner
knobs all turned to
OFF. The blue bread
bag hanging from a
tiny cabinet knob, full
of plastics to reuse. The
folded-open magazines
in piles by the window.
Peacock feathers fanning
from the shelves of
spices. Bananas green
as limes. Olive oil leaned
against the vinegar because
they’re standing on a
towel. And another
bottle joins them. At least
one door or drawer
remains ajar. A wooden
bowl for farm-picked
lunches drying in the
rack. And all the other
drying bowls. And forks
and used containers.
The canister of coffee,
salmon pink with its
spoon stained brown.
I can smell it when I
walk into the bathroom.
The tiny colored flags
above the kitchen door.
The blinds that loosen
but we tighten them back
up. The skinny bathroom
door. The red tin colored
like a phone booth for
change found on the
floor. Knives stiff and
at attention on their
magnet, and the print
of wood and ink and
the cloaklike steam
that coats the windows
in the winter when
there’s roasting beets
or casserole. If the
sun is coming in, it’s
early. If both the blinds
are closed then the
golden lock is locked

Books; a quote; photographs. Poetry.

Published on by taylor mardis katz1 Comment

Somehow, even after 7 hours in the studio today (4 art books due very, very soon), I still love books and writing so much that it’s hard for me to express it in words. I’ll try something James Dickey said:

What you have to realize when you write poetry, or if you love poetry, is that poetry is just naturally the greatest god damn thing that ever was in the whole universe.

And then there’s this book I was given, a tiny little thing, with tiny poems letterpressed into its pages, poems I feel I almost wrote myself (and after taking this book arts class, I actually COULD make this book myself [!!]):

I can’t seem to write anything small these days. I am long-winded, full of things to say, full of poems despite how much I must do in the realm of schoolwork every day to insure that by the time I board a plane to Nashville, on May 11th, everything will be finished. It will be gloriously bound, pressed, researched, written, edited, stapled, sent, dropped off, handed in, handed over, FINISHED!