Februari 08, 2017
>> so, tonight's-- um, i'm dave cope, poet laureate of grand rapids, blah-blah-blah...(laughing) it's a nice platformto get some things done, i guess is what i'd say. um, welcome. tonight, we have the first three readers in the conference series, and i'm really pleasedto start with these three 'cause they are all very old friends. we've needled each other in the ribsand giggled together for decades,
in some cases. and it's a pleasure, because i won'thave to do usual academic thing, which i probably won't do anyway. so, we'll startat the beginning-- kim wyngarden, who is a long-timeprofessor here at the college, teaching creative writing. i'll just kind ofgive you a take on-- you know, i edited the anthology of grand rapids' poets, which we're gonna publish--uh, "song of the owashtanong."
and when kim sent me her stuff, it was really interesting as a manuscript, because a lot of times,people send a "greatest hits" or they will send poemsthat move them right now or something like that,and it becomes sort of a... "discreet series,"as they would call it. but when i looked at kim's stuff, it was almost as thoughthere was a journey going on. each poem stood by itself,
but i got a feeling of a visionthat was moving all the time, and that in order to get a picture as to what it was, you had to see the whole thing, if that makes sense. and i've always loved that in poets, when they can be both-- each poem stands by itself, but it also is part of another thing whichis a kind of journey which cannot be reduced to narrative, if that makes sense to everybody. yeah, it's whatthey used to call--
oh, god, the word escapes me now, so we'll skip it. it's one of those academic terms. so, without further ado... kim, it's all yours. (applause) >> well, it is april, andapril is national poetry month, and it's good to see a number of you here, and i want to especiallythank my students for coming because they're jugglingbetween research papers
and final projects and so forth. so, thank you for taking the time to come. the first poem that i'm going to read is called "a cold war-- in four frames," and i want to give you a little bit of background information, or a footnote,to the poem. in 1990, south ossetians declaredindependence from georgia. they called themselves"the republic of south ossetia." the georgian government responded
by abolishing south ossetia's autonomy and trying to take the region by force. and the poem is "a cold war-- in four frames." one. a shoe from a pilegathered for the displaced outside a buildingmarked with a red cross, fits the right foot of the little girl from south ossetia who can't find her mother in this food line divided by soldiers and tanks in the embersof this five-day war.
two. a woman dressed in white at the front of the line ladles milkmade from powder into metal cups and looks into the faceof each person she serves as if to say, "this milk will sustain you, "will carry you back to your home, "your family, your people," most of whom no longer warmtheir bodies with beating hearts, but lie blood-belly up, faces to the sun,
and eyes open to wait for a proper burial. three. a soldier halters up his gunin the sling on his shoulder and takes pleasure in the way fate motions his finger on the trigger, and syncs the posture of the people who would still be proud, except they have seen the tear of flesh and the explosion of windows, the distance a wall will shatter, less than a second after the grenade launcher splits a bright morning.
four. a wind blows hard and cold tonight, flaps the side of a makeshift tent of men's work shirts, bed sheets, and a woman's skirt. the spirit of the girl's mother wanes and appears, then floats through the doorway of the tent and settles above the dirt floor. if she listens quietly, she will hear the voice of a cricket and the hum of a sad lullaby revived by a little girl
wrapped in memory,beautiful and affirming. "to wake to distance." he stalls the old pickup in the gravel lot of the nursing home, tires spit stones and parallel linesthat follow him onto the highway, two lines that will never meet again in earthly time. he is so relieved to leave her, his wife who no longer recognizes him, though they have shared the same bed and worked the same orchard, his wide hip to her slight hip for almost 5o years--
on the highway, relief becomes grief while he watches overhead the v-formation of geese heading south for the winter. he rolls down the window to take ina full cleansing breath of air, the heartbeat under his denim shirt going wild. he knows his feet and hands all of his life working the earth that his mind is beyond understanding where she has gone in her owncomplicated map of the brain. when he pulls into the drive of their farmhouse,
a cold wind rushes under the truck. he does not have to read the almanacto know that winter will come early and alone this year. he feels no hurry to go into the house, the oily light of the windows peering back at him. it has been months since she was there at the kitchen table, her smile lifting him lightlyinto the bliss of quiet evening, the orchard behind them framing their entire history together, and savings now spent on a room
and nurses who call her by a nameshe is sure belongs to the woman in the chair next to her. when he goes to sleep at night, sadness pulls the covers up tight around his neck, a sadness that leaves him wonderingwho she will think he is tomorrow, after he has opened his eyesto the empty space in their bed. the next poem that i'm going to read is called "master and man." it's the most recent poem that i've written. and i've flipped the rolesin this poem.
the dog has become the kind master of the man. it's called "master and man." the dog pulls on his mukluks and red stocking cap and gathers with a dexterous paw the expandable lead at the front door to take the gray-bearded man for a walk. outside, snow falls, the sun sets early on these lonely winter eves, a single strand of christmas lights glazes the front window of the only other house left on the block.
at russo's pond, the old man sniffsat a yellow circle in the snow, pulls at the lead and lifts his leg to pee under sickle-shaped stars. the dog noses the man's hand, as if to say, "yes, that's it, good boy." crossing the street to the lumber yard, windows dark and spotted with sawdust. the old man's ears perk, his swanky rump swags back and forth when he smells the scent of a skunk and runs for the tail as it closes in the lens of a woodpile.
such is there routineevery evening about the time when the old man misses the womanwho brought him tea after dinner, read the comics aloud, when his eyes began to seeclouds on every horizon. before turning to go back inside,the master pauses with the man. together, they look up at the moonand a howl and a bark breaks out. the sound of sleigh bells. many of the poems that i write are persona poems, and this is a good example of a persona poem.
it's called "husks," and it's written from the point of view of a young adolescent boytrying to come to terms with what's happened in our economy, with so much unemploymentand foreclosures, families that have to separate and move apart in order to get jobs. and the poem is in the form of a letter that he sends to his father. it's called "husks." nothing new to report today. sun blazes crops in the fields, curled into husks,
and that dumb dog up the road was killed while running alongside miller's truck. i tried phoning you to say,"there's nothing new happening here." the woman on the other endsaid you were loading a semi for a delivery to houston. lucy's dad lost his job--we were expecting that. you quit before they could let you go, that's how i understand it. dad, i see the red-winged blackbird on the fence post. he comes every day in the late afternoon,
an anecdote to the humof wilfred's tractor. i've managed to get a ride to school with a neighbor next door. that's news, i suppose. mother worries less about gas prices, and i'm coming home at the end of the school day with a sack dinner-- an apple, a cheese sandwich, and a juice box. i miss you. grandma's glad you found work, and mum says you've startedtalking again in short sentences,
saying words like "maybe" and "we'll see." let me know when you'll be home for a visit. i'll have the yard mowed this time. i've mended the cracked window in the garage with tape. it no longer rattles when strong windsblow in from the fields. the next poem i'm going to read iscalled "the summer without rain," and i always date my poems, and this poem was written in august of 2007, and it was a summer without rain.
i remember setting the sprinklernot so much to water the grass but to water the birds. and it was not more than five minutesor so of having the front sprinkler on, when the sparrows would descend, and i'm not exaggeratingor even lying here, but they would line up in a row in front of a bowl in the concrete that had filled with water fromthe sprinkler, and they would drink. and i thought, "those birds are morecivilized than most human beings."
it's called "the summer without rain." in a heat that keeps children indoors and the yellow cat lays under the spirea, the sparrow follows the grace arcof the lawn sprinkler all summer, into the puddle made just deep enoughinside a circle of cracked concrete on the sizzling sidewalkoutside my front door. a family of sparrows follows. they line up one small bird behind the other without a bully in the flock for their dip in the bowl of water.
wings fanned and flashing, a bargain that the heat of summerwill not singe their flight. i watch this semblance of order, made more solemn by the shared relief that often comes with water, while a clan of farmersjust miles from here stand like stalks in a cornfieldof dried and cracked furrows in the summer without rain. "blue river of contagion." blame it on migrating wild fowl
who carry the virus over waterways and drop dead the sparrow at my foot at the sidewalk's edge, its ruffled feathers swept roundinto the size of a child's earmuff, the rhythm and syntax of my morning walknow stilted by caution. blame the cat who strains and paws at the yellow-bellied bird, under the swing on a playground and carries girdled 'round his teeththe virus home to a child waiting at the door.
at night, her precise dreamsof swings and the merry-go-round rush into a howling of abstractions. widespread mutation drifts from one bird species to the next, and the farmer in laos, his investments in a flock of chickens, need of clothing and food for his children is obliterated in days in the feces-sullied narrowness of a coop. this blue river of contagion flung wide in the muzzy morning light of another day leaves me dizzy and sliced like the epidemic of blame and greed,
ever accusing the other in a world spiraling closer into an absence of poetry. i enjoy traveling and i try every year or twoto plan an extensive trip, and i always carry a small travel journal with me when i go... and take notes along the way, having faith that, eventually,they will find their place in a poem. and this poem is called "porto grande, cape verde islands." and porto grande is one of the main islands
in the cape verde islands. it's located about 400 milesoff the western coast of africa. in the town of sao vicenteprotruding ribs of stray dogs number the long historyof hunger on this island, where only the acacia tree is green. narrow roads wind upmiles of volcanic ledges through a lunar landscape, past a stucco house partially built while inside the heat mystifies crying children
who long for a taste of fish. at the end of the road,beaches of black sand and vacant time shares remind me of a ghost townin a movie i once saw. the main character led by a mirage crawled his way through dust into ash and death. some of the men on this island sell shells on a string for a bottle of grog, the drink that numbs their sensesand eats their organs alive.
in the late afternoon, there are women with smooth dark skin and hair that reflectsthe rotating sun wind and turn and hustletheir bruises bodies and a capricious tourist between the alley and a market front. still, there is beauty on this island without rain, in the way a discarded plastic bag skips along a deserted soccer field of sand and catches onto the goalie net strung with fish line. how it swells to the musiccoming from a transistor radio
and the dance movements of an old couple who know the solace of hard labor and the ready comfort in a meager serving of corn and beans on a plate pieced together by their own joined hands. as david mentioned, i teachcreative writing here at the college, and i try to, um... talk with my students about the relationshipbetween form and content, and i tell them, "form is content, content is form."
the content of your poem can be, um-- what do i wanna say-- reinforced. the content of your poem can be reinforced by the form your poem takes. and this next poem is called"the war widow," and it's written in a series of couplets, and then the final couplet isn't really-- it's not a couplet. it's just a single line,indicative of what's happened to the marriage between these two people.
and it's called "the war widow." she knows by his body posture that he's getting ready to tell the story, the land mine his comrade lost his legs to, sizzling and charred, the crackling that came before the explosion, the echoing in the eardrum. she has endured this tellingover and over, first in a letter, then on the ride home after his plane landed, his tour expired. but it is never over, the way even the most delicate hand can clench
and make a fist, his telling broods into evening meals, a walk with their daughter, while pulling weeds in the vegetable garden, under what he thinks is an afternoon artillery raid. how swift the transitionfrom tomatoes to mortar, from changing the oil in the carto a swift body roll for cover. even the dog movesin wide circles around him. now he's left her, and his boots' pattern in the snow, a frenzied run from the house along the frozen pond,
the tail of his scarf sweeping a trail between the footprintsof two worlds-- his, hers. then still as the snow falling just before the woods, he turns thinning into broken branches like bones under the tops of whirling trees, and she closes the curtains,the window cold as a gold ring. the next couple poems thati'm going to read grew out of a-- in 2008, i had a fulbrightto travel through russia
with about 18 other academicsfrom around the world. and i had done some readingabout the siege of leningrad, but until i really got to st. petersburg, um, which was called "leningrad" then, it was actually being there that i was able to put somepieces together of history. and i think for many of us, when westudy history in elementary school, it often is less than exciting. but to be able to travel
and to be able to put piecesin place, people in place, against that historical backdrop,i find that to be pretty exciting. and during the nazi seige of leningrad, which took place between 1941 and '43, the city was entirely cut offfrom the rest of the world, and the seige was one of the mostgruesome episodes of world war ii. nearly 3 million people endured it,and just under half of them died, starving, freezing to death, most in the six months betweenoctober of '41 and april of '42
when the temperature was often 30 degrees below zero. and this poem is called "setting the table-- leningrad, 1941." there's a reference to "nevsky prospekt" in this poem, and nevsky prospekt cuts right down the middle of st. petersburg and runs from one end of the city to the other end. "setting the table--leningrad, 1941." the father traded the old black radiofor a single remaining brown egg, and from grain hidden in the cupboard, the mother spun batter for a pancakefor the girl's birthday breakfast.
the family never heard shostakovich speak on the radio about his 7th symphony, how life in leningradwas going on as usual. even though leaves fell betweenthe dark contours of barricades and a young boy walkedalong nevsky prospekt, two gas masks over his shoulderand his dog in his arms. to seize the rhythm of a normal day, the mother turned a single plateinto a festive table in honor of her daughter's birthday,
a china plate rends in bold blue and gold and yellow too, outlying the glistening edges of the pancake while the sim of ours sat cold. no tea, the soup last night was broth,no salt, no bread to dip. months later, a crow will wander ontothe roof of an empty apartment building, tip its head and scare away from the reflection in a broken window, bold blue, gold, yellow too. it will fasten itselfto a high branch when the bombs
and shells strike hitler's target, and it will wait for the grilled corpses balanced on winter snows, necks, legs exposed on sidewalks, long white tables without a centerpiece. this next poem is called "mother russia" and it's about an exchange i had with a babushka, and, um... well, i'll just go ahead and read it. it's called "mother russia." today, one year later, babushka, i fill the bird feeder in memory of you.
i cut slips of lilies of the valley and snowdrops from the garden and tie this glimpse of spring together with a string in a vase given to me by my own grandmother. this, too, i do in memory of you, babushka. you stood outside the subway station on nevsky prospekt in a torn sweater and held out to me a plea to buy a breath of a bouquet tied with a shoestringfrom your work boot. no hand gesture could explain to you the flowers
would fade with me traveling on an overnight train to moscow to visit children in an orphanagewhose parents drank away the bread, the cabbage soup, and the mattress. in place of the flowers,i bought birdseed from you, wrapped inside the toe of an old sock, and all of russia as i would not want to remember her, i saw in your face and hands, babushka. your grey gums and missing finger and the dark waters of the st. petersburg canal rolling back at me
in the shutter of your eye. there's summer ahead, babushka. you will gather berries from a pail to cup in your hand, for change from a touristwaiting for the subway, and i will think of you while i watch squirrels maneuver their way up the pole to the feeder, pillage seed, and scatter birds without a fight. this next poem is called "orphanage 40,"
and that same summer that i traveledthroughout russia on a fulbright, we spent a couple days in moscow and then drove almost two hoursoutside of the city, and i wondered-- we were on our way to visit an orphanage, and the eeriness of that orphanage being so far removed from any kind of civilizationcertainly stayed with me... but more profound were the conditions that i saw these children were in. and, um, this is a poem about their eating.
um, it's called "orphanage 40." a kind of slant the way a bowl and spoon and tiny fingers will tiltthe bottom of the round center to a small mouth for the lastof the watery cabbage soup. if she can hold on to lickthe spoon from top to bottom, the bowl from the rim downbefore another pair of dirty hands snatches in an odd dance to taste the salt on these tools of civility, it will be a good day.
and i'll read just one more poem. i was part of a program in the church that i attend. it was called "the stephen ministry program," and they train lay people to be paired upwith someone in the congregation who's going through, um, it could be divorce, it could be illness, it could be facing death, and one of the couples that i worked with, the man was fading very fast, and he came home one afternoon
when i was visiting with the wife and he was completely just... distressed. he had gone to the store to find a jar of pickle relish and they had moved it, and for us, you know how traumatic it can be when we go to the grocery store and the object's been moved... and imagine not having the best of sight or the best of hearing, and how that might be veryupsetting to an elderly person.
it's called "the errand." they've moved the pickle relish again, he's too proud to ask for help and steps sideways along aisles with ethnic food, past pasta shaped like question marks and feels the same confusionhe felt during the war when gunfire shocked his boots off his feet and blew his buddy over a rack of tree limbs, the skin of him stretched out on a branch. it was almost dark then, night,
and he thought he was running away from the enemy. then a piercing red flashand a hot burn to his knee sent himlow to the ground and crawling back the way he had come. now he doubles back through the store still looking for the jars that must have disappearedor are out-of-stock. he turns away from the facesthat look like they want to help him. he lifts his feet a little higher as if to say, "i am not old, foolish, forgotten."
he places a green pepper in his cart-- something to ward offthe young scrappy fellow in an apron who's on to him, that he is lost, confusedunder fluorescent lights and christmas music and moving toward a forcemore powerful than any fire. thank you. >> well, this is somethingi gotta get ready. get the stuff over here, we'll...
i think i got to know gary about the time when fred sebulske was doing"endgame," beckett's play, here in town, and making quite a stir in the press and elsewhere. gary has kind of an absurdist quality about his writing, but at times, it comesin a variety of ways that are very sensible at the same time. i want to read you his biographical note. he's a byproduct of the nuclear age. he attended catholic elementary school,
during which period one nun was moved to comment, "i'll be surprised if he lives to be ten." (audience laughing) korreck later attended public high school, where between timeseither hiding in his locker or being suspended by his belt loops, in same, discovered poetry. he had the privilege of attendinggrand rapids junior college-- which is us-- thomas jefferson college at grand valley, and michigan state university, fromwhich he received a degree in journalism.
his style is elegiac, which is really very pointed. his references range fromrumi, rilke, pound, and eliot, to szymborska, chacal, salone, and ritsos. please, welcome gary korreck. >> well, it's pretty excitingfor me to get up and perform. i don't even know how to play the air guitar, so this is excitement. the first poem-- i wanna loosen up a little bit, so this is about the concept of celebrity, and i think you'll recognizewho it is right away.
the poem's entitled "free paris." just one small bit of background... paris hilton was unjustly prisonedfor about two days a while back, so that's where the "free paris" comes from. stop the presses, the airwaves,the world from spinning. there is meanness, mommy. here, everyone is so mean, mommy. unfair, it is unfair. all this legal stuffgets tangled in my hair.
where is my stylist, my shoes, my cell, my god there must be something happening tonight. so bored, so bored, with all this reckless pointing. and mommy, they're snapping at me, and that man in black, ew, not in style. could you make him stop? unfair, just so unfair, now i can't go shopping anywhere. there is no reason for me to be treatedlike a clerk in stores i never go to. oh, mommy, unfair unfair unfair,
no one seems to carethat i am suffering so. a day or two of life discardedlike yesterday's dress, like a doll party, like a moment that never arrived. and here i just sit and sit,so unfair, it is just so unfair. the guards are mean and talk like cher. (audience laughing) i did nothing so wrong to deserve this. even jesus got to be outside! my god, stop this dreamfrom dreaming, mommy. so unfair, so unfair,
like callous servantstouching vintage dinnerware. who thinks it does not matter that i must fly through wingless and without purpose through porcelain skies, foreign airports, endless red carpetswhere oh so delicately i pause and smile at no one, the smile no one deserves. stop, unfair, unfair! treated like someout-of-work au pair, deprived of privilege rightly mine, these three days long enough to showthe world what suffering truly is.
mommy, unfair, it is truly unfair, i need a window! i need central air! i need a dress, i need some bling, i need my picture taken. i am ready to smile the smile no one deserves, fan the flame of fame, leave the minions crying for more, for justice or whatever. oh mommy, it is so unfair unfair unfair, and o.m.g. with such a lack of flair. this one's called "eagle harbor."
it's in the upper peninsula-- a tiny town. i think there's aboutsix people living in it. i went there with some friendsand doubled the population. (audience chuckling) the highway an illusion, it is history we are following to this place. rock formed of fire,water reconnecting the sky. there is no rush but the fallsat eagle river, water on stone, a symphony of remaking the architecture of a hidden landscape.
we stand below, feel what we cannot see. this is all of time, easing like a leaf onto water, into and out of shadows, passing out of view into descending light. for a moment, we pause,accept the silence, submissive to time and place as history we become, pushing onward toward the edge. i'm a huge baseball fan. this is a poem about someone who...
even i couldn't remember his name, hence the title, "watching what's-his-name his last time up." there's an epigram, which i also like. it's from camus, "an indescribable universe "in which a man allows himself the tormenting luxuryof fishing in a bathtub, "knowing nothing will come of it." watching the fading-haired catcher slouch to the plate for his last time on television,
he carries ash and wood,chest heaving with 16 seasons, cap raised in handto wipe evening from his brow, lights hide the furrows under his eyes, hitching his belt, squinting atthe gum-chewing rookie pitcher, shouldering his batas if it were a girder, hands sticky, neck and shoulders tight, a strain to remember. the long dry seasons, the bus ridesto places barely found on a map, durem, rocky mount,mars hill, aberdeen city, cold eggs, grey hash browns, greasy coffee,
a legacy spent in the darkest part of summer's garden. now, digging in, spikes in dirtfeeling strangely like quicksand before the yawns of children popping cups, waiting for foul balls,the first pitch explodes, small, defiant--he backs away-- a strike. the weight of the stadium on his bat. second pitch-- hard swing--a crack stings his shoulders. strike two. he steps out, surveys the right field seats.
ruth called his shot once. ruth, that superhuman figure to chase with booted grounders, lost fly balls, wild throws, a ticket home. the third pitch, too soon, like all of his 37 years, he swings-- a dull thud, wood on horsehide,a weak grounder to short. he runs, his last chance out,just catching sight of the ball sailing over the first baseman's head. he tries for second,heart in front of him, breath hard,coals eyes bird--
blurding-- (chuckling)blurred and burning, legs stiff diving headfirst into dust. lying in the shadows,fingers inches from second, sweat playing on his face,cool evening presses down. he rolls to his side, rises beneath the roarof an overhead plane. this is, um... there was an incident in mumbai a few years ago where a hotel was... bombed, and i don't think anyone'sfigured out who's done it yet,
although lots of peopleclaim to have done it. this is called "walking in mumbai." a father on his way to market,a small girl late to dinner, a merchant closing his shop. they are fragments of a moment lost even to us as we study the residue, consider the meaning of living too close, of walking in mumbai. soldiers enter the buildings. we have been told this is a terrorist act, claimed by no one in particular.
we are told some havebeen killed or captured. eyewitnesses describe the horror, the body counts rise, numbers crawl acrossthe bottom of the screen. he had forgotten what he was supposed to purchase, she had been playing with a stray dog, he was tired and business had been slow. life does not pause for grief. we carry it with us, photographs already aged,faces no one remembers,
lakes of ash in an amber sky, unseen by us and by other passersby, walking in mumbai. this is called "a christmas carol for gitamatti demoore." he worked at-- he was a greeterat walmart on black friday and at 5:00 a.m., a bunch of the customers stormed through the doors. they couldn't wait. "we wish you a walmart christmas,"his smile says for just a moment, a willing greeteruntil the doors burst open,
a holiday explodes, his brain a portrait of feet-- memory-- an oven overflowingof silver and gold, stars bursting, grandmas with hooves, too close, too close, falling prices everywhere. let nothing you dismay-- the exactcause of death has not been determined. no, the exact reason forturning customers away, some who have waited nearly a full day for a running start at christmas, onward christmas soldiers,dropping, shopping as to war, hold firm to what is yoursabove the shouts, the loudspeakers,
none shall be saved who do not take the direct path. god rest you merry gentle man, whose name does not resonate with the crowd. none who know it or will proclaim it. his mother will hearthe news on television. we three kings and then some,whose collective mouths salivate in search of a distant sign, a guiding light set at 50 percent off, a 50 inch plasma h.d. t.v. for $798, a compact upright vic vacuum for $28,
a 10.2 megapixel digital camera for $69, popular dvds for as little as $9. oh, tis the season to be jolly. let all acquaintance be forgotat this suddenly quiet moment. someone is removed from the entry way-- sorry, they lose out. "let the rest of us go on! "we've waited nearly a day "for a big-screen plasma fix, a box set dvd!" this is a poem about a--
a friend of mine took a photograph of a statue of pushkin in st. petersburg, and there was a pigeonresting on his hand. in this photographtime is suspended, each becomes the other, as once stationary yet prepared for flight. the arc of poetry balancedon an outstretched hand, a gesture extended to the simplest of creatures, yet one aware enough to consider a view of the world words can never adequately describe.
the sky slate and sunless,the master's tongue silent, his gaze distant, the visitor perched on his thumb, nuanced in shades of gray,yet nothing lost in translation. fellow exiles, they share a common idiom, beyond the limits of place, alive eternally in the power of the moment. another baseball poem. people my age will remember this person-- other people might, too. there's a pitcher named mark fidrych, who played for the tigersfor a couple of years.
his nickname was "the bird," after big bird. this is "in memoriam." a toast to the unkempt god, this fragment of neon plucked from the eye of a star, a solitary burst across the heart of a blue summer, who tended clay and gravel, owned the green afternoonsand smoky nights, refused to age before our eyes,flew too high, too quickly. yet as quickly as he rose,his flame the quicker spent,
and yet he saw what few can see still smiling on his descent. this is a poem that's called"a summer in the city." a couple of years ago, a young manwent on a rampage in grand rapids and killed eight people. warm sun on pavement, children playing in the streets, behind drawn shades,a storm no one hears. death slithers from place to place, a dark whisper echoes through the trees.
despair, the feel of rage, a body without presence,the absence of touch. the day plays itself out, and an elongated sigh from empty faces in need of one last shot at life. eight dead-- a city left to mourn its living. hands search the broken night,hungry for something to love again. this is a poem called "camping in autumn."
it begins with a list, this art of doing much for the purpose of doing less. there must be food for an extra day, good twine, a sharp knife, a clean hatchet, plenty of matches, coffee, spare batteries-- everyone must have a light. it is a ritualof small tasks-- gather wood, set out food,stoke the fire, put on water, clean the tent, shake out the sleeping bags, clean the dishes.
no telephones, no television, no email-- a peace that prevails like a blanket being drawnover the body on a cold night. this is a poem about a woman--i didn't meet her, exactly-- but it was an indian restaurant in florida. i go to spring training each year. and while we were dining, this woman came through in a pink outfit-- with something kind of like a negligee and danced and rubbedeverybody the head, so...
(audience laughing) she had a card that said "the art of silk," defining what she did. so, this is "the art of silk." in the crowded middle eastern restaurant, where the buffet may be had for 9.95 plus a drink, past the steaming food trays, above the aroma of gentlyseasoned meats and vegetables, beyond the subtle colorof plastic daffodils, dusty,
and wine carafes, amid the tablesof diners-- arms raised, a smile simply worn,delores runnion of cleveland, ohio, becomes "samira." she moves as shadow, trailing a pink scarf behind her. exotic one with dimpled belly and dimpled memories-- samira of 27 years in florida, from realty company secretary to waitress, to dream of men who dream of samira's,
and women who dare not dream. samira, who glides between the tables,trailing a pink scarf behind her. samira, who's hair is barely blond,eyes too deep to be naturally blue. samira, whose smile belies little,trailing a pink scarf behind her. samira of the symboled fingers and ringed toes, samira who runs her own show, samira the attractionof a smoky downtown cafe, samira queen of meats and vegetables, samira who wishes for moreand less simultaneously.
samira's young as she can imagine. she glides between the tables,arms raised, smile intact, trailing a pink scarf behind her. this is a story--this is a poem about-- i think you can probablyfigure out what's going on, but just in case, it's dealing with alzheimer's. it's called "strangers in the doorway." two people stand in the doorway of the alzheimer's ward, their eyes fixed on those who have become strangers to them.
he sees a woman who no longer remembers his touch, the stories behind the book of photographs he carries nor the photographs, whose meaning will not outlive her. she studies a man who once swept her in his arms, who no longer shares her embrace, no longer acknowledges the brush of her cheek against his, no longer knows that she was once his own, alone. today these two lost to everyone else, find each other,
as if for the first timetheir eyes lock in recognition of what it means to have someone,however lost. in their hearts,they still know those things without touch lose their meaning. they turn with hands heldtoward the pair in the doorway. they smile as one might smile at passing tourists, returned to each other. one in the doorway turns to the other and says, "let them go. "they are happy."
the other nods. they go their separate ways. this one's called "w.m.d." it's fairly self-evident, i think. a mother searches through dust in her hands held tight, a small sweater, one button missing. soldiers, weary of death, play cards, use buttons for money. a child's handpulled from rubble, clutching a button.
"light from my grandmother'sbedroom window." it was a day warm with a heart of a young woman, yet death was all around her. gray skin, pale eyes, her head unable to right itself, nor silence the voicesof the orphan dreams that followed her to this place. own names to her now alien, as this august sun reaches delicate through the glass to run its fingers through her hair.
i have one more that's fairly lengthy. i'm not sure what to do with it yet, so i'll read it and... people will either start nodding offor they'll say "hmm" or whatever, so... it's called "having coffee with nostradamus "and his mayan girlfriendat an all-night cafe." and i'm gonna read-- even though i don't like doing it, i'm gonna read the numbers, just so you know there's pauses in there. and as near as i can figure it out for myself, it's almost likeeach one is a snapshot...
only even though i'm reading it--it takes some time to read it-- you have to envision the snapshot happening quickly, almost like jump cuts in film. there's an epigram with this one, too. "what you do not bring forth will destroy you." it's the gospel of thomas. an empty landscape, void of dimension,to which we have come, bone-weary-- soulless moment, balancing language on extended fingers in the smoke-filled air.
music fades into the wallpaper. words dissolve in the light. the moon hovers, anxious, a yellow eye, dim in this colored glass. time's breath sighs from the weight of a dying age-- death, the antidote to death. we cannot love what we cannot have. a faint smile crosses his lips. he looks vaguely into the distance.
she studies her appointment book, shakes her head, says "there is no time like the future." muffled voices loiter in the air,blank faces, those who won't forget us, those we will never remember. dim incandesces, flickering. one hand holds a cigarette,the other a blue lighter. she smiles,inhales-- the end of it lingers like a fuse. five.
with weary eyes, we acknowledge our reflection, the road outside, the lack of direction, stuck on purpose, in early morning fog, left to wonder whether we are mortal or merely gods overcome with fear. six. he sets down his cup, without looking up, speaks softly, "i don't know what you are thinking,
"but i know what you want." then, softer still,"salvation is the belief "you are someoneworth loving." seven. the tides erase the barrierbetween loss and forgetting. so much of human history,the aftermath of catastrophe. we look for answers in the smallest of things-- the obsession to overcome all that is, to engineer an elementthat will split infinity.
eight. they move to leave. he picks up the check, she closes her book of missing dates. nine. dawn rises over the desert,an eternal early morning. some will kneel, others shake their heads, still others proudly raise their eyes, shout their prayers to the sky, the louder to overcome all other truths. and at this moment, the stars fall silently into the water,
one by one, until at last we are free to love one another. >> (coughing) you selling it? >> (indistinct speaking). (coughing) what's it costing 'em? >> $9.95-- gary's selling it. anthology of four poets that all went to grcc at the same time. we had a raucous bunch back then. i nearly was kicked out of school.
so was frank salamone. we published poems that had, and stories that had, filthy language in them. and it was my first experienceof fighting for freedom of speech. i had professors that stood up for us. and by the time i left hereto go to u. of m., i already knew what i was like to defend your writing against, uh... religious bigots,i guess would be the way i'd put it. (laughing)that's what it came right down to.
and gary came after,along with dave montgomery, who was a great writer of... prose poems and short sketches that, um-- unfortunately, he isn't with us anymore. but there were the four of us. we felt like the four horsemen of the apocalypse, in some ways, and enjoyed every minute of it, as far as that goes. and a great anthology of our work from past and present. and one thing i would like to do before i introduce barb.
this thing is on your... thing here. i have to have these filled out so that we can get-- this is for the michigan council of arts and cultural affairs. they need a take on what peoplethought of the presentations and the rest of that, and i need a take on howmany people were here. this is part of the requirement for the grant. and so, the bottom line here isit's not so much whether people like what they hear or not like what they hear,
but that we did the reporting. that's your bottom lineas far as that goes. and it also gives me a take on things. the bottom line, when we talk about this, is when these are filled out, we're gonna get the final portion of the grant. but more importantly, i think it sets up a pattern so that after i'm retired, if somebody else wantsto have a show like this down the road here at the college, we have a track recordof being responsible.
i hope you're hearing me on this one. we wanna make sure that we have used the money that this state has granted us for this thing in a responsible and thoughtful way, so it's important that this be done. and i've got some little... um, somewhere around here--of pencils, if you need them. we'll fill those out afterwards, if you'll please help me on this one. barbara saunier...
what do i say about barb? one of my dear friends from yearsand years here at the college. i like to think of her as "the razor," and i know she's heard thatmany times, and likes to... (chuckling) dispute the fact. barb is one who has the most sharp minds of anyone i've ever met. that's the simplest way i would put it. she's tough and she's one that does not mince her words. beyond that business, um,a poet that i have watched--
sometimes, she's hidden her work, i think. or maybe not-- maybe she justhasn't shared it with everybody. but, um... one that i have great fondness for, both her writing andher personal qualities. go ahead, barb. >> oh, there may have been a time when my mind was anywhere near that sharp, but...
"dead weight" never means morethan when the legs snap. a winch and chain drag the bodyof the gelding onto the renderer's truckwhere the fulcrum bulk of cattle and maybe another horse or two are more than his flightless bonescan scale. the snap stops the last harmonic motion in those sprung legs, and gravity takes it last tug. whatever his triumphs were, or none,
he leaves in a rank cortege of flies, reckoned less than the price of meat. in the crucible of the rendering plant, resurrection stews. the fat boils out like the stone at the cave doorrolling away. "everything but the nicker," they say, cooks down to fertilizer, food for dogs, till what remains is that infamous glue--
a recipe old as hair. if wood speaks in the tongues of angels, it's the glue that gives it voice-- his everything and the nicker too. from august shade comes his marriage with spruce, maple, ebony-- consummated in the seams of a violin,a double bass. from the wisdom of rosin,his own tail finds its rhythm and swing with the bow, its curve and recurvein the f-holes of the soundboard.
he flexes his poll in the scroll and pegsfor his love of trees. in the genius of gluehe treads the meadows and plains again-- he fills his lungs with the harmonics of wood. the trout looks up and rises for the fly--the lark ascends. and under the musician's hand his hooffalls in spiccato amplify him, amplify him! there was a time early in my career when we had two telephones in the english department.(audience laughing)
one was in the office for the secretary and one was in the lounge. and we also--bless her heart-- had a dear elderly lady teaching here who had a penchant for perfume. and if you occasion to use the telephoneafter she had used the telephone, you went around with her aroma on you all day long. and i was reminded of thatone day, watching studentsin the hall-- much more recently--with their cell phones.
dozens of them lined up on the floor on the hallway... not one of them talking to each other, but everybody talking on a phone that theydidn't share with anybody. and i thought... "well, there is a passageof something nostalgic." some of you won't even remem--won't recognize the technology here, but the others of us will havea little moment of nostalgia. "phone booth."
in place of lovers' folded penciled notes stowed where birch trunks converged, our fingers pressed coinsinto the shallow mouth of the dime slot,spiking the dial tone-- an invitation answeredin that small precinct by the flutter of the fickle dialmaking its rounds. clans of hands and at least as many lips recalled those rounds here, smudging years of coughsand stagnant smoke
that filtered down to solids underfoot. grit from shoes mingled with gum wrappersand pills culled from sweaters. vapor from hot tips, hot dates,hot breaking news cooled and faded address numbersamid the grocery orders, ticket stubs,curds pared from under our nails, and the shriveled membranes of our lies. these tokens and loves' carved hearts recalled us--the fareless-tardy-earnest-timid-lost, all joined our lips and hands here.
and sometimes on the handsetsomeone's handwarmth mulled, a rendezvous just missed. and more, against an ear, along the jaw, sometimes the scentof some unmet lover nuzzled, sometimes all day. and while we're on the subject of sex... i ripped off this idea from a student. i'm not proud of it, but it was too good an idea to let go. d.p., if you're out there, i credit you.
i won't betray who you are, in case this is not somethingyou want people to know. but you rememberpracticing kissing, right? "the kissing post." after the school bus flashesher red to the curb, her mother's list tells her start supper,run a load of laundry. upstairs water heats for potatoes, while in the basement flannelsand twills collapse into piles of cotton and permanent press.
she isalready fifteen. if basketball and baby sitting scuffthe polish off her bitten nails, thoughts of her poster boy husk her-- he of the cocked shoulderand the fixed gaze, who speaks her name during study hallso only she hears. as the washtub fills, a load-bearing postbeckons from the dance floor. what it lacks of her bed pillow's"you baby," it stirs with the "hello there"of height and something pelvic.
her chambray eyes close. while the clothes take on water,one hand traces the dimpled knot at the napeof the clothesline and the fingers of her other hand teasethe pull chain of the bare light bulb, tugging some privacyon. shirts and slacks tanglein a figment of breasts and thighs. the lift of her chinbeguiles her "yeah, yeah" to the exploration of hip, the post's ingrained memory of "lookin' good."
how the agitator in the washtubchafes those seams when her suitor leans to scoop her close, and steam from the boil upstairsrattles the pot lid. their breath rises, and lips part barely. her fingernailsgrow tapered and long. we talked a little bit todayin the panel that i served on about the origins of our work. this is a poem that, in a lot of ways, is just contrived. i heard the title on n.p.r.--you may have heard it--
"the fear of sleep," and i didn'tget a chance to hear the episode-- i suppose it was "this american life," where they talked about the fear of sleep, but i thought, "that is a title that needs some attention." and the poem-- the lines just accumulatedas i paged through a catalog. "the fear of sleep." it's the slough of skinthat keeps you awake-- all that accumulatesand the cobwebs that form in the corners
when you're not looking. saliva pools in your throatwithout the trigger of food losing its way andwanting to start over. in your gut, fauna proliferate. hair and fingernailssplit and fade. if it were only the consequenceof not hearing the alarm or of letting the coffee makerbake dry, any jury of austere cats might acquit you of fallingasleep. the priesthearing such confession
might assign you 15,800 respirations a dayinstead of the usual penance counting sheep. but coral can't help veining vesselsimmersed in rest, nor can rust resist to claim threads and jointsfallen still. sandbagslevee against somnolence, stemming the encroachmentof vine into lattice, of fear into vitals. no slurry of volcanic ashwill overtake your thighs. every night the moon retreatsfrom your bed
four one-thousandths of an inch--if you fall asleep, what's to check the return of tail and gills? what's to keep gravityfrom swapping temperaments with fire? "roadkill." bloated raccoonsgrimace where their wits martyred them, at the side of the road where their grip on the tree of life relaxed mid-shinny. around the shoulders of a weedy cross,a sun-bleached plastic wreath like the slung arm of a drunk--
a name in paint slurred by weather and winter's road salt-- where the road ts,a car turns neither left nor right, but bumpers-over-the-grille into the ditch. at the intersection where a stop signshould have been priest enough-- along the stretch of highwaywhere some driver expects not one revelation-- is this guidepostwhere shades of the dead come seeking the comfortsof a worn teddy bear or
snapshots like visionsof saints and virgins in zip-lock bags? is this scaffold where they pawnthe tennis racket and the american flags so they can return one dayto claim their faded effects? on the verge, the six teats of a possumballoon from her marsupial pouch, her young the size of peanuts riding nipples and rot gas up,crisp witness to the steel-belted rumbleof long-distance haulers and garbage trucks. who bothers to make pilgrimageto these shrines?
doewhose fawn straddles the double-yellow lineto steep in miraculous cures? squirrel, who, from his own skidmark, raises the lit candle of his tail? goldfinch, who leaves the yellow featherthat says, "i, too, was here." i'm not immune to the temptation of havingdominion over the creatures. i don't like that, but i'm not immune...
and here's a possum that called me on it. "possum." against the far wall of the shed,this skulk-footed lurker recoils behind pallets, angling for cornersi think are mine. in my vitals digestion stops. with three .22 slugskeen for their mark, i kneel, one quiet finger staking my claimto all i think i own. but when the gun's moving parts balk,belief backfires. my claim turns to leadfor want of a shot, and i retreat
through the hole in the wallby which i came. kim mentionedin her poem the economic circumstancesthat produced husks-- the foreclosures, the lost jobs, all that... this is my foreclosure poem. there are eight parts. it's almost entirely true. there's only two or three lines of fabrication in it, and they're darn close enough.
"foreclosure," one. the sun studies the far wallfrom the kitchen window. all-- (coughing)already he has forgotten the blocky real estate of the refrigeratorfor the copper tubing that remains, the electrical outletwith its rag of cobweb but no plug, no hum. he brushes past where the cat saved up kibbleand other bounty under the absent stove-- two keys,
one book of stamps,the checkbook register, a hearing aid, and four unopened clipsof candy pez-- all now alight in the empty room,as though, in passing, his hip has dialed up the flame. make offer--baskets, jig-saw puzzles and board games, place-mats,table cloth with matching napkins. two potted philodendron, baskets, clothes hangers bundled with masking tape,children's books from ducklings to dinosaurs,national geographic,
reader's digest, bubble wrap, baskets. plastic shovel and pail. pedal car. tea pot shaped like english cottage. tea pot shaped like pineapple. baskets. free. screwed to the door framea clipboard the size of a post card where drop-ins left notes--"sorry we missed you--
"we owe you lunch! "will stop back later.d & s." the pencil hangs from a knotted string,lead broken, its eraser dry as a nut. on the open porch, an indifferent breeze nudges the slatted swingon its way through. matching blue shutters and window boxes hang on while they can,but the swing-- ahh. hoofclops from an amish buggy passing
rap against clapboard,their knock unanswered by a terry cloth robeand sunday morning paper, a cigarette at dusk. jostled into a cardboard box, iris dug from along the walkas some kind of remedy cannot find their list of things to do. first the root, and then the rain. still in the boxat the corner of the garage, they give up tryingto become an easter hat.
the bad news-- limbfall from old maples spindles sod with a shrugafter the good fight. the good news--limbfall welcomes sun to grass. too much of a good thing, maybe--grass claims the collateral in wood's exposed grain. grass claims cracksin asphalt, claims raspberry canes, claims compost pile, fire pit,adirondack chair-- grass claims lawn, and goes to seed. the neighbor's drive seems twice as longwith nowhere to carry gossip
from the post office. overdue news backs up and cools. fix-it handsfind their place repossessed. the sun curls into the cornerby the back door like the dog they tried to give away who would not dun themfor what it cost her navigating the road's shoulderback to this stoop. and if no one lets her in today,perhaps tomorrow. or the day after.
(inhaling)we need something a little lighter. this is a performance piece. i need to steel myself. (in irish accent)"washday in the lanes, limerick, 1938." clothes dry. especially when the day is fine,who can stop clothes drying? and thanks be to jaysus for that, too,so she would say. over the heat of a good turf fire,clothes go into the washtub dirty with the sweat and the grimeof the mill and the docks,
and sure if they don't come out--if not clean, at least wet-- which is more thanthey were when they went in. and isn't that a miracle, she winks--praise be. yet don't they come out clean as well,more often than not. and each washday the rain abates, it's almost worth the lyeand the washboard to cast away the kinks from her backin raising up her arms to the clotheslines zigging and zaggingover the back courtyard, pegging on the aprons and the towelslike wash-worn notes to a stave
and watching them take flight like kites,like prayers. every zephyr the good lord sends laundry ruffles stocking and jumper alike,which in their turn sift the coal smut from the airand brighten the sun on the other side. and if clothes fade, sure it's only as the colors take their placein the greater goings-on, taken up, wouldn't she say,like the souls of those she lights candles for.
and with the sun's good tidingswashing down upon her own face as on the best of them, it's neighbors worse off than herselfshe thinks of-- mrs. murdoch with not a toothto tear her bread, and young ginnie doyle without an onionto flavor the broth. and over the way,there's them as has no courtyard for drying the nightshirtsand the bloomers, but only an alley,and a pole two floors above their scurvy lane.
so it's tea she would offerwhen she has a minute-- when ginnie doyle reads for herthe letters that come, and mrs. o'cullen theresuckling any woman's babe as needs the favor. and listening as they do to mrs. murdoch's radiopropped on the sill just so for one and all. it's tea she would offer and a bit of considerationfor their efforts--
as well an act of contritionfor taking her pleasures in matters of this life. so for all the wages that himselfdrops at that murky pub on his way between the cement worksand his own hearth-- till she's glad enoughwhen the meek inherit no more than the rent--for all she's herself bunion'd and arthritic and pegged like a housedress to the linein these lanes behind the quay, isn't it purely a comfort to herto know there's a thing
she can look forward toand that is this, thanks be-- i don't own a dryer. i've never owned a dryer. i just use the line. this time of year, i've got clotheshanging in a rack in the living room. so, if i know you're coming,i'll take the underwear off. i don't have babies, but a lot of people i know do and they seem pretty takenwith the whole business.
there's a ritual, apparently, thatyou all go through very early on... and my cousin did the same with her son, but she missed a couple of details. this is for my cousin phyllis. i've got to get rid of the irish... irish thing is still in my tongue. "my boy with legs." i don't think to count his legsin that first unswaddled tally-- when fingers and toes tie ten to ten, and the delicate scrollsof each ear of two
shape my handwith a mother's thanksgiving. as he toddles from diapersinto piano lessons and little league, his steps multiply past notation, filling the staves of my life with melody, with chords. his hits, his errors,his runs batted in i'm sure i know by heart--all of his beats per measure. i've reckoned his birthdays on both handsby the time news sears the neighborhood-- another woman's' boy crosses the tracksin a crescendo of red flashing lights--
turning counter to plan, one bicycle wheelloses its bass line, loses its boy his romp for home, his count of legs. imagination is a clotin the pulse of my infield, the coda that stops movementlike a cramp. but even in arrest my heart takes inventory andposts the revised score. blurred freckles in the sand lotlike phrased quarter notes make of my heart a cornet. my boy steals third on his two legs,
and reveille sounds another dayof gratitude. that's my boy there, on a wonder of legs-- two legs, and counting. this is the poem that made me money.(audience laughing) we've gotten used to thinkingof monet and van gogh-- or "van gokghhh," as my cousin says. renoir, degas, every--you know, we're all-- you need the money from a small country to buy any one of 'em anymore, but it wasn't always the case.
and in the impressionist exhibition of 1881, gauguin had a piece that the public and the critics scorned. it was a nude that did not reveal the classic beauty that people wanted in their nudes. but this is for any of us women here who no longer have the profile we once might have had. "my body, this aging cheese."(audience laughing) a "persona" poem, as kim taught you about. my body, this aging cheese,affronts them like a mold, as though
beneath my burred rindi were not still some other woman's cream-skinned daughter, tendingto her torn petticoat. this curdled lap,these clotted breasts slough their tuts and rancid glances. if our intent had been a pose, i'd have sat this unmade bed like a throne. instead, i ripen and mend. and ifthey miss the grace even i can see of thimble needling thread from one stitchto the next, they miss, too,
that flavor's in the fat, and that,in full time, like sin generations removed from the original, they will lick me all over for the salt. >> okay, so if you could fill out those forms, and, uh... especially you students. i remember when i was a student. when you see all kinds of free food up there, grab it! when i was at michigan as an undergrad, basically, we would go to these things,
and i think half of it was to go to see the poems or whatever people were doing, and the other half was to fill your pockets with as much food as possible. i'm not saying, "do that," but on the other hand, there it is! other than that, if you can bring the ones that you have up here, or maybe i'll put a chair out...
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