Good Advice!

Ludwig Van Beethoven's Return to Vienna

- Rita Dove

Oh you men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn,
or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me....
                                                   - The Heiligenstadt Testament

Three miles from my adopted city
lies a village where I came to peace.
The world there was a calm place,
even the great Danube no more
than a pale ribbon tossed onto the landscape
by a girl's careless hand. Into this stillness

I had been ordered to recover.
The hills were gold with late summer;
my rooms were two, plus a small kitchen,
situated upstairs in the back of a cottage
at the end of the Herrengasse.
From my window I could see onto the courtyard
where a linden tree twined skyward —
leafy umbilicus canted toward light,
warped in the very act of yearning —
and I would feed on the sun as if that alone
would dismantle the silence around me.

At first I raged. Then music raged in me,
rising so swiftly I could not write quickly enough
to ease the roiling. I would stop
to light a lamp, and whatever I'd missed —
larks flying to nest, church bells, the shepherd's
home-toward-evening song — rushed in, and I
would rage again.

I am by nature a conflagration;
I would rather leap
than sit and be looked at.
So when my proud city spread
her gypsy skirts, I reentered,
burning towards her greater, constant light.

Call me rough, ill-tempered, slovenly— I tell you,
every tenderness I have ever known
has been nothing
but thwarted violence, an ache
so permanent and deep, the lightest touch
awakens it. . . . It is impossible

to care enough. I have returned
with a second Symphony
and 15 Piano Variations
which I've named Prometheus,
after the rogue Titan, the half-a-god
who knew the worst sin is to take
what cannot be given back.

I smile and bow, and the world is loud.
And though I dare not lean in to shout
Can't you see that I'm deaf? —
I also cannot stop listening.

from: Sonata Mulattica. Copyright 2009.

Goody! Goody!

Guess what the mail lady brought today.  Go ahead. Guess.

I got a killer deal on two books that I've wanted for years. These are not books that will be read quickly, reviewed, and shelved. They will be providing much wonderful material for this humble blog (and pleasure for me) for a long time to come.

          They are:

The Collected Poetry of Langston Hughes - Langston Hughes 

Nice and thick and loaded with beauty.                                       

The Penguin Anthology of 20th Century American Poetry - Edited by Rita Dove  

Filled with many voices I've never heard. I am so excited!

Here is a selection from my new Anthology. It's a bit long, but well worth the read, and goes to the political / personal dilemma. Some of you might remember my mention of this book in my What Does a Poet Laureate Do? post on Rita Dove. As editor, her choices for inclusion were considered controversial.

Personally, I wonder why you would even bother to publish a new anthology if you are going to include the same material as each one before. You can't keep making them bigger to include all the newer poets. Think of all the students whose lives are at risk! Then you have groups of folks who think that certain other groups should be excluded altogether - quite a few of them actually. If your goal is to create a representation of the face of the entire country, they'll never be happy. I wouldn't want the job of editing a poetry anthology for anything in the world!

My hat is off to Rita Dove. And I intend to enjoy the old friends she has included in this volume, explore the new ones she has seen fit to bring to me, and try to understand the messages that make me uncomfortable. I won't like every poet in the anthology. I never do. And that is OK.


Poem about My Rights

- June Jordan

 

Even tonight and I need to take a walk and clear   

my head about this poem about why I can’t   

go out without changing my clothes my shoes   

my body posture my gender identity my age

my status as a woman alone in the evening/   

alone on the streets/alone not being the point/

the point being that I can’t do what I want   

to do with my own body because I am the wrong   

sex the wrong age the wrong skin and   

suppose it was not here in the city but down on the beach/   

or far into the woods and I wanted to go   

there by myself thinking about God/or thinking   

about children or thinking about the world/all of it   

disclosed by the stars and the silence:   

I could not go and I could not think and I could not   

stay there   

alone   

as I need to be   

alone because I can’t do what I want to do with my own   

body and   

who in the hell set things up   

like this   

and in France they say if the guy penetrates   

but does not ejaculate then he did not rape me   

and if after stabbing him if after screams if   

after begging the bastard and if even after smashing   

a hammer to his head if even after that if he   

and his buddies fuck me after that   

then I consented and there was   

no rape because finally you understand finally   

they fucked me over because I was wrong I was   

wrong again to be me being me where I was/wrong

to be who I am   

which is exactly like South Africa   

penetrating into Namibia penetrating into

Angola and does that mean I mean how do you know if

Pretoria ejaculates what will the evidence look like the

proof of the monster jackboot ejaculation on Blackland

and if

after Namibia and if after Angola and if after Zimbabwe

and if after all of my kinsmen and women resist even to

self-immolation of the villages and if after that

we lose nevertheless what will the big boys say will they

claim my consent:

Do You Follow Me: We are the wrong people of

the wrong skin on the wrong continent and what

in the hell is everybody being reasonable about

and according to the Times this week

back in 1966 the C.I.A. decided that they had this problem

and the problem was a man named Nkrumah so they

killed him and before that it was Patrice Lumumba

and before that it was my father on the campus

of my Ivy League school and my father afraid

to walk into the cafeteria because he said he

was wrong the wrong age the wrong skin the wrong

gender identity and he was paying my tuition and

before that

it was my father saying I was wrong saying that   

I should have been a boy because he wanted one/a

boy and that I should have been lighter skinned and

that I should have had straighter hair and that

I should not be so boy crazy but instead I should

just be one/a boy and before that         

it was my mother pleading plastic surgery for

my nose and braces for my teeth and telling me

to let the books loose to let them loose in other

words

I am very familiar with the problems of the C.I.A.

and the problems of South Africa and the problems

of Exxon Corporation and the problems of white

America in general and the problems of the teachers

and the preachers and the F.B.I. and the social

workers and my particular Mom and Dad/I am very

familiar with the problems because the problems   

turn out to be   

me

I am the history of rape   

I am the history of the rejection of who I am   

I am the history of the terrorized incarceration of   

myself   

I am the history of battery assault and limitless   

armies against whatever I want to do with my mind   

and my body and my soul and   

whether it’s about walking out at night   

or whether it’s about the love that I feel or   

whether it’s about the sanctity of my vagina or   

the sanctity of my national boundaries   

or the sanctity of my leaders or the sanctity   

of each and every desire   

that I know from my personal and idiosyncratic   

and indisputably single and singular heart   

I have been raped   

be-

cause I have been wrong the wrong sex the wrong age   

the wrong skin the wrong nose the wrong hair the   

wrong need the wrong dream the wrong geographic   

the wrong sartorial I   

I have been the meaning of rape   

I have been the problem everyone seeks to   

eliminate by forced   

penetration with or without the evidence of slime and/   

but let this be unmistakable this poem   

is not consent I do not consent   

to my mother to my father to the teachers to   

the F.B.I. to South Africa to Bedford-Stuy   

to Park Avenue to American Airlines to the hardon   

idlers on the corners to the sneaky creeps in   

cars   

I am not wrong: Wrong is not my name

My name is my own my own my own   

and I can’t tell you who the hell set things up like this

but I can tell you that from now on my resistance   

my simple and daily and nightly self-determination   

may very well cost you your life

BOOK REVIEWS. Sort Of.

American Smooth - Rita Dove   

My "reviews" are merely my impressions of the books I've read, and could never be construed as comprehensive analyses in any way.  If that is the sort of thing you need, there are many wonderful Book Blogs out there covering just about every type of book.

That being said . . .

I came across this book while putting together last month's What Does a Poet Laureate Do? post on Rita Dove. I ordered it immediately and it was definitely a good move on my part. (Eating regularly is overrated, I say.)

The 'Smooth' of the book's title is an apt description of the poetry it contains. It is a celebration of music and dance in poetry, and it pulls together many disparate pieces of cultural heritage to create the underlying melody.

I enjoyed the entire book, which I must admit, is rare for me. Some of the pieces stopped me cold and touched me deeply. Others made me smile.

How about a few samples:

A different perspective on a very familiar story.

I have been a stranger in a strange land

Life's spell is so exquisite, everything conspires to break it.
- Emily Dickinson

It wasn't bliss. What was bliss   

but the ordinary life? She'd spend hours   

in patter, moving through whole days   

touching, sniffing, tasting . . . exquisite   

housekeeping in a charmed world.   

And yet there was always   

more of the same, all that happiness,   

the aimless Being There.   

So she wandered for a while, bush to arbor,   

lingered to look through a pond's restive mirror.   

He was off cataloging the universe, probably,   

pretending he could organize   

what was clearly someone else's chaos.   

That's when she found the tree,   

the dark, crabbed branches   

bearing up such speechless bounty,   

she knew without being told   

this was forbidden. It wasn't   

a question of ownership—   

who could lay claim to   

such maddening perfection?   

And there was no voice in her head,   

no whispered intelligence lurking   

in the leaves—just an ache that grew   

until she knew she'd already lost everything   

except desire, the red heft of it   

warming her outstretched palm.

Perhaps real happiness and contentment are in the ordinary, everyday, and introspective, 
rather than the grand and public as society would have us believe.

Cozy Apologia

- For Fred

I could pick anything and think of you—   

This lamp, the wind-still rain, the glossy blue   

My pen exudes, drying matte, upon the page.   

I could choose any hero, any cause or age   

And, sure as shooting arrows to the heart,   

Astride a dappled mare, legs braced as far apart   

As standing in silver stirrups will allow—   

There you'll be, with furrowed brow   

And chain mail glinting, to set me free:   

One eye smiling, the other firm upon the enemy.   

This post-postmodern age is all business: compact disks   

And faxes, a do-it-now-and-take-no-risks   

Event. Today a hurricane is nudging up the coast,   

Oddly male: Big Bad Floyd, who brings a host   

Of daydreams: awkward reminiscences   

Of teenage crushes on worthless boys   

Whose only talent was to kiss you senseless.   

They all had sissy names—Marcel, Percy, Dewey;   

Were thin as licorice and as chewy,   

Sweet with a dark and hollow center. Floyd's   

Cussing up a storm. You're bunkered in your   

Aerie, I'm perched in mine   

(Twin desks, computers, hardwood floors):   

We're content, but fall short of the Divine.   

Still, it's embarrassing, this happiness—   

Who's satisfied simply with what's good for us,   

When has the ordinary ever been news?   

And yet, because nothing else will do   

To keep me from melancholy (call it blues),   

I fill this stolen time with you.

Of course, when the ride is over it's time to go home.

Looking Up From the page, I Am Reminded of This Mortal Coil    

Mercurial ribbon licking the cut lip of the Blue Ridge—

       Daybreak

                    or end, I can't tell

as long as I ignore the body's marching orders, as long as            
                                I am alive in air ...     

What good is the brain without traveling shoes?   

We put our thoughts out there on the cosmos express

       and they hurtle on, tired and frightened,       
                   bundled up in their worrisome

                                shawls and gloves--I'm just

guessing here, but I suspect we don't

       travel easily at all, though we keep

       making better wheels—         
                   smaller phones and wider webs,

                   ye olde significant glance

                                across the half-empty goblet

                                of Chardonnay....    

The blaze freshens,

        five or six miniature birds

        strike up the band.

Daybreak, of course; no more strobe and pink gels

       from the heavenly paint shop: just

house lights, play's over, time to gather your things and go home.

What Does a Poet Laureate Do? Rita Dove.

Two time Poet Laureate from 1993 to 1995, and the youngest person to be awarded the honor, she also served as the Poet Laureate of Virginia from 2004 to 2006.

Rita Dove 

"The first thing that could be done is to bring poetry into our children's lives at an early age --- without pressure."








Everyone who worries about understanding poetry would benefit from this: 

I had a ninth grade English teacher, Mr. Hicks, who put us in groups and gave us impossible poems to interpret. When I say "impossible," I mean poems which had Greek in them -- a little bit of Greek and -- languages we couldn't even -- we couldn't even read the alphabet. "Just tell me what it means. Tell me what you think it means."

And after a couple of class periods when we decided this is so impossible we might as well just make a wild guess, it turned out our guesses weren't so wild after all. So he taught us to trust what your gut reaction was to something. Even if you didn't understand every word, to work out the context. 

Ms Dove has concentrated on spreading the word about poetry and increasing public awareness of the benefits of literature. She brought together writers to explore the African diaspora through the eyes of its artists, and also championed children’s poetry and jazz with poetry events.

She took Washington kids into the Library of Congress to read their poems and to be recorded for the Archives.

She brought Crow Indian children to Washington where they forced their Congressmen to listen to them tell what poetry meant to them.

She had an evening of poetry and jazz to join those two audiences.

She also, like others who have sought to open up the Literary Canon, stirred up controversy when she edited The Penguin Anthology of 20th Century American Poetry. She was accused of valuing inclusion over quality.

Dove defended her choices and omissions vigorously and eloquently in The New York Review of Books.

Her most famous work to date is Thomas and Beulah, a collection of poems loosely based on the lives of her maternal grandparents, for which she received the Pulitzer Prize in 1987.

Ms Dove and her husband Fred Viebahn, are avid ballroom dancers, and have participated in a number of showcase performances. She has even published a book of poetry about dancing entitled American Smooth.

Take a moment and enjoy a bit of dancing and poetry.



Hades' Pitch

If I could just touch your ankle, he whispers, there
on the inside, above the bone—leans closer,
breath of lime and pepper—I know I could
make love to you.  She considers
this, secretly thrilled, though she wasn’t quite
sure what he meant.  He was good
with words, words that went straight to the liver.
Was she falling for him out of sheer boredom—
cooped up in this anything-but-humble dive, stone
gargoyles leering and brocade drapes licked with fire?
Her ankle burns where he described it.  She sighs
just as her mother aboveground stumbles, is caught
by the fetlock—bereft in an instant—
while the Great Man drives home his desire.  

from Mother Love. Copyright 1995.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Rita Dove:

• Online resources for Rita Dove.
• Prior posts on Rita Dove here, here, & here.
• Rita Dove's home page.

General:

• From the Catbird Seat: Poetry and literature at the Library of Congress.
• List of Poets Laureate.

Speaking of Poets Laureate . . .

Vacation  

by Rita Dove 

I love the hour before takeoff,
that stretch of no time, no home
but the gray vinyl seats linked like
unfolding paper dolls. Soon we shall
be summoned to the gate, soon enough
there’ll be the clumsy procedure of row numbers
and perforated stubs—but for now
I can look at these ragtag nuclear families
with their cooing and bickering
or the heeled bachelorette trying
to ignore a baby’s wail and the baby’s
exhausted mother waiting to be called up early
while the athlete, one monstrous hand
asleep on his duffel bag, listens,
perched like a seal trained for the plunge.
Even the lone executive
who has wandered this far into summer
with his lasered itinerary, briefcase
knocking his knees—even he
has worked for the pleasure of bearing
no more than a scrap of himself
into this hall. He’ll dine out, she’ll sleep late,
they’ll let the sun burn them happy all morning
—a little hope, a little whimsy
before the loudspeaker blurts
and we leap up to become
Flight 828, now boarding at Gate 17.

Painting by: Karen Watson.

ANOTHER FROM A POET LAUREATE

The Bistro Styx
by Rita Dove

She was thinner, with a mannered gauntness
as she paused just inside the double
glass doors to survey the room, silvery cape
billowing dramatically behind her. What's this,

I thought, lifting a hand until
she nodded and started across the parquet;
that's when I saw she was dressed all in gray,
from a kittenish cashmere skirt and cowl

down to the graphite signature of her shoes.
"Sorry I'm late," she panted, though
she wasn't, sliding into the chair, her cape

tossed off in a shudder of brushed steel.
We kissed. Then I leaned back to peruse
my blighted child, this wary aristocratic mole.

"How's business?" I asked, and hazarded
a motherly smile to keep from crying out:
Are you content to conduct your life
as a cliché and, what's worse,

an anachronism, the brooding artist's demimonde?
Near the rue Princesse they had opened
a gallery cum souvenir shop which featured
fuzzy off-color Monets next to his acrylics, no doubt,

plus beared African drums and the occasional miniature
gargoyle from Notre Dame the Great Artist had
carved at breakfast with a pocket knife.

"Tourists love us. The Parisians, of course"--
she blushed--"are amused, though not without
a certain admiration . . ."
The Chateaubriand

arrived on a bone-white plate, smug and absolute
in its fragrant crust, a black plug steaming
like the heart plucked from the chest of a worthy enemy;
one touch with her fork sent pink juices streaming.

"Admiration for what? "Wine, a bloody
Pinot Noir, brought color to her cheeks. "Why,
the aplomb with which we've managed
to support our Art"--meaning he'd convinced

her to pose nude for his appalling canvases,
faintly futuristic landscapes strewn
with carwrecks and bodies being chewed

by rabid cocker spaniels. "I'd like to come by
the studio, " I ventured, "and see the new stuff."
"Yes, if you wish . . . "A delicate rebuff

before the warning: "He dresses all
in black now. Me, he drapes in blues and carmine--
and even though I think it's kinda cute,
in company I tend toward more muted shades."

She paused and had the grace
to drop her eyes. She did look ravishing,
spookily insubstantial, a lipstick ghost on tissue,
or as if one stood on a fifth-floor terrace

peering through a fringe of rain at Paris'
dreaming chimney pots, each sooty issue
wobbling skyward in an ecstatic oracular spiral.

"And he never thinks of food.I wish
I didn't have to plead with him to eat. . . . "Fruit
and cheese appeared, arrayed on leaf-green dishes.

I stuck with café crème. "This Camembert's
so ripe, "she joked," it's practically grown hair,"
mucking a golden glob complete with parsley sprig
onto a heel of bread. Nothing seemed to fill

her up: She swallowed, sliced into a pear,
speared each tear-shaped lavaliere
and popped the dripping mess into her pretty mouth.
Nowhere the bright tufted fields, weighted

vines and sun poured down out of the south.
"But are you happy? "Fearing, I whispered it
quickly. "What? You know, Mother"--

she bit into the starry rose of a fig--
"one really should try the fruit here."
I've lost her, I thought, and called for the bill.

Adolescence II

Rita Dove (1952 - present)

Although it is night, I sit in the bathroom, waiting.
Sweat prickles behind my knees, the baby-breasts are alert.
Venetian blinds slice up the moon; the tiles quiver in pale strips.

Then they come, the three seal men with eyes as round
As dinner plates and eyelashes like sharpened tines.
They bring the scent of licorice. One sits in the washbowl,

One on the bathtub edge; one leans against the door.
"Can you feel it yet?" they whisper.
I don't know what to say, again. They chuckle,

Patting their sleek bodies with their hands.
"Well, maybe next time." And they rise,
Glittering like pools of ink under moonlight,

And vanish. I clutch at the ragged holes
They leave behind, here at the edge of darkness.
Night rests like a ball of fur on my tongue.