Emily Warn

Hayden Carruth (1921-2008)

I join with all the staff and board at the Poetry Foundation and Poetry magazine in expressing my profound sorrow at the death of Hayden Carruth, who died last night at his home in Munnsville, New York. His contribution to American poetry and to the life of this country was extraordinary.
Graves
by Hayden Carruth
Both of us had been close
to Joel, and at Joel’s death
my friend had gone to the wake
and the memorial service
and more recently he had
visited Joel’s grave, there
at the back of the grassy
cemetery among the trees,
“a quiet, gentle place,” he said,
“befitting Joel.” And I said,
“What’s the point of going
to look at graves?” I went
into one of my celebrated
tirades. “People go to look
at the grave of Keats or Hart
Crane, they go traveling just to
do it, what a waste of time.
What do they find there? Hell,
I wouldn’t go look at the grave of
Shakespeare if it was just
down the street. I wouldn’t
look at—” And I stopped. I
was about to say the grave of God
until I realized I’m looking at it
all the time….
Hayden Carruth was the author of more than thirty books of poetry and winner of the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Carruth was editor of Poetry magazine from 1949-1950. His last collection of work was Toward the Distant Islands, published by Copper Canyon Press.

09.30.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (10)

Lavinia Greenlaw

Read the foreign and the dead

I grew up in a house full of books and made my way through the shelves.
There wasn’t much else to do.
I didn’t have a clue who anyone was, so I read poems not poets.
Those who formed me were from mythical places: Eastern Europe (lurking behind the Iron Curtain) and America (lurking behind the album cover and cinema screen).
They took me outside and so I got to see in.

09.30.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (3)

Wanda Coleman

POETRY + MUSIC = INSPIRATION?

Remember that scene from “The Big Sleep,” where Bacall (a sizzling Sternwood) purrs “And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine,” at Bogart’s Marlowe? Jazz aficionados looking closely, will notice that the piano man bears an uncanny resemblance to Mel Powell (1923-1998), boy genius who played with Benny Goodman in the 40s. We chanced to meet Powell circa 1986 at a conference held by Norman Cousins for Chinese and American writers. At its close, a salon was held in the home of playwright Jerome Lawrence (“Inherit the Wind”). Before Powell’s arrival, Lawrence explained that he had invited a “famous” friend who had been severely depressed for years, unable to work, ailing and using a cane. We were asked not to pester the man. There was a baby grand in the room, and Cousins boldly urged Powell to play. Lawrence chimed in. Powell was reluctant and invited anyone to join him. My husband egged me on: “Now, honey, here’s your chance to sing with the great Mel Powell.” Nervously, I joined him, hastily recalled the refrain of a recently written blues poem (“mean-lovin’ woman”), and quickly explained the “sound.” He laid fingers to the keyboard, gave them seconds to think, went into a flourish, and voila duet ala improvisation. Genuine applause and photo session followed. Powell forgot his cane at the piano. Within months, his name reappeared in the entertainment news. Not only was he recording again, he was composing—receiving a Pulitzer Prize in 1990—all because, we liked to speculate….

09.29.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (2)

Forrest Gander

Into the Mouths of Volcanoes

In responsive commentaries on my earlier note memorializing the death of Pablo Neruda, several people mentioned the living Chilean poet Raúl Zurita. During the Pinochet regime, Zurita had the guts to bulldoze a poem into the sand of the Atacama Desert. It read ni pena ni miedo: neither pain nor fear.
 Long ago, it would have been obliterated by rains and wind, but the people in the nearest village still carry shovels into the desert on Sundays and they turn over the sand of the letters to keep it fresh. In 2001, the President of Chile announced on TV something that most people already knew: that the bodies of hundreds of people who disappeared during the Pinochet dictatorship would never be found because they had been thrown out of airplanes into the Pacific Ocean and into the mouths of volcanoes.

09.29.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (5)

Javier Huerta

¡Maldición!

In our daily language there is a group of words that are prohibited, secret, without clear meanings. We confide the impressions of our most brutal or subtle emotions and reactions to their magical ambiguities. They are evil words, and we utter them in a loud voice only when we are not in control of ourselves. In a confused way they reflect our intimacy: the explosions of our vitality light them up and the depressions of our spirit darken them. They constitute a sacred language like those of children, poetry, and sects. Each letter and syllable has a double life, at once luminous and obscure, that reveals and hides us. They are words that say nothing and say everything. Adolescents, when they want to appear like men, speak them in a hoarse voice. [. . . ] But these words are definitive and categorical, despite their ambiguities and the ease with which their meanings change. They are the bad words, the only living language in a world of anemic vocables. They are poetry within the reach of everyone. Octavio Paz (trans. Lysander Kemp)

09.27.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (4)

Olena Kalytiak Davis

ARE POETS BAD MOTHERFUCKERS?????????

wow and well–and hey forrest and travis–i see that while i have been in fucking TRIAL and trying to buy a fucking HOUSE and practicing spelling lists (SYNAGOGUE) and reading (and suffering from) INDIGNATION with (not from/toward) my CHILDREN –and, yes, Mr. Knott, despite my current lack of poetry um, PRODUCT, i actually do FEEL that i did/was/am doing all those things as a POET and not as a(n underpaid!) (part-time!) lawyer or (underpaidparttime) capitalist (jesus, trying to cash in/out my divorce retirement fund!!!!!!) or even an underpaid FULL TIME mother (well–insert big argument with self/x-husband etc. here), —you guys have been being talking about stuff that i really like, like music and people saying: “god gave me a gift, motherfucker!”–it all suddenly just makes me wanna pose the question: ARE POETS BAD MOTHERFUCKERS or (k)NOT(t)???????????
forrest and travis? are we living our lives differently? better? or are we just making stupid poetry “moves”? bloggingabout…? WESTON CUTTER? EDWARD HIRSCH? CATE MARVIN? MATTHEW ZAPRUDER? ANDREW ZAWACKI? MICHAEL WIEGERS? NICK FLYNN? JOEL BROUWER? (i have a present for you!) oh KARY WAYSON AND KATHY WHITCOMB: please get off the couch at anthropologie! SUSAN PARR??????? RICK MOODY????? JIM BERHLE–make a joke, please. where are all you guys? o, HEATHER McHUGH! o, MARY RUEFLE. (pointless! doesn’t even have a computer!) o, DEAN YOUNG and MARK HALLIDAY! (and, i so wish, ALLEN GROSSMAN!) FRANZ WRIGHT! DAVID RIVARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (still trying, (lost) friend). speak to me! tell me. what are “we” doing? are “we” doing “anything”? is this a matter of life? i need to know. no, really. please.

09.26.08 PERMALINK | COMMENTS (20)