Great Poets

As a child, words were playdough and tinker toys, until, in my teens, I encountered a book of Pablo Neruda's poetry. I was changed, different in the very moment I read: "Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example,`The night is starry and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.' The night wind revolves in the sky and sings." If I hadn't so loved my own father, I would have wanted to be Pablo's son. Since that time I have encountered many writers who I have wanted to be part of my family. The men and women on this page are father and mother to my knowing, brother and sister to my heart. The dead are not really lost because they remain alive through their writing, and we continue speak of them in the present tense because their words still teach and enliven us. We are their emissaries to the new world, as we are for each other-we the living, who are dying to write. From: The Poet's Obligation So, through me, freedom and the sea will call in answer to the shrouded heart. from: You Will Remember So we go there, where nothing is waiting; we find everything waiting there. And I offer these instructive fragments from Ode to the Book (translated by Nathaniel Tarn): When I close a book I open life. I hear faltering cries among harbours. and: No book has been able to wrap me in paper, to fill me up with typography, with heavenly imprints or was ever able to bind my eyes, I come out of books to people orchards with the hoarse family of my song, and: I learned about life from life itself, love I learned in a single kiss and could teach no one anything except that I have lived with something in common among men, when fighting with them, when saying all their say in my song. And now I'd like you to meet some other heroes and friends: How could one not fall in love with Emily Dickinson-over and over again? I Hide Myself I HIDE myself within my flower, That wearing on your breast, You, unsuspecting, wear me too- And angels know the rest. I hide myself within my flower, That, fading from your vase, You, unsuspecting, feel for me Almost a loneliness. Armed by these two intelligent romantics, I went out into the hard world, which became a great deal easier to deal with when I was introduced to Richard Brautigan, the master of effective whimsy. After his death, I was honored touched to meet his daughter Ianthe Brautigan at a play in Santa Rosa, California. Several years after that, I had lunch in Manhattan with one of Richard’s close friends, who had been with him hours before his death. That conversation was a great reminder of how precious and important these writers are to us. General Custer Versus the Titanic For the soldiers of the Seventh Cavalry who were killed at the Little Bighorn River and the passengers who were lost on the maiden voyage of the Titanic. God bless their souls. Yes! it’s true all my visions have come home to roost at last. They are all true now and stand around me like a bouquet of lost ships and doomed generals. I gently put them away in a beautiful and disappearing vase. Romance and whimsy are certainly powerful tools, but my next poetic teacher arrived during a short stint in Hollywood. His name was Charles Bukowski, and while some find him too dark for their tastes, his words ate their way into my brain and I found a lot of my illusions about myself stripping away. Bukowski is published by one of the greatest presses around: Black Sparrow, which also publishes Lyn Lifshin, who you will meet on the next poetry page). I Made a Mistake I reached up into the top of the closet and took out a pair of blue panties and showed them to her and asked "are these yours?" and she looked and said, "no, those belong to a dog." she left after that and I haven't seen her since. she's not at her place. I keep going there, leaving notes stuck into the door. I go back and the notes are still there. I take the Maltese cross cut it down from my car mirror, tie it to her doorknob with a shoelace, leave a book of poems. when I go back the next night everything is still there. I keep searching the streets for that blood-wine battleship she drives with a weak battery, and the doors hanging from broken hinges. I drive around the streets an inch away from weeping, ashamed of my sentimentality and possible love. a confused old man driving in the rain wondering where the good luck went. California beckoned and I was introduced to Ranier Maria Rilke by the owner of one of the most powerful small bookstores I’ve ever encountered, Ariadne Books, in Napa. Ah, Rilke. Who else had ever had such a capacity for making metaphysics tangible and more myterious at the same time? Ignorant Before the Heavens of My Life Ignorant before the heavens of my life, I stand and gaze in wonder. Oh the vastness of the stars. Their rising and descent. How still. As if I didn't exist. Do I have any share in this? Have I somehow dispensed with their pure effect? Does my blood's ebb and flow change with their changes? Let me put aside every desire, every relationship except this one, so that my heart grows used to its farthest spaces. Better that it live fully aware, in the terror of its stars, than as if protected, soothed by what is near. Last year I had the opportunity to come to know William Meredith, whose literary honors have made him a permanent fixture in the constellation of American literature. The first time we met, he was making an appearance at Harvard Square (with Richard Harteis, on the next poetry page). Despite a dehabilitating stroke, the audience sat in rapt, attentive silence as he halting read his smooth, intelligent poetry. When he finished, there was a growing rumble of applause that led to a standing ovation. William blinked, smiled, and then accepted the homage with gentle grace. Afterwards, he sat and signed books, holding the pen precariously between fingers that often argued with his attempts to write. He shook every proferred hand, carefully, and it dawned on me how much courage and generosity he was expressing with this appearance. The young people who had lined up to share a moment with him stood in mild awe until he spoke, and any distance between the aging master and each young acolyte was soon dispersed. You can see this in his work, crafted not to show the expertise of his craft, but to invite the reader closer, to warm their minds at the vent of his heart. Effort At Speech. For Muriel Rukeyser Climbing the stairway gray with urban midnight, Cheerful, venial, ruminating pleasure, Darkness takes me, an arm around my throat and Give me your wallet. Fearing cowardice more than other terrors, Angry I wrestle with my unseen partner, Caught in a ritual not of our making, panting like spaniels. Bold with adrenaline, mindless, shaking, God damn it, no! I rasp at him behind me, Wrenching the leather from his grasp. It breaks like a wishbone, So that departing (routed by my shouting, not by my strength or inadvertent courage) Half the papers lending me a name are gone with him nameless. Only now turning, I see a tall boy running, Fifteen, sixteen, dressed thinly for the weather. Reaching the streetlight he turns a brown face briefly phrased like a question. I like a questioner watch him turn the corner Taking the answer with him, or his half of it. Loneliness, not a sensible emotion, breathes hard on the stairway. Walking homeward I fraternize with shadows, Zigzagging with them where they flee the streetlights, Asking for trouble, asking for the message trouble had sent me. All fall down has been scribbled on the street in Garbage and excrement: so much for the vision Others taunt me with, my untimely humor, so much for cheerfulness. Next time don't wrangle, give the boy the money, Call across chasms what the world you know is. Luckless and lied to, how can a child master human decorum? Next time a switchblade, somewhere he is thinking, I should have killed him and took the lousy wallet. Reading my cards he feels a surge of anger blind as my shame. Error from Babel mutters in the places, Cities apart, where now we word our failures: Hatred and guilt have left us without language that might have led to discourse Pablo Neruda’s Poetry Fans Emily Elizabeth Dickinson Charles Bukowski Poetry Corner Richard Brautigan Ranier Maria Rilke Support the Artists Where authors and readers come together! Love Poetry ?