VRZHU bullets of pure love

Father's Day

A poem by that wild man of Irish poetry, Paul Durcan. This one is almost as good as the one about being in Brazil and having a talk with an Irish transvestite about Mary Robinson, former president of the Irish  Republic:

10:30 Mass, June 16, 1985
Paul Durcan

When the priest made his entrance on the altar at the stroke of 10:30
He looked like a film star at an international airport
After having flown in from the other side of the world
As if the other side of the world was the other side of the street;
Only, instead of an overnight bag slung over his shoulder,
He was carrying the chalice in its triangular green veil --
The way a dapper comedian cloaks a dove in a silk handkerchief.
Having kissed the altar, he strode over to the microphone:
I'd like to say how glad I am to be here with you this morning.
Oddly, you could see quite well that he was genuinely glad --
As if, in fact, he had been actually looking forward to this Sunday service,
Much the way I had been looking forward to it myself;
As if, in fact, this was the big moment of his day -- of his week,
Not merely another ritual to be sanctimoniously performed.
He was a small, stocky, handsome man in his forties
With a big mop of curly grey hair
And black, horn-rimmed, tinted spectacles.
I am sure that more than half the women in the church
Fell in love with him on the spot --
Not to mention the men.
Myself, I felt like a cuddle.
The reading from the prophet Ezekiel (17:22-24)
Was a piece of codswallop about cedar trees in Israel
(it's a long way from a tin of steak-and-kidney pie
for Sunday lunch in a Dublin bedsit
to cedar trees in Israel),
but the epistle was worse –

St. Paul on his high horse and, as nearly always,
Putting his hoof in it - prating about "the law court of Christ."
With the Gospel, however, things began to look up --
The parable of the mustard seed as being the kingdom of heaven;
Now then the Homily, at best probably inoffensively boring.
It's Father's Day -- this small, solid, serious, sexy priest began--
And I want to tell you about my own father
Because none of you knew him.
If there was one thing he liked, it was a pint of Guinness;
If there was one thing he liked more than a pint of Guinness
It was two pints of Guinness.
But then when he was fifty-five he gave up the drink.
I never knew why, but I had my suspicions.
Long after he had died, my mother told me why:
He was so proud of me when I entered the seminary
That he gave up drinking as his way of thanking God.
But he himself never said a word about it to me --
He kept his secret to the end. He died from cancer
A few weeks before I was ordained a priest.
I'd like to go to Confession -- he said to me:
OK -- I'll go and get a priest -- I said to him:
No -- don't do that -- I'd prefer to talk to you:
Dying, he confessed to me the story of his life.
How many of you here at Mass today are fathers?
I want all of you who are fathers to stand up.

Not one male in transept or aisle or nave stood up --
It was as if all the fathers in the church had been caught out
In the profanity of their sanctity,
In the bodily nakedness of their fatherhood,
In the carnal deed of their fathering;
Then, in ones and twos and threes, fifty or sixty of us clambered to our feet
And blushed to the roots of our being.
Now -- declared the priest -- let the rest of us
Praise these men our fathers.
He began to clap hands.
Gradually the congregation began to clap hands,
Until the church was ablaze with clapping hands --
Wives vying with daughters, sons with sons,
Clapping clapping clapping clapping clapping,
While I stood there in a trance, tears streaming down my cheeks: Jesus!
I want to tell you about my own father
Because none of you knew him!

Saturday Mini-matinee

Days and Nights in the Forest (India, 1970, Satyajit Ray) is Ray’s Smiles of a Summer Night, his Marriage of Figaro, As You Like it and The Cherry Orchard.

Ray’s films, Days and Nights especially, are tonally related to the Renior of Rules of the Game and the Big Illusion and

D&NF was the second Ray film I saw (after Distant Thunder).  Two scenes I remember particularly: on from the very beginning—a shot of the forest going by faster and faster as the music speeds up and a scene where one of the sisters (the supposedly less attractive, or at least less sophisticated one) puts on her jewelry and best dress, and is an absolute goddess.

The original negative of Days and Nights in the Forest film was lost in a fire.

And it seems to be unavailable on DVD, or VHS.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

I was all ready to tear into this post from the Kenyon review blog, but it turns out to be pretty reasonable. And Andy Grace makes a good point that “if you adopt reviewing as part of your identity as a writer, you are more likely to want to establish an aesthetic that is yours, with some work falling inside your personal canon, and some falling outside.”

What was starting to get my hackles up was one thing at the beginning (“When was the last time you read a truly scathing review of a book of poetry?”) and one thing at the end (“The fact is that we need negative reviews.  If book reviews basically become the same thing as a really long blurb, then the whole enterprise of reviewing would be extremely silly.”).

And, even more, the current trope about how soft, pampering, and obsequious reviews are, how logrolling is what reviews have become, how we need more tough critics to tear all these poets a new one. And so on.

This leads to praise for critics such as Adam Kirsch, William Logan, Joan Houlihan, Carmine Starnino. 

I have read some very good reviews, or essays more accurately, by Adam Kirsch and William Logan. But I have read reviews by all of the above that have been (to be kind) entertaining and nothing more. And these were certainly "negative" reviews.

But “The fact is that we need negative reviews.  If book reviews basically become the same thing as a really long blurb, then the whole enterprise of reviewing would be extremely silly” is really a false dichotomy.

Here are 4 quotes by two poets to provide a corrective to the desire for scathing reviews

What is the function of a critic? So far as I am concerned, he can do me one or more of the following services:

1) Introduce me to authors or works of which I was hitherto unaware.
2) Convince me I have undervalued an author or a work because I had not read them carefully enough.
3) Show me relations between works of different ages and cultures which I should never have seen for myself because I do not know enough and never shall. 
4) Give a "reading" of a work which increases my understanding of it.
5) Throw light upon the process of artistic "Making."
6) Throw light upon the relation of art to life, to science, to economics, religion, etc.

                                            *    *    *    *

If good literary critics are rarer than good poets or novelists, one reason is the nature of human egoism. A poet or a novelist has to learn to. be humble in the face of his subject matter which is life in general. But the subject matter of a critic, before which he has to learn to be humble, is made up of authors, that is to say, of human individuals, and this kind of humility is much more difficult to acquire. It is far easier to say-"Life is more important than anything I can say about it" than to say-"Mr. A's work is more important than anything I can say about it.

-W. H. Auden

                                            *    *    *    *

I see the chief similarity between criticism and poetry as this: they are truest to themselves when their impulse is generous and catholic. If poetry is accurate praise, then criticism should aspire to be accurate praise of praise.

                                            *    *    *    *

Attacking bad books is not only a waste of time but also bad for the character. If I find a book really bad, the only interest I can derive from writing about it has to come from myself, from such display of intelligence, wit and malice as I can contrive. One cannot review a bad book without showing off.

The injunction "Resist not evil but overcame evil with good" may in many spheres of life be impossible to obey literally, but in the sphere of art it is common sense. Bad art is always with us, but any given work of art is bad in a period way; the particular kind of badness it exhibits will pass away and be succeeded by some other kind. It is unnecessary, therefore, to attack it, because it will perish anyway. . . . The only sensible procedure for a critic is to keep silent about works which he believes to be bad, while at the same time vigorously campaigning for those he believes to be good, especially if they are being neglected or underestimated by the public. . . .

- William Meredith

It's saturday toons/tunes!

I don't plan to always have music up here on saturday vrzhuvideo. But I have backlog at present. John Fahey:

Daybook Entry - Stephane Mallarme

Stephane Mallarme:

I do not believe one can use any arms that are more efficient than literature.

There is only one man who has the right to be an anarchist, Me the Poet, because I alone create a product that society does not want, in exchange for which society does not give me enough to live on.

Dreams have as much influence as actions.

There is only beauty and it has only one perfect expression: poetry. All the rest is a lie,
except for those who live by the body, love, and, that love of the mind, friendship. For me, Poetry takes the place of love, because it is enamored of itself, and because its sensual delight falls back deliciously in my soul.

 

The poetic act consists of suddenly seeing that an idea splits up into a number of equal motifs and of grouping them; they rhyme.

The pure work implies the disappearance of the poet as speaker, who hands over to the words.

It is the job of poetry to clean up our word-clogged reality by creating silences around things.

We are currently witnessing  . . . an extraordinary performance, unique in the history of poetry: each poet going into his own corner to play, on a flute very much his own, whatever tunes he wishes, for the first time poets do not sing by their music stands. Until now, of course, one needed the great organ of consecrated meter as an accompaniment. Well, one has played too much of it and gotten tired of it.

The flesh, alas, is sad, and I have read all the books. . .

tuesday abbreviated post

A bit short today, folks.  Fighting off a ridiculous cold, coughing like a lawn mower trying to start, having to use a spatula rather than a tissue. And our bathroom ceiling downstairs fell, moving in less than a second from eponymous ceiling to floor. I'm done shoveling it out the door (2 layers! Drywall and plaster!), but some serious wipedown is in order. There's more, but suffice to say Joe Btfsplk was in the neighborhood. Bright spot: Thanks to fellow Vrzhu Dan Vera for some life-saving coffee delivery.

With that in mind enjoy the following panels courtesy of Wondermark by the brilliant David Malki.  Please visit his site HERE and buy everything.

      

More:

Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams
Kenneth Koch

1
I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.
I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do
and its wooden beams were so inviting.

2
We laughed at the hollyhocks together
and then I sprayed them with lye.
Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.

3
I gave away the money that you had been saving to live on for the next ten years.
The man who asked for it was shabby
and the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy and cold.

4
Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg.
Forgive me. I was clumsy and
I wanted you here in the wards, where I am the doctor!

Still more:

1
I have forgiven
the breakfast
that was in
you

and which
the icebox was
probably saving
for plums.

Eat me,
sweet so and so,
you are delicious
and cold.

2
I have broken
the delicious ice
which ate them
cold

in the plumbing
box of sweet
forgiveness.

Save me,
You are
so fast
and so probable.

3
I have plumbed
the Probable,
that so delicious
box

and you were ice,
and saving the
sweet breakfast

for which—
so scold me!—
they were in.

U. Utah Phillips: May 15, 1935 - May 23, 2008

Rest in peace, brother.

Tuesday Meanderings

I recently had an email exchange with a friend who is comprehensively knowledgeable about music and especially 20th “classical” music:

Me: I didn't know about this recording of the Art of the Fugue with our friend [Pierre-Laurent] Aimard: http://www.slate.com/id/2191108/

I'm tempted. But the A of F, though I admired it, never really thrilled me.  That may be because I admittedly didn't have a decent version of it.

My Friend: I just got this recently.  I didn't know about it for quite a while, somehow.  Aimard's been hitting the 19th century rep hard, I think this is his first journey into the 18th.

Anyway, I sort of agree about A of F.  It's a tougher nut than, say Goldberg Vtns.  But as I've been listening to it the last two weeks, if you don't think of it as melodies and themes and variations and counterpoint (i.e., 18th century) but think of it as a "sound world" to be immersed in (like you would Berio/Boulez/Xenakis), it's gorgeous. You can do that more easily on piano, I think.  (My other two recordings are organ and harpsichord.)

I like the idea here of modern music creating a “sound world,” a distinct kind of creation from what earlier modes of composing had as a goal and accomplished.

Could something similar be said for modernism in poetry? 

There are some similarities.  Both modern music and poetry are considered difficult. Both have been considered as betrayals of culture and audiences by conservative critics (sometimes the same ones).

Does modern poetry (Pound, Bunting, Zukofsky, Ashbery, and those after) create a "language world" similar to modern music (Schoenberg, Webern, Messiaen, Ligeti, Boulez, Babbit) creating a "sound world?"

I think sound world does describe the different kind of listening, a willingness to be immersed with fewer directions and clues of "what to listen for."  It requires a certain kind of attentiveness. My friend called it intellectual rather than emotional, though I don't think this is quite right.

In a way, modern music reverses the way 19th century music enters the consciousness.  The same may be true of the poetry of modernity and its heirs.  And what is that reversal? For modern music and poetry you must first suspend your judgment, and do some kind of work--thinking, or something--be willing to be disoriented. Only after you've brought your mind to bear, do you begin to get pleasure from the work.  You are plunked down in an unfamiliar world and only after you've been there a while, does it start to make sense and give pleasure. This has been the case for me with Ashbery and Boulez, both of whom I enjoy reading/listening to.

What is this the reverse of? "The heart gives pleasure first." Art that welcomes you in so you are not disoriented. After which, the work can complicate things, or darken them.

I want to say that one is not superior to the other, but there may be problems with that position.

One more stray thought. Could there have been a need that this different kind of making arose for?  Was traditional melody and harmony not able to address this need?  Perhaps the traditional elements of composition were possible because everyone lived in a common sound world and there was unity and agreement within that world.  If that agreement disappeared, might there be a need to create a world within which the artwork could exist, as part of that artwork? What if this was the only way to have a world under certain conditions?  What if some large societal change made new tools of composition necessary? And what happens when (1) society changes back, or (2) changes again?

Music that strives after accessibility rarely stirs more than the mildest interest. -Charles Wilson

History teaches us that it is the art that is tough and that resists immediate appreciation that has the best chance of enduring and returning. We must do all we can to foster it, to beg composers to pay no heed to the pressures of the music business but to listen to their own inspiration. -Charles Rosen

Here are some quotes from the late Robert Rauschenberg, some of which are applicable to poetry:

I think that in the last twenty years or so, there's been a new kind of honesty in painting where painters have been very proud of paint and have let it behave openly.

There were only five galleries in those days, and the artists really depended on each other socially, psychologically, and even critically. It’s impossible now. Business sure screwed up the art world universally.

My art is about paying attention – about the extremely dangerous possibility that you might be art.

Because life doesn’t have any other possibility, everyone can be measured by his adaptability to change.

An empty canvas is full.

I don't think any one person, whether artist or not, has been given permission by anyone to put the responsibility of the way things are on anyone else.

You begin with the possibilities of the material.

Screwing things up is a virtue. Being correct is never the point. I have an almost fanatically correct assistant, and by the time she re-spells my words and corrects my punctuation, I can’t read what I wrote. Being right can stop all the momentum of a very interesting idea.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

How green is the poetry world?  You could say not much since the overwhelming majority of poems do not use the full surface area of the paper upon which they are written.  But you could counter this by saying that more and more poetry is showing up on the Web, thereby saving loads of paper.  Certainly a calculus can be done here for someone who’s interested and is pretty good with algorithms.

What is the environmental impact of a poetry reading? Of a chapbook? Is innovative poetry inherently more green than neoformalist poetry? What about the means of production? Is on-demand publishing better for the environment than traditional publishing? Are DIY productions more environmentally friendly than poetry contests, no matter how prestigious?

These are questions and areas ripe for study. We here at the Vrzhu Research Bureau share most Americans' worries and concerns over the environment, global warming, and the need for grant money. I don’t know if the EPA has any plans, but the Bureau is considering modestly funding an initial study within the next 3 or 4 years.

In the meantime, there is one area of waste in the literary world that has so far escaped attention, an area where the need for the 3 R’s could not be clearer.  That area is the literary interview.

And within literary interviews, there is no item more disposable than the question.  With rare exceptions, an interview question is asked once, and once only, and then only of one person. Each year, hundreds, perhaps thousands of interview questions are used once and then discarded.  What an enormous waste of time and energy, let alone raw material!

Interview answers are nearly as wasteful, but, on the whole, I suspect answers get recycled much more often.  And, even if not recycled, they are reused in different context, such as quotes, or biographies, or studies, or dissertations.  I doubt anyone ever has the need to quote the interview question in and of itself.

How can we conserve this [precious] resource?  I believe, given the millions of questions asked in interviews over time, a small effort to recycle can be made.  Some of this is already taking place. Think how often you’ve heard the question about where does a poet write, what kind of pen, et cetera. But more needs to be done.

The VRB is taking a bold step forward by planning to recycle ALL the questions asked in an interview.  Ideally, if in print, the re-questions would just be indicated by number or some other designation, or perhaps not referred to specifically at all.  In this case the re-answers would only be printed, with a reference to another interview from which the questions have been taken. 

Depending on the ratio of Question Word Count (QWC) to Answer Word Count (AWC), this could result in a dramatic reduction of the total carbon footprint for the interview genre as a whole.  For example, a ratio of 1QWC:1AWC would mean a 50% cut in the paper (and energy) used in producing the interview for readers. Eventually, a bank of questions could be established where all interviewers would be able to access previously used interview questions. The interviewer could draw questions as needed (appropriately identified by serial number) from the question-fund, and use them in a re-questioning context.

The VRB has produced a prototype sample of a Re-Question Interview to show how it might work.  Note that this RQI includes the text of the original questions as they appeared in the source interview. This is for demonstration purposes only, and to familiarize readers with how the process would work.  Once in production, the Re-Questions would be indicated by some referential sequencing. The whole original interview can be found in Poetry Daily’s archive, which, along with Gulf Coast, Matthew Seigel, and Bob Hicok, the VRB thanks profusely.

*    *      *

Interview Test Case 1.0

RE-QUESTION: Some of your newer poems seem to be much more meditative and less "witty" than your earlier work. Also, I've been told that you are trying to turn away from this perception of you being a "funny" poet. Is this true? If so, what do you find troubling about being called a "funny" poet?

VRZHU: The same thing I find funny about a troubling poet.  I think my biggest motivation for trying to shed the funny moniker is that, though I’m funny poet, no one ever laughs. Ever.

RQ: So many contemporary artists seem to scoff at the idea that art might still be able to change the world. What is the best thing a book of poems can accomplish today, in 2006? Can poems be catalysts for change in the world at large?

VRZHU: I think the best thing a book of poems could accomplish would be to broker a sustainable peace between Israel and Palestine.  That would be pretty cool. That, or get published. One or the other.

RQ: This past summer, you were part of the Wave Poetry Bus Tour, traveling and reading with the likes of Joshua Beckman, Gillian Conoley, Carrie St. George Comer, and Matthew Zapruder. How do you feel about the energy of these and other young, up-and-coming poets?

VRZHU: I was part of that? I have no recollection whatsoever.  I…(puts hand to forehead)…maybe we should just go on, ok?

RQ: Years ago, you used to organize poetry slams in Ann Arbor. Did slam poetry in any way affect your own work, and if so how? Do you think there is anything publishing poets could extract from the spoken word community?

VRZHU: Look at this. Slam. I slam. I. Slam. Put them together. Eyeslam. Islam. Islam. See? Get it? I personally would be happy to extract a couple benjamins from the spoken word community.  I mean, think of all the money they’re saving on paper.

RQ: It seems that much of contemporary poetry is compartmentalized into cliques, groups, schools, etc. Why do you think this is? Do you see it as a good thing, a bad thing, or simply a function of the poetry business?

VRZHU: The...what? Poetry business? Cliques? What…do I…think about…what? About little compartments for poetry? That click shut? What? Like in your belly button, you mean? What?

RQ: It seems as though you are really pushing your voice forward with these new poems. Who is influencing your work at this stage of your career?

VRZHU: At this very moment, Bob Hicok.  After this, who knows? Wendell Wilkie.

RQ: Your poems are often ambitious, as in, you seem to jump around in terms of subject matter while keeping a consistent narrative thread running through them. Do you find yourself ever pushing a poem too hard to get it to do what you want it to do? If this is at all possible, does it occur during the revision process?

VRZHU: Man, you have no idea. I had this poem once. Jesus. It would not f[-----]g budge. I was ready to put the electrodes on that sucker, I mean. Of course, I didn’t put electrodes on it. I’m joking, really. Ha-ha. That would cruel. Um…on the hand I’ve had poems go on to successful careers in paralegal professions and retail sales management.  Does that count as ambitious? No electrodes, no sir.

RQ: Oftentimes writers will begin a piece knowing where and how it is going to end as well as having a clear goal of how they want the piece to function (in the world and/or on the page). Do you find yourself setting out to accomplish something specific when you begin to write a poem? How much do you think about your audience?

VRZHU: What is this stuff on my pants?

RQ: In 2002, you abandoned a successful die design business, one which you built from the ground up, to teach in the academy. Do you have any regrets about this decision? Was this ever a goal of yours?

VRZHU: Dye? You think it’s dye? Well, it’s…yeah, I’m regretting wearing this right now.  Maybe I should get it dry cleaned.

RQ: I find it comforting to know you came on the poetry scene without any glittering degrees. How do you think this influenced the direction and velocity of your career? When did you find your work started getting the attention it deserved?

VRZHU: Gee, that’s swell that you find it comforting, because, yeah, it influenced the way my career has been accelerating toward the toilet big time. I’d be happy to get a simple, form letter of rejection instead of my poems all torn up and smelly, that would be a start. Is that what you mean by the attention it deserves?

RQ: What was the strongest physical reaction you've ever had to a poet/book of poems? What about to a reading?

VRZHU: I’m not allowed to talk about that.  And that wasn’t me, it was somebody else.

RQ: To whom have you reacted this way?

VRZHU: Hey, I mean, like next question, alright already? Can we move on here?

RQ: What was it like studying in an MFA program after already having published four books of poems? How did it change your own work?

VRZHU: Do you blah blah blah blah? What was it like blah blah blah blahing? How did it blah blah blah? What *is* it with you, man? What is this? The third degree? [pauses] Hold on a moment, give me a moment. [put head between legs] Okay, okay, get a grip on yourself. [sits up] Sorry. What were you saying?

RQ: So many poets are rushing to get that first book out, spending hundreds of dollars on contests and reading fees. Do you believe this is the best way for young poets to get noticed?

VRZHU: No.

RQ: What message, if any, do you have for the several thousand people who are going to graduate this year with MFAs?

VRZHU: Dear several thousand people: You are the future leaders of the world, and, together, you can set the world on fire!  It’s a bold new dawn, the air is fresh, and the herring are running. Seize, catch those herring with your bare hands, laddies! But remember: catch and release. For he who releases shall himself be released. But he who guts and packs in ice shall himself be gutted and packed in ice, and then fried up with onions and butter.  I say to you: remember to give back. Remember to uphold what’s good about the past, and forge what will be good about the future. For you are the future, our future, the future that awaits this still young nation, this emerald continent still in onesies. Wait, did you say MBA or MFA?

RQ: What would Bob Hicok launch from a giant sling shot?

VRZHU: Bob Hicok. [waves] Thanks, Bob!

Saturday morning Vrzhu-viddy

Pamelia Kurstin on the theremin: