Sing Out, Gwen

Priscilla Owen's confirmation, the burning crosses in North Carolina, the looming cloud of John Bolton, the U.S. Army's lies about Pat Tillman, the foolishness of Scott McClellan, and the New York Times still burying the lead on Ismail Merchant. (For those of you who did not get a secret decoder ring to go with the newly printed obituary, the sentence "En route to the festival, Mr. Merchant met Mr. Ivory, and they formed a partnership to make English-language features in India for the international market" translates to "In 1961, Ismail Merchant met the man who was his lover, friend, and artistic collaborator for 44 years, until his death." Thank God these gadgets still come in the Cracker Jacks boxes.)

How this country and this world stand so much, I don't know. But these are the days when you get out the Gwendolyn Brooks anthology, both to enjoy the luscious perfection of the writing and to remind yourself that some people did manage to understand some things about the world before they left it, and out of sheer generosity—and with hope—they put it down for the rest of us. "Paul Robeson" is in every way a great poem, but linger on those last six lines:

That time
we all heard it,
cool and clear,
cutting across the hot grit of the day.
The major Voice.
The adult Voice
forgoing Rolling River,
forgoing tearful tale of bale and barge
and other symptoms of an old despond.
Warning, in music-words
devout and large,
that we are each other's
harvest:
we are each other's
business:
we are each other's
magnitude and bond.

Among other things, this poem is about acknowledging the dastardly pain in the world, and its sinister history, but getting back to the idea that our universal companionship with each other actually matters. Someone in this world will eventually sing again the way Paul did. Even though we miss her, Gwendolyn is still singing, too.

P.S. Some people, including certain newly-minted federal judges, make it a habit and a point of pride not to learn this lesson. Gwendolyn, that sly fox, has already beat them at their game. Fanning through the table of contents, I am reminded that she also wrote a poem called, ahem, "Priscilla Assails the Sepulchre of Love." The poem ends this way ("she" is the speaker's own body):

I keep my keys away that she
May never have to find
The enameled winter of your heart,
The pastels of your mind.

Nobody, and I mean nobody, did it better, Ms. Brooks.

It Ain't About Me...

...it's about my friends, two of whom are having big days. First, the good news: Dwight Codr is defending his dissertation this afternoon, on his way to completing his doctorate and setting up shop as a new professor of 18th Century British lit next year at Tulane University. Those little critters down in New Orleans are lucky dogs.

Then, the bad news, though it's all relative: my friend Ann just left for a summer in her hometown of Madison, WI. So, bully for Madison, but it sucks to be me. Ann is another of these spectacular poets I've met in Ithaca, on top of which she is my willing accomplice at all manner of fair-to-abominable movies that no one else will put up with. She also has the brilliant habit, of which I am undisguisedly envious, of summing up her reactions to movies in single, hilarious sentences. Most recently, after Crash, which I liked and she didn't: "I feel like Paul Haggis is sitting at his typewriter, calling over his shoulder, 'Hey baby, can you help me think of something racist to say to an Asian person?'"

Part of Ann's genius is that her pop cultural obsessions and her poetry need not be exclusive. So for all y'all Looney Tunes fans out there, and for all you poetry journals that aren't getting what you're missing, and for anyone who bulks up the credit card debt with things you don't need and know ahead of time won't work, and for anyone who has ever felt like you repeatedly make the same mistake or spend your life chasing the impossible (but secretly enjoy this), here is:

Special Overnight from ACME
Look to the edge and heave
of the road: spot that bird
kicking up its heels, dust—purple
headdress of feathers, beak
the orange of Seville—choke
on the gum of longing: it just won't be
swallowed. I see pillows straining
with down, thick broth, my teeth
gartered at its pebbly thigh. I lose track
of myself, my spending. Boxes pile
on my porch, seething, each scheme—
catapults and earthquake pills, rocket
skates and lassos; the French
forks and knives only good
for what one's already got—
stuffed into the thick privacy of cardboard:
The UPS man says, Sign here
and, Whew, sure is hot. Hot as my stomach,
I could slap it against his face
like an ear, a limp hand. Something's dying
in most of my ideas, maybe me,
but I was born ready. Sometimes I run
in place, in slow motion, face
the mirror: there's the stretch of my face
and crooked jaw snap. This is me
in 2-D, fierce as anything in this desert
but nothing so succulent as this noisy
flash. So light the fuse, trip the switch.
Please, it's all happening. More. Again.

© 2005 Ann Buechner. Don't be stealing the flava without consulting the source. If you're interested, I'll see about putting you in touch.

It's Sunday, May 8...

...do you know where your mother is? I'm about to head home from campus and give my strong, amazing, funny, courageous, and sweet-souled mother a call.

I owe somebody else a call, too, who is going to be a mother for the first time in just a few months. My friend Amanda is going to have the luckiest little son or daughter, who, if genetics are worth anything, will hopefully inherit her sublime sense of humor, her automatic way of seeing right to the heart of something, and—even if she sometimes experiences this as a frustration—her incredible ability to become passionate and interested in an endless series of subjects, crafts, people, places, books, ideas, whatever.

I'm also thinking about Amanda today because Mother's Day is the traditional occasion when Cornell's graduating M.F.A. recipients in Poetry and Fiction read their work for the public. (That's where I'm heading home from now.) Amanda brought the house down four years ago when she was on the docket, and though she is liable to deny it, she's as good a poet as any you've ever read. She knows how much I always liked this one, as did The Cortland Review. (You can hear her reading it if you click on the link):

Sonnet While Killing a Chicken
The most important thing a girl can learn
is how to kill a chicken for a meal
to please a man, so she begins to turn
the bird by neck and bound feet—this skill real,
precise, my mother wringing damp bath towels
and snapping them on our rumps like the neck
snaps in the hand, wings sputtering, bowels
release shit. The bird, its broken neck thick
with draining blood, is lowered to a tub
and bathed in scalding water. Feathers pulled
like flowers from roots. Feet sliced off. Wings nubbed
like a girl's new-formed breasts. Tender meat culled.
The chicken flat on its dead back. The knife
just above its neck. The girl. The first slice.

And here's one more, since you can't ever read just one poem, especially by Amanda. For anyone who's ever let fly with a surprising outburst or an imperfectly timed remark, I think you might feel this one, which comes care of The Salt River Review. (Note: I have certainly never made an uncouth or ungenerous remark, just so that's clear.)

I Keep a Small Fool
I keep a small fool in my mouth.
In public, my tongue moves in and out
like a depressor, the fool bobbing
on the end, a cuckoo
chiming the hour with words.

The food I lay to my lips is to appease him,
the way, in some cultures,
people leave apples or water for spirits.
The fool will have nothing of it-
not the round, bitter cask of orange,
not the quick sizzle of frying meat.

I used to think enough whiskey
might drown him, but he knows
to plug his nose, float against my teeth,
wait until I wag him out
like a child's chewed-up food

and he speaks and he sounds just like me
and I sit back and listen,
astonished.

Someday I might put razor blades in my salad,
a tart sprinkle of arsenic over toothpaste,
knock him over with a bunch of big vitamins
and swallow him like a pill.
Someday I'll just chew that fool up
and pick his fibers from my teeth.

Talk to you soon, Manders, and Mom, too. Hope everyone's enjoying the sunny day.