"So Ardently Contested..."

Two weeks ago I wrote a review of another young poet's first trade collection [Minimalism Part VII]. I took that book to task for not aspiring to a high enough model of practice, and suggested that a compromised version of writing, could lead to a compromised, short-circuited fulfillment. The poet contacted me and suggested that I must be "angry" at him or his writing, else how could I not find the worthy aspects of his poetry? The idea that a negative reaction to any poetry, could only be explained by a kind of premonitory disaffection, is probably a natural enough reaction to rejection. 

 

The idea of a standard of value as applied to poetry is one that is always on the table, even when--even though--we may not express that in so many words. People will often say that the only worthwhile pastime is promoting and expressing pleasure at what we like and admire, but if we (or everyone we think belongs to our sphere) spend all our energy praising each others' work, in the end we can't have any standards at all, save for friendship and good cheer. Friendship is a wonderful thing, as are loyalty and admiration, emulation and gratitude. But these qualities, as necessary as they are to a happy existence, can't be the basis for an aesthetics, or a poetics.

 

It is perfectly possible to be trapped inside a provincial mediocrity, buttressed by the wholesome encouragement of friends and close associates. And this mediocrity may not even be geographical. In the modern age--especially now in the age of the internet--one's circle or coterie of attachments or contacts may be built out of a casual series of electronic communications, which defines a certain attitude or set of shared tendencies. There's a very real desire, sometimes, to believe that acceptance and approbation are a spontaneous phenomenon, that praise is a confirmation of the value and quality of one's enterprise. 

  

Lately, I've noticed a tendency amongst younger writers to think of criticism--all criticism--as an old-fashioned parlor-game, in which outdated or outmoded theories of critical regard are applied, as a kind of throttle to youthful inspiration. Perhaps this has always been the case, but there never was an opportunity for people to respond, so immediately, to negative critical appraisals. Again, the notion that negative reviews could only be the result of some kind of pathological, predatory motivation, designed (fabricated) to inflict undeserved and unwanted pain, is not a new idea, but one which seems more in evidence, with the explosion of literary interactivity on the web.

 

The notion that any writing--all writing--that one might do, or have published--could be considered a personal, or social, or literary good, despite whatever qualities it might possess, is a ridiculous idea. I noticed the other day that a young poet who happens to have some resources, has only been writing for about 15 years, but has over 30 titles, many self-published. This kind of profligacy does not in itself prove anything, perhaps, except that ambition and energy can generate the illusion of accomplishment. 

 

There is a movement abroad in the land of poetry, a belief that in order to succeed in the nation of Andrew Carnegie and Donald Trump, one must promote one's work, and that of one's friends--that all symptoms of withholding, of subtraction of support and approbation, are dangerous, nefarious threats, which must be resisted, discredited, stamped out. 

 

What I suggested in my review of August 25 2010 was that the young poet in question had chosen a set of literary models which were insufficient to his talent--a tradition of bad imitation of Eastern poetic forms, as well as of the superficial characteristics of certain American writers (William Carlos Williams). Reactions to this assertion suggested that not only was it permissible to engage in third-hand, watered down emulation, it was actually preferable to do this, rather than exhibit any true original talent; indeed, that the evidence of derivation of formal properties, of apprenticeship, was the best possible aspect of this work, because it showed respect, obedience and devotion (all good virtues). Another way of saying this is that William Carlos Williams is a great model, as is Classical Chinese poetry, but Williams or Basho through the eyes of Corman, or Rexroth, may not be an entirely propitious transmission. If Joseph Massey wishes to rise above the level of mere politeness, he should set his sights higher than Cid Corman and Frank Samperi.                                           

   

 

 

All of which leads me, by circuitous animadversion, back to the work of another poet, one long dead, whose promise was cut short at the very beginning of his career. Max Douglas was a poet, born in 1949 (two years after me), who showed great promise. His Collected Poems [published by White Dot Press, Washington, D.C., edited by Christopher Wienert and Andrea Wyatt] which runs to some 150 pages, is precocious, since Max died at 21 of a heroin overdose. What is immediately apparent upon a first reading of this collection is that Douglas had already, by the tender age of 20, absorbed and digested the formal lessons of Black Mountain (Olson, Dorn, Blackburn, Creeley), and was poised to embark on what almost certainly would be impressive and important work. 

  

 

Spring Again

 

1

 

old barns and houses

are falling down

 

2

 

sheds lurch filled with limp hay

sour smell of dung

  

3

 

sharp smell of burning fields

far off columns of smoke

 

4

 

angry dogs defending

country store

  

       

This is simple writing, whose skill is accomplished through subtraction and suggestion, not through performance and showing off. Immediate impressions, regionally founded, with clear acknowledgments to forebears.  

 

Second-rate imitations of estimable work is almost always better than first-rate imitations of inferior work (the point I attempted to raise in the work of Massey). You can hear Dorn and Creeley underneath these lines--

 

 

School Zone

 

small girls

jumping rope

 

air lifting hair

boys skipping

 

in a long line

at the end

 

a little blond

in stripes

 

his arms going

like a brakeman's

 

I watch

from another world

 

theirs beginning

where the shadow

 

of the overpass

quits

 

and the sun and

screaming takes up

 

the overpass itself

winding away

 

on its stilts

trucks sighing

 

east pigeons

flying under

 

leaves paper

dust blowing

 

across the asphalt

on which the last

 

baseball game

of a few children

 

is shattered

by the bell

 

that brings now

older boys

  

 

--but there's a maturity, not just of concision of use, but of revelations of life experience, astonishing in one so young. Compassion, self-consciousness ("I watch/from another world"), vivid observation ("the overpass itself/winding away/on its stilts"). The line-breaks and enjambments aren't violent and overdone, but are natural, and flow, connected, in an ordered sequence that is as determinative as the movements of the head or eye. 

 

  

Song

 

In October

my soul is dim

  

as the sky settled

flatly

  

over the fields

of our fearful isolation.

  

Twelve bare trees.

At Northville the cemetery

  

rises

above corn

  

to the south &

east, to a wind not kindly

  

by any season

to exposure so severe.

  

Atchison, her

massive granaries...

  

O it is a land of plenty It is

a time

  

of harvest...

And we have attained

  

that critical Missourian shore/

without welcome, finally.

  

The single white

elevator of Rushville.

  

It is a fine rain haltingly falls.        

 

 

This is an unashamed adaptation of Dorn's "Geography" style, and I wouldn't make any claims for its originality, but I believe in its honesty. Douglas was a Missouri kid, and a budding regionalist (a quality his teacher Dorn would undoubtedly have fostered in him, following from Olson's insistent example). Wienert, in his perceptive Introduction to the poems, refers to Max's "vocal hesitancy...sparing in his measure of the line...this compressive turning and halting syntax...marks discovery in the poem...the minimal phrase which most clearly articulates his poetic eye." Emotion driving formal structure, rather than the amusing coincidence of novelty which so often diverts the untrained mind. 

  

These poems aren't mature, finished efforts which stand alone as things in themselves, but they address concerns which incorporate feeling--a feeling for one's place, in a place, on its terms--and open those feelings out into things, rather than simply describing inert matter and phenomena as diverting, mechanized contraptions. 

  

  

Northwest Missouri

 

1.

 

birds

whipping in

under eaves

 

perching

to touch their shadows

in the spaces

 

between boards

the Coca-Cola ad

the entire east face

 

is peeling badly

dated by its slogan

YOU TRUST ITS QUALITY

 

the sun, shining between

boards, stripes hay bales

shaded in

 

The small barn

giving them the appearance

of sleeping tigers

 

2.

 

everything 

upward from the creek

bed except the yellow

 

leaves which are falling

down black cattle

Angus on above the other

 

on the grassy slope

which continues to rise

above them all

 

on top there is a young tree

dark perpendicular fence

post against a white sky

 

all this rising so ardently

contested by the horizontals

of the fencing      

  

3.

 

beside clear running

water dry leaves and

rocks lie down

 

in the same bed

the tracks of small

animals in the mud

 

a tree upright still

by virtue of what roots

the bank has not abandoned

 

leans over the water

which mirrors it

nestling a beer can

  

in a crotch 

of its roots

 

4.

 

the moon above

the hills barer

each day

 

is like a

slice of ham fat

 

in alfalfa

on the hill

overlooking the valley

 

a spider

scurries across

my shoe

 

a patch 

of dead grass

 

is an island

of grasshoppers

 

I am overtaken

with a sense of

not decline flight

 

crickets ticking

rime running out

 

a freight train

rumbling through

the valley

 

 

The quality of feeling--the emotion, which Pound always insisted upon as a measure of the fidelity of any poem--runs like a clear stream of intention through the described events. "All this rising so ardently contested" could stand as a definition of the principle--"by virtue of what roots the bank has not abandoned" a delicate turn of phrase clean out of nowhere--"I am overtaken by a sense of...flight...a freight train rumbling through the valley." The arc of the poem's movement from moment to moment, image to image, is deliberate and confident, not accidental, gratuitous or wasted. "Birds...perching...to touch their shadows in the spaces" towards the "flight" at the end.

  

The sense of loss we feel in the work of one so young, on the threshold of discovery and achievement, is like a stillborn birth. In this instance, it wasn't a lack of conviction, or a passionate intensity that was lacking, just the fickle needle of chance. I commented earlier on the career of my late friend, Patrick Schnoor [I, II, III]  whose promise was similarly cut short by a drug problem. Whether Max Douglas realized the jeopardy in which he placed his fate by injecting himself with a heroin overdose, would never be known. Certainly he wasn't suicidal, or there's no evidence of that in the work. 

 

If we could undo the past and open a door into possibility, we would never "know" what mightn't have happened. We can't not know what we think actually did happen. And so the Max Douglases and Patrick Schnoors of the world spin endlessly in a sort of limbo of possibility, half in the world of make-believe, half in the actual world of reality. But they should remind us of the duty we bear as survivors, we carry the burden of their promise as talismans of inspiration into the future.