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POETICS AND RUMINATIONS


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8 ENTRIES FROM JULY 2008


JULY 26, 2008


KEILLOR DOES IT AGAIN!

Reading his “The Writer’s Almanac” for Saturday, Jul. 26, 2008, one is delighted
to discover that W. H. Auden’s old chestnut “Musee des Beaux Arts” has been
revivified with a creative-destruction misprint, the sort for which Keillor is
becoming famous since his misquote of Emily Dickinson:

 

"The Only News I know

Is Bulletins all Day

From Immorality,"

 

which received the first annual Manglish Award of The International Brotherhood
of Sloppy Typists back on July second of this year. Today Garrison Keillor
causes us to ask ourselves, “What part of a horse is its 'innocent' as in,

“Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot


Where the dogs go on with their doggy life [lives? agr.] and the torturer's
horse


Scratches its innocent behind a tree.”

One is forced ineluctably toward the further question, If the hypothetical horsy
body part is called an “innocent,” why must the beast hide “behind a tree” to
scratch it? What is the horse ashamed of? In fact, CAN a horse be ashamed, or
even embarrassed? One doubts it.

After some considerable time contemplating the Audenesque Keillorism, one
inevitably concludes that something is missing from the Auden poem as quoted
here, something crucial to our understanding it.

What missing [body?] part, if inserted, would enable us to see the sentence as
something less than shameful? Ah! At last it occurs to one that the body part
is, in fact, already present and our misprision is that we have been mistaking
an adjective [“innocent”] for a noun, and a noun [“behind”] for an adverb.
Intense cogitation reveals a small word, a preposition, is missing: ON!

One must step back and admire Keillor’s amazing feet…er, feat, for he has, with
merely two letters, completely destroyed Auden’s peom…pome…POEM! Here is how the
three lines in question should, and in fact, do read:

Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot


Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse


Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

Of course, now one must ask oneself, What other kind of behind could a horse
have? Hairy, yes; brown (or some other color), yes. But could it have a “guilty”
behind, even if it belonged to a torturer? Only a horse’s ass could think so.

But one must rein in one’s conjectures, saddley, or be spurred further into the
mare’s nest of literary criticism which ought to be conducted at flank speed or
not at all. Readers would bridle at the awkward attempt and likely would go off
hoofing and poofing, nostrils flaring. They would rather experience a hayday
than read further pedanticisms. Unfortunately, we must consider one other
Keillor construction before we leave this page. He writes in today’s column
also,

"It's the birthday of Carl Jung, born in Kesswil, Switzerland (1875). He was the
founder of analytic psychology. He noticed that the myths and fairytales from
all different cultures contained certain similarities, which he called
archetypes, and he believed that these archetypes came from a collective
unconscious that is shared by all human beings. He said that if people could get
in touch with these archetypes in their own lives, they will [my emphasis] be
happier and healthier."

Should not that last sentence read, “He said that if people could get in touch
with these archetypes in their own lives, they would be happier and healthier”?
Hypothetically speaking, of course. But we have devoted too great an amount of
time to such considerations. Let us be done with this discussion with a brief
reminder of a short series of Clerihews written by Wesli Court for The Book of
Forms: A Handbook of Poetics:

“The clerihew, a particular type of epigram, was invented by E. Clerihew
Bentley  (1875-1956).  It is a quatrain in dipodic meters rhyming aabb, the
first line of which is both the title and the name of a person:

“Sigmund Freud

Became annoyed

When his ego

Sailed to Montego.

 

“Sigmund Freud

Became more annoyed

When his id

Fled to Madrid.

 

“Sigmund Freud

Grew most annoyed

When his superego

Tried to Montenegro.

 

“Sigmund Freud

Was nearly destroyed

When his alter-ego

Showed up in Oswego.

 

“Karl Jung

Found himself among

Archetypes

Of various stripes.”

 

         — Wesli Court



 

 

COMMENTARY:

Lew,

Actually, I make so many typos myself that I don't dare blame others for theirs!
All of my books have at least one; fortunately, for the most part they're easily
recognized as typos -- but not always, and of course when they're not they're
embarrassing as hell.

Poor Keillor was particularly unlucky in making one in a line that contains the
word "behind." He must have felt awful about it when he spotted it himself, poor
man, and especially in a poem by Auden, whom  he obviously admires greatly.

Cheers 

Rhina Espaillat

 

Rhina,

I was giving a reading at SUNY Potsdam in 1970, from my then new book The
Inhabitant. I was reading the second poem in the book, “The Hallway,” when I
came to the line that should have read, “Let him proceed; let his footfall say
clum, silence, clum.” Unfortunately, the word “footfall” had been transformed by
the printer into “football”! I fell apart. The reading came to a dead halt for…I
don’t know how long. Unlike Garrison Keillor, who can have his webmaster fix his
error immediately (as he did the Dickinson goof), I had to wait thirty-seven
years to fix mine.

Lew








Funny stuff. Oswego
into the wild blue yonder.... However, Keillor means well.




If you've ever seen the hilarious HBO series, "Curb Your Enthusiasm" (about the
real creator and writer of "Seinfeld"), you might have seen the one in which
Larry David (protagonist) writes the obit about his wife's lovely aunt. When he
comes home to every family member in his living room, they are all pissed at him
and show him the obit with the typo:

 "... love wife, and beloved cunt...." My favorite typo.

Hermann

 



Lew,

For me, the issue is the kind of poetry Keillor pushes. People say he's doing
such wonderful things for poetry without adding that he doesn't in the least
honor the diversity of poetry. If you think all poetry sounds like a Lake
Wobegon monologue, then Keillor's your man. If you don't, then he's not. I wrote
this in my article on the Gioia/Kleinzahler debate over Keillor (the full
article is in my book, The Dancer & the Dance; also available online at

http://www.alsopreview.com/index2.html

One can ask: Is what Keillor's doing genuinely "expanding the audience for
poetry"? Or is he merely expanding (or cementing) an audience for Garrison
Keillor and for the kind of writing Keillor chooses to call "poetry"?

For Keillor clearly espouses a kind of writing. "I find it wise," he says, "to
stay away from stuff that is too airy or that refers off-handedly to the poet
Li-Po or relies on your familiarity with butterflies or Spanish or Monet." Adds
Kleinzahler, "’So I'll be feeding you mostly shit,' is what Garrison could well
go on to say."

Certainly Garrison Keillor's Writers Almanac is not the place in which "hard
practical questions" about the survival of poetry will take place. Keillor
doesn't even begin to suggest the imaginative possibilities of poetry on the
radio — not least because the only voice Keillor presents is his own. (And it is
not even "his own" voice; it is, as Kleinzahler says, his "poetry voice.")
Garrison Keillor does have an audience, however, and it may be that poets are so
desperate for an audience that they are willing to take Keillor far more
seriously than he deserves to be taken. Why can't poets be American Idols too?
If Keillor's were the only understanding of poetry available — and for some
people it is — woe for the art of poetry. But, happily, it is still possible to
stumble upon something else, something better.

Note, by the way, that Keillor could honor the diversity of poetry and still
remain in the realm of the "popular"; evidently, he has no wish to do this.

Jack Foley



 





July 26, 2008 in Humor & Satire | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)


JULY 24, 2008


DON'T ASK? DO TELL.

Every military officer should be required to spend two years as an enlisted man
before he or she is promoted to a rank. Why? Because the policy that bars known
homosexuals from serving in the armed forces is outrageous, and the argument
that allowing them to serve alongside “normal” or “straight” people is
deleterious to the esprit de corps required to keep troops and sailors operating
at full efficiency is specious.

I served from 1953-1955 aboard the U.S.S. Hornet, an aircraft carrier. I can say
for a fact that every sailor aboard that ship knew who was homosexual and who
was not, at least among those people with whom he (there were no shes aboard
ship in those days) had to serve at close quarters. It never made any difference
to anybody. I cannot recall a single instance in which there was a hostile
encounter aboard ship between a gay and a straight, though I suppose there must
have been some somewhere, ashore in a bar perhaps. But one can get into a bar
fight with anybody, over anything.

It is unconscionable that able-bodied men and women, of whatever social
persuasion, are denied the right to serve their country in the military. The
arguments anti-gay officers make today are exactly the same as those that were
made against Blacks sixty years ago. People of all ethnicities today are serving
with each other in the armed services. The policy in place right now called
“don’t ask, don’t tell” is pure hypocrisy masking nothing more than
stereotypical hatred. The worst place in the world for such hatred is the armed
services. Two words: Abu Ghraib. One more: Guantanamo.



 



 

COMMENTS:

Thank you especially for sharing this one, Lew.

Miller Williams

 

Well said, Lew! Let's hope this just, rational point of view prevails soon.

Love,

Rhina Espaillat

 

In 1953 when I was a hospital corpsman 3rd class assigned to the U.S. Naval
Hospital, San Diego, a group of homosexuals got caught one night on the hospital
lawn doing what a lot of straight teenagers were doing everywhere in San Diego.
They were found, arrested by SPs, tossed in the hospital brig, brought before
the commanding officer in a few days, and all but one was tossed out of the
Navy. That one served with me in the Clinical Psychology section and was
treated the same way after the "discovery" as before by both our staff of
psychiatrists and psychologists and corpsmen. All except one -- the first class
petty officer, a dimwitted mute, who finally got the marked man transferred.
That was 1953, Joe McCarthy years, and I was the only person at that post who
subscribed to The Daily Worker. Throwing out a homosexual but keeping a young
communist? I guess it made sense to someone.

 John Herrmann

 

Thought your article on Don't Ask was great.  Have several friends whose
children are gay - and I'd like to download it for them.  Okay?

Ann Badach

 

Certainly it’s okay, but all you need to do is give them the URL.

Lew






Hi Lew,  

I couldn't agree more with your comments on U.S. policy regarding gays in the military. Right on!  

Linda Boucher





Lew,


Lew, 

I was pleased to see you posted this. 

In spite of great advances in popular culture, there remain some backwater attitudes toward gays. In these desperate times, the Army desperately attempts such measures as increasing their ranks not by admitting gay men or women of upstanding repute and value, but by lowering the standards for straight men. They are admitting felons instead. Being among that class myself I admit that not alll are undesirable and most deserve a second chance. But it resonates with Mr. Hermann's story about keeping a commie and purging the poofta. 

The stereotype of the gay male is the root of  arguments those against the matter can muster. Unit cohesion will be disrupted because an oversexed soldier will waste too much time putting on his hair gel or grabbing privates during battle. This is as it was when like-minded people protested the entrance of blacks in the military - it's nonsense on the face of it. 

Furthermore, who could be afraid of such things under duress? An Army Ranger spoke to a congressional hearing of late to say that when he goes on a long-range patrol, there are times when the weather is severe and he must cuddle tightly with another soldier to keep warm. If he suspects arousing that man, it would make life difficult for him. Jon Stewart (The Daily Show) suggested that under such conditions, the sexual orientation of a fellow soldier would be the least of one's concerns. 

Lastly, how ironic is it that some want desperately to serve their country in spite of being made to feel subhuman by their own countrymen? 

Paul Austin

P.S. An interesting passage from Conduct Unbecoming: Gays and Lesbians in the U.S. Military  by Randy Shilts:

"WAC Seargent [sic] Johnnie Phelps became legendary for a conversation she had with Eisenhower...[Eisenhower] called her into his office and said he had heard reports that there were lesbians in the WAC battalion. He wanted a list of their names, he said, so he could get rid of them. That, Phelps suggested, would be a tall order, since she estimated 95 percent of the WAC battalion of nine hundred women at that headquarters was lesbian. 'I'll make your list,' [Phelps said,] 'but you've got to know that when you get the list back, my names going to be first.' Eisenhower's secretary, also in the room, corrected the seargent.  'Sir,' the secretary said, 'If the General pleases, Seargent Phelps will have to be second on the list. I'm going to type it. My name will be first.'"  According to Phelps, Eisenhower looked at her, looked at the secretary, shook his head, and said. "Forget that order. Forget about it."












July 24, 2008 in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)


JULY 17, 2008


REVIEW OF NEW & SELECTED POEMS BY ROBERT RONNOW

Robert Ronnow, New & Selected Poems / 1975-2005, Seattle: Barnwood Press, 2007,
195 pp., ISBN 978-0-935306-52-1 (alk. Paper), $18.95.

 

            Back in 1983 I wrote (in the Dictionary of Literary Biography
Yearbook),

How to describe Robert Ronnow's Janie Huzzie Bows? It's impossible, but one must
try. Take a look at that title: how does one read it? What does it mean? The
poems are the same way — they prance along the edge of making sense. One can
even follow them for a while, and then they drop off the edge into the
swivel-eyed where you stand before a mirror staring cross-eyed at one of two
noses. These are mad, enjoyable poems if one enjoys disorientation, getting
dizzy on language. Ronnow puts some meaning back into the term "experimental,"
but he knows what he's doing, and he does it terrifically well. This is
certainly "catastrophe theory" poetry. It is also a fascinating first book.

            Now, in 2007, we have Ronnow’s New and Selected Poems that includes
pieces from his second collection, Absolutely Smooth Mustard, which was
published by The Barnwood Press in 1985 as White Waits, and two other
collections apparently never published as individual books, Brother Death, and
Belonging to the Loved Ones. It seems odd that a poet as accomplished as Ronnow
is has had to wait (or, perhaps, just waited) twenty-three years to bring out a
substantial collection.

            His first book was anything but formal, but his second paid much
more attention to traditional elements of versification, though he was certainly
no slave to traditional forms. He did use rhyme and meter, though, and he called
some of his poems “Chinese Sonnets,” but the only thing sonnet-like about them
that I can see is their length: fourteen lines, and one can hear the ghost of
pentameters behind them. If they seem a bit tamer than the earlier poems, they
are nevertheless well written and entertaining in a sort of philosophical way,
the philosophy being a combination of existentialism and pragmatism: “Despair /
leads me to talk too much about myself rather than / be transcendent,” he
admits.

            In a poem such as “Change,” he goes back to being formally
inventive, as he was in Janie Huzzie, and it’s still fun to follow him around to
see what he’s going to do next. He does quite a number of different things in
his writing, as he has done in his life: He lived in New York City for twenty
years, but he was also a forester and director of social service and
environmental organizations. A jazz trumpeter, he now lives in the Berkshires
with a wife and two sons. Personally, I’m very pleased to have become
reacquainted with a poet whose work is both idiosyncratic and based in the best
elements of a literary tradition.

July 17, 2008 in Books | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)


JULY 15, 2008


IDEAS FOR A POETRY WORKSHOP

Windmill Poets

Tuesday July 15, 2008

6:30-8:00 PM

Piedmont OK Public Library

 

Some Ideas (fill in the blanks):

 The scents from the kitchen say? —  “Cooking makes sense.”

 The manicured lawn says? — “Mow is me!”

 The dust on the table says — “Dust thou as I say?”

 The wilted roses say — “Water, Lily!”

 The room of poets says — “We're averse to everything.” 

____________________________________________________





Windmill Poets Report:

Your words were the highlight. I typed them on a handout — and we had Clark
Elliott read them aloud because he has a wit-and-humor-gift.

Attendance was down — always is in July — but we had a great time made more fun
by  "Poetical Uncle Lew."  

I had a hunch you might include your responses to the Windmill Poets
Announcement on your web site. Sure enough you did! I missed it if you credited
yourself or Wesli for the clever endings.

 Thank you!

 Vivian



Lew,

 the wives of the Navy's elite say, "our lips are SEALed?" 



the sailors in the parade announce, "we're afloat?" 



the library school kids say, "it's all booklearning?" 



the calligraphy students say. "we learn by rote?"

 Paul Austin






Here are some offerings .... 


The Italian chef says.... ahhh-Roma! 
 
The dragon lily says to the violet ... you're a pansy! 
 
The ballet instructor says to the student... you're just tu-tu! 
 
The wizard says to the cowardly lion ... here's your mettle. 
 
Ann says to Lew ... here's a gold star just cuz' you're great!!!!! 




Ann Badach
 







July 15, 2008 in Punography | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)


JULY 07, 2008


A POEM THAT APPARENTLY DESERVED TO RECEIVE A PRINTED REJECTION SLIP

There has been so much interest in my "Printed Rejection Slips: A
Correspondence," below, that I thought my readers might like to see one of the
poems that The New England Review felt was deserving of a bare printed rejection
slip:



MIRRORS

 

      So sorry that the sleighs are gone

   over the hill into memory,

that the horses no longer have enough pull

      to keep the drifts out of trouble.

 

      I regret to say I regret

   to say that childhood is caught in an

infinite regress of reflection, falling

      into a cairn of holidays

 

      piled one upon the other clear

   into history. Now we enter

the plastic forest to chop down another

      silver yew, a fir of Paris

 

      green. We fit them with wires and tinsel

   ice while, in the distance rising out

of our chimneys, we hear what sound like hoofbeats

      floating into the phantom elms.

 

July 07, 2008 in Poems | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)


JULY 03, 2008


PRINTED REJECTION SLIPS: A CORRESPONDENCE

Lewis Turco <jturco@adelphia.net> wrote: 3 July 2008

 

C. Dale Young

Poetry Editor

The New England Review

Middlebury College

Middlebury VT 95753

 

Dr. Young:

Having Googled your name, I can see how busy you are, but that doesn’t excuse
you from the discourtesy you showed when you sent me the printed rejection slip
that I opened this morning. Your busy-ness as a doctor and as a writer, and as
an editor and as a teacher is no reason for treating so shabbily someone who has
done as much as I have, in almost twice as long as you’ve been alive, for the
art you like to dabble in.

I assume that being a physician is your primary interest, as it was for W. C.
Williams, but my primary interest in life is poetry, and it always has been. I
resent being insulted by someone who is apparently a dilettante. I’d be willing
to bet, from what I know of him, that Williams never sent anybody a printed
rejection slip in his life, though he showed that it is possible to blend
medicine with poetry.

 Please understand that I’m not complaining about the rejection, only about the
form of that rejection. If you can’t do any better than this, I recommend that
you quit some of your dabbling and pay attention to what it is you do best (I
trust, but from what I’ve seen of it — which isn’t much, I admit — that isn’t
writing poetry).

 Sincerely.

 Lewis Turco

 

"C. Dale Young" <cdaleyoung@cdaleyoung.com> wrote:

 Dear Mr. Turco,

 I have assistant editors who reject work, so I may not even be the one who
rejected your poems. Our assistants do not typically write things on rejection
slips, but I do stand by their judgements and take full responsibility. I do not
read all 44,000 poems we receive at NER in a year. I read what is passed on by
our assistant editors. We have readers in VT, CA, MA. We opt to use standard
rejection slips in order to help speed up our response time, which we have now
brought under 12 weeks for the most part.

 I am sorry receiving the rejection slip made you feel shabby; that is not our
intent. But with the volume of poems we receive, I don't foresee us changing
that policy any time in the near future. Even if I were to quit medicine, quit
teaching once a year and quit writing my own poems, I could not read every
submission and pen a personal note. I wish I could, but that would mean earning
less than 5 cents an hour. The stipend I receive for editing poetry at NER is
less than many poets receive for doing a reading.

 I am sorry you feel we have treated you poorly. I wish I had better news about
the future. But with MFA programs now graduating well over a thousand writers
per year, I suspect the volume of submissions will only continue going up. NER
exists now purely as a charity of Middlebury College, considering subscriptions
do not even cover the cost of printing and distributing the magazine.

 Sincerely,

 C. Dale Young

 

 Lewis Turco <jturco@adelphia.net> wrote: 3 July 2008

 Dr. Young,

 Since the postmark of the envelope was California, I suspect it was, indeed,
you who sent me the printed rejection. Be that as it may, your reply is
cautionary. I said you appeared to me to be a dilettante, now let me prove that
to be the case: You write, "I do not read all 44,000 poems we receive at NER in
a year. I read what is passed on by our assistant editors." Let me substitute a
few words: "I do not read all 44,000 x-rays I receive at my hospital in a year.
I read what is passed on by my medical assistants."

 You need to stop being an "editor" and spend your time being a doctor. If I
operated the way you do, I'd deserve to receive nasty letters from the people
who ask me for my help. I don't know how many individual poems I read in a year,
probably not 44,000, but people are always asking me for help. Yesterday I read
and criticized a poem that Dean Stephen J. Herman wrote to celebrate his
marriage to his partner of many years (in San Francisco; he is a former student
at Oswego from the late '60's); today I received an email from a man in Iraq
asking me to send him a free copy of my BOOK OF FORMS; I replied at once; last
week I read, and wrote a blurb for, a manuscript of poems by Rhina Espaillat,
and I took the time to give Bryan Bridges information about the terzanelle verse
form for an essay he's doing for the ezine TRELLIS; the week before, I read and
criticized a manuscript of poems for Miriam N. Kotzin, the editor of another
ezine, PER CONTRA; I am often asked to judge poetry contests, but I don't let
the organizers sift the entries, I read them all myself...and here I've been
"retired" for twelve years.

 In other words, Dr. Young, I spend ALL my professional time these days (as I
always have) working in the field of poetry, to which I've dedicated my life. It
really pisses me off when an editor tells me he's "too busy" to read the poems I
submit to his magazine. If you're too busy to do what an editor is supposed to
do, you should stop being an editor, because you're not doing your job.

 Lewis Turco

 

 "C. Dale Young" <cdaleyoung@cdaleyoung.com> wrote:

 Dear Mr. Turco,

 Thank you for your letter.  I obviously have not helped the situation by
responding to your previous email in the first place.  It appears that nothing I
can say will satisfy you, and I have no intention of resigning my post at NER. 
There are hundreds of literary magazines in the country, so I wish you the best
with your work and placing it with them. 

 Sincerely,

 C. Dale Young

 

 Dr. Young:

 Thanks for your advice, but I’ve already published in most of them over the
past fifty-five years. As I said before, it’s not the rejection I object to
(lord knows I’ve received a few of those in my day), but the printed rejection
letter. And I guess you’re right; there’s no profit in our continuing this
correspondence, is there? You’re way too busy anyway.

 Lewis Turco

________________________________________________________________________________________

 Wow.  But how do you really feel?????   Great response.

 But did you have to remind me that I was a student of yours in the 60's???  
Only kidding.

 Stephen J. Herman





Oh Dear Lew:

My face is purple.  Do your scathing thoughts on rejections apply to email and
ezines? Ah what to do...?

PAX,

Carolina




Hi Lew,

That's telling him... Won't do much good, but feels good anyhow.

Wiley

 

Lew,

Pretty hilarious — in a sad way — to read that email exchange with the NER guy.
He's actually a nice guy, but the management structure of literary magazines —
of many non-profits, for that matter — is more top-down than Halliburton.

Dan





July 03, 2008 in Correspondence | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)


JULY 02, 2008


MANGLISH AWARD

To: Garrison Keillor, 

Minnesota Public Radio




CONGRATULATONS! 
 
You win the First Annual Manglish Award 

for your creative destruction of an 

Emily Dickinson poem on your Writers' 

Almanac web site today. You said, 
 
"The Only News I know 
Is Bulletins all Day 
From Immorality." 
 
The International Brotherhood of Sloppy 

Typists is delighted that a person of your 

reputation was the first to win this award. 

 
Sincerely, 
 
Wesli Court 
Honorary Poobah 
IBST 

_____________________________________________________________________

If I’m a “character,” you’re a HOOT!

Vivian


Owl take that as a compliment.

Lew




Such a big difference a little "t" 

makes.

Alice


I wonder what type of tea it was.

Lew




A Duffer? or, more aptly


put, a Duffer's tee.

Alice


And a well-deserved award it is. He 

should have stuck to the news from 

Lake Woebegone.

Jack






He did stick to it, but it tore loose.

Lew




Dear Lew, 

This is, as used to be said in the U.S., 

"rich"! Thank you for the fun. 




And could you send me a mailing 

address? I'd love to send you a book. 




By the by, I was on the phone earlier 

today with an out of work  gaffer 

friend of mine from L.A. 

He told me the Number One 

new ring  tone in America is 

"Nearer My God to Thee." I realized 

how bad things  are because I 

believed him, and felt  a little jealous 

thinking, where do I have to go to 

get that! 

Blessings,



Robert
At 8:45 this evening, 2 July 2008, I 

checked to see whether Garrison 

Keillor had corrected his error. He had 

but, alas, he didn't have the good 

manners either to acknowledge his

award, or to thank us for drawing his 

attention to the matter. Sad. This 

uncommonly common man turns out 

to be merely common after all.











July 02, 2008 in Humor & Satire | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)


JULY 01, 2008


THE GEOGRAPHY OF WAR

Christian Nguyen Langworthy, The Geography of War, Oklahoma City: Cooper House,
1995.



I have never before seen the subject Christian Nguyen Langworthy writes of
expressed in a book of poems: the experience of being a child born of a
Vietnamese prostitute mother and an unknown American G. I. father. The Geography
of War treats in a wide range of styles and forms an equally wide range of
emotions and sensations regarding what it was like for a generation of bi-ethnic
children to grow up in war-torn Vietnam and eventually to be allowed to come
live in the United States.

         It is wonderful and dreadful to see through the eyes of such children
and their mothers the underside of a cruel and, no doubt, representative war.
This chapbook of poems is delicate and painful, urgent and beautiful. Such poems
as “In This Country Revised,” “Cicada Song,” “Even As I Lie Pretending Sleep,”
“Mango,” and “The Mosquito” are cautionary and unforgettable. “The Burned Walls”
is the best terzanelle I have ever read on any subject. I consider myself  very
lucky to have had the privilege of bringing these poems to the attention of a
larger audience.



THE BURNED WALLS



We sleep in the shadow of burned walls

That comfort and shade us where we nap.

Mother will be here before night falls,

 

And on our shoulders she will tap

A lullaby under cherry trees

That comfort and shade us where we nap.

 

The charred walls resist the breeze

Above our heads, and breezes bring

A lullaby under cherry trees.

 

In the night, mother remains to sing—

To ease the buzzing of the bugs

Above our heads and breezes bring

 

The smell of scorched wood and rugs

Hidden from us who hope the sun will rise

To ease the buzzing of the bugs

 

Which crawl on our bodies, our thighs.

We sleep in the shadow of burned walls

Hidden from us who hope the sun will rise.

Mother will be here before night falls.

 

Christian Nguyen Langworthy



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