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I keep this blog hidden under some dirty underwear inside a locked drawer and if you don't like what you see here then I suggest you drop your jimmy and stop rummaging through my shorts. Do that B and E somewhere else.

*

...

from "home.swipnet.se/northernobscene/knottintro.html"

Bill [eg. William] Knott började publicera sig under den blommande tidskriftseran i USA under 60-talet, och gav ut sin första diktsamling 1968, The Naomi Poems. Sedan dess har han skrivit myriader av dikter men egentligen aldrig fått något riktigt erkännande vare sig från det stora etablissemanget eller förlagselefanterna. Kanske det var detta som föranledde Stephen Dobys att kalla honom "the greatest outsider" i AWP Chronicle, 1995. Här hemma i Sverige sågs Knott senast i översättning av Tomas Tranströmer i "Tolkningar" (red. Niklas Schiöler) som Bonniers gav ut 1998, och något tidigare samma år även sporadiskt i undergroundfanzinet blaskan odd. Anars är det tunt. Varför det blivit så kan man verkligen undra, för Knott har hyllats av författarkollegor som Kenneth Rexroth, Louis Simpson, James Wright m. fl i över 30 år nu, vilka inte heller sparar på superlativen. Självklart är även jag förvånad över detta faktum, vilket också är en av anledningarna till dessa översättningar.

Första gången jag stiftade bekantskap med Bill Knotts poesi var sommaren 1999, och det var i bokstaden Hay-on-Wye, på gränsen mellan England och Wales, av alla platser i världen. En liten sömnig och gemytligt lunkande by, där så gott som varenda invånare drar in sin inkomst via böcker på ett eller annat sätt. Där finns 100-tals antikvariat och jag gjorde den sommaren under några dagar mitt bästa för att utforska dem alla. Min jakt på amerikanska poeter gick dock trögt [men jag hittade en svensk utgåva av Karin Boye´s Kalocain]. Det var först när jag hittade fram till The Poetry Book Shop i utkanten av staden som det började brännas. Ett par amerikanska guldkorn återfanns i hyllorna och när jag återvände till disken med famnen full av Kenneth Rexroth och Gary Snyder m. fl. kom jag i slang med ägaren som snart plockade upp ett sandgult dikthäfte av en viss Bill Knott. Antagligen tyckte han synd om mig som tvingades prioritera mina inköp, och skänkte mig helt sonika häftet [tack Chris!]. Senare på kvällen satt jag på den lokala puben och bläddrade i häftet. Knott´s dikter hade en förmåga att verkligen göra sig hemmastadda där i den kontemplativa, traditionsfasta, men ändå nydanande byn. När jag återvänt till Sverige skrev jag ett brev till Knott där jag framförde min uppskattning. Svar kom från Boston, där han innehar en professur vid Emerson Collage, och bestod av ytterligare fem lika sandfärgade dikthäften med vänliga dedikationer. Hösten var räddad. Efter att ha läst häftena började jag se mig om i bokhandeln och på biblioteket efter hans böcker - utan resultat.

Dikterna i föreliggande samling är hämtade ur en diger 30-årsperiod, från 1960-1999, och i Knott´s egen anda har jag valt att inte ställa upp dem vare sig tematiskt eller kronologiskt, utan de dyker bara upp på sidorna, oväntade, oregerliga och ofta också helt oberoende av sådant som tid.
En del av Knott´s dikter kan vid en första anblick se nästan naiva ut, med en självklar enkel raktframhet, men växer snart och blottar större djup. Mitt i det existentiella allvaret letar sig också humorn in med jämna mellanrum. Och språkleken. Och det smågalna. Och det helgalna. Kanske är det just i denna märkliga kombination, eller sättet varpå Knott kombinerar dem, som hans storhet ligger - det är fräscha och udda dikter med energi, ett flöde och en påtaglig språklig experimentlusta. Den mycket högstämda och klassiska diktrösten som plötsligt tar vilda krumsprång ut i abstrakta landskap. Hans influenser tycks komma från alla möjliga [och omöjliga] håll - från Japansk dikttradition till yttre rymden - vilket är en av anledningarna till att Knott´s poesi är så omtumlande att bege sig in i. Och ger man sig väl in i den löper man risken att både skratta, gråta, förundras och fängslas.

Bill Knott´s energi och uppfinningsrika språk är dock inte alltid en källa till njutning - under översättningen av de här dikterna har jag mer än en gång slitit testar av mitt hår för att finna en rättvisande synonym till någon vild ordlek. Detta har fungerat ibland, men lika ofta har jag tvingats till alternativa lösningar. På svenska har det följaktligen inneburit att det på vissa ställen har vuxit fram nya konstruktioner och abstraktioner - på gott och ont. Att Knott på sina ställen tenderar att flirta med japansk poesitradition, med strikta stavelsescheman som styr över formen, har sannerligen inte gjort saken lättare. I dessa fall har jag helt enkelt bortsett från att räkna stavelse på fingrarna, och istället koncentrerat mig på att hitta överensstämmande tonfall och innebörd.

Med tanke på dessa svårigheter kan det kanske te sig konstigt att en novis som jag själv ger mig på att översätta Knott. Jag snuddar inte ens vid tanken på att jämföra detta arbete med översättningar utförda av yrkesmän som t ex tidigare nämnda Tranströmer. Däremot ser jag ingen annan utväg när ingen annan vill uppmärksamma så stor poesi som Knott verkligen besitter förmågan att producera. Det handlar med andra ord mer om lust än kompetens - och med det kan man komma rätt långt.

from "home.swipnet.se / northernobscene / knottintro.html"

Bill [eg. Bill [eg. William] Knott började publicera sig under den blommande tidskriftseran i USA under 60-talet, och gav ut sin första diktsamling 1968, The Naomi Poems. William] Knott began publishing during the blooming magazine era in the U.S. during the 60s, and published his first poems in 1968, The Naomi Poems. Sedan dess har han skrivit myriader av dikter men egentligen aldrig fått något riktigt erkännande vare sig från det stora etablissemanget eller förlagselefanterna. Since then, he has written myriad of poems but never actually received any real recognition from either the large establishment or publishers elephants. Kanske det var detta som föranledde Stephen Dobys att kalla honom "the greatest outsider" i AWP Chronicle, 1995. Perhaps it was this that led Stephen Doby to call him "the greatest outsider" in the AWP Chronicle, 1995.Här hemma i Sverige sågs Knott senast i översättning av Tomas Tranströmer i "Tolkningar" (red. Niklas Schiöler) som Bonniers gav ut 1998, och något tidigare samma år även sporadiskt i undergroundfanzinet blaskan odd. Here at home in Sweden was observed by Knott in the translation of Tomas Tranströmer in the "Interpretations" (ed. Niklas Schiöler) as Bonniers gave out in 1998, and slightly earlier in the year also sporadically in the underground fanzinet blaskan odd. Anars är det tunt. Anar is thin. Varför det blivit så kan man verkligen undra, för Knott har hyllats av författarkollegor som Kenneth Rexroth, Louis Simpson, James Wright m. fl i över 30 år nu, vilka inte heller sparar på superlativen. Why does it become so one can really wonder, for Knott has been praised by writers colleagues Kenneth Rexroth, Louis Simpson, James Wright and others in over 30 years now, which also saves on superlatives. Självklart är även jag förvånad över detta faktum, vilket också är en av anledningarna till dessa översättningar. Of course, I too am surprised by this fact, which is also one of the reasons for these translations.

Första gången jag stiftade bekantskap med Bill Knotts poesi var sommaren 1999, och det var i bokstaden Hay-on-Wye, på gränsen mellan England och Wales, av alla platser i världen. I first become acquainted with Bill Knotts poetry was the summer of 1999, and it was in bokstaden Hay-on-Wye, on the border between England and Wales, of all places in the world.En liten sömnig och gemytligt lunkande by, där så gott som varenda invånare drar in sin inkomst via böcker på ett eller annat sätt. A little sleepy and friendly detail TROT village, where almost every inhabitant draw their income from books in one way or another. Där finns 100-tals antikvariat och jag gjorde den sommaren under några dagar mitt bästa för att utforska dem alla. There are 100-century antiquarian and I did that summer for a few days my best to explore them all. Min jakt på amerikanska poeter gick dock trögt [men jag hittade en svensk utgåva av Karin Boye´s Kalocain]. My hunt for American poets were, however, slow [but I found a Swedish edition of Karin Boye's Kalocain]. Det var först när jag hittade fram till The Poetry Book Shop i utkanten av staden som det började brännas. It was only when I got up to The Poetry Bookshop at the periphery of the city as it began to burn. Ett par amerikanska guldkorn återfanns i hyllorna och när jag återvände till disken med famnen full av Kenneth Rexroth och Gary Snyder m. fl. A couple of American PEARL were found in the shelves and when I returned to the disk with arms full of Kenneth Rexroth and Gary Snyder et al. kom jag i slang med ägaren som snart plockade upp ett sandgult dikthäfte av en viss Bill Knott . I got in line with the owner as soon picked up a yellow sand poem book by a certain Bill Knott.Antagligen tyckte han synd om mig som tvingades prioritera mina inköp, och skänkte mig helt sonika häftet [tack Chris!]. Probably he felt sorry for me, which had to prioritize my purchases, and gave me simply booklet [Thanks Chris!]. Senare på kvällen satt jag på den lokala puben och bläddrade i häftet. Later in the evening I sat on the local pub and look through the booklet. Knott´s dikter hade en förmåga att verkligen göra sig hemmastadda där i den kontemplativa, traditionsfasta, men ändå nydanande byn. Knott's poems had an ability to truly make their home there in the contemplative, traditional solid, yet innovative village. När jag återvänt till Sverige skrev jag ett brev till Knott där jag framförde min uppskattning. When I returned to Sweden, I wrote a letter to Knott where I expressed my appreciation. Svar kom från Boston, där han innehar en professur vid Emerson Collage, och bestod av ytterligare fem lika sandfärgade dikthäften med vänliga dedikationer. Responses came from Boston, where he holds a chair at Emerson College, and consisted of a further five equal sand colored poem booklets of friendly dedication. Hösten var räddad. Autumn was saved. Efter att ha läst häftena började jag se mig om i bokhandeln och på biblioteket efter hans böcker - utan resultat. After having read the book I began to see me in the bookstore and the library of his books - without results.

Dikterna i föreliggande samling är hämtade ur en diger 30-årsperiod, från 1960-1999, och i Knott´s egen anda har jag valt att inte ställa upp dem vare sig tematiskt eller kronologiskt, utan de dyker bara upp på sidorna, oväntade, oregerliga och ofta också helt oberoende av sådant som tid. Poems in this collection are drawn from a corpulent 30-year period, from 1960-1999, and in Knott's own spirit, I have chosen not to set them either thematically or chronologically, but they appear only on pages up, unexpected, unruly and often completely independent of any other time.
En del av Knott´s dikter kan vid en första anblick se nästan naiva ut, med en självklar enkel raktframhet, men växer snart och blottar större djup. A part of Knott's poems may at first sight, almost naive, with an obvious simple raktframhet, but is growing quickly and baring depths. Mitt i det existentiella allvaret letar sig också humorn in med jämna mellanrum. Amid the existential seriousness looking also humor in regularly. Och språkleken. And language game. Och det smågalna. And it smågalna. Och det helgalna. And it helgalna. Kanske är det just i denna märkliga kombination, eller sättet varpå Knott kombinerar dem, som hans storhet ligger - det är fräscha och udda dikter med energi, ett flöde och en påtaglig språklig experimentlusta. Perhaps it is precisely in this strange combination, or the means Knott then combine them, that his greatness lies - it is fresh and odd poems with energy, a flow and a marked linguistic experiment lust. Den mycket högstämda och klassiska diktrösten som plötsligt tar vilda krumsprång ut i abstrakta landskap. The very ELEVATED and classic poem voice that suddenly takes wild gambado in abstract landscape. Hans influenser tycks komma från alla möjliga [och omöjliga] håll - från Japansk dikttradition till yttre rymden - vilket är en av anledningarna till att Knott´s poesi är så omtumlande att bege sig in i. Och ger man sig väl in i den löper man risken att både skratta, gråta, förundras och fängslas. His influences seem to come from all kinds [and not] hold - poem from Japanese tradition to outer space - which is one of the reasons why Knott's poetry is so dizzying to go up in. And, people well into the run Monday risk to both laugh, cry, marvel and imprisoned.

Bill Knott´s energi och uppfinningsrika språk är dock inte alltid en källa till njutning - under översättningen av de här dikterna har jag mer än en gång slitit testar av mitt hår för att finna en rättvisande synonym till någon vild ordlek. Bill Knott's energy and imaginative language is not always a source of pleasure - in the translation of these poems, I have more than one hard test of my hair to find a fair synonym for any wild pun. Detta har fungerat ibland, men lika ofta har jag tvingats till alternativa lösningar. This has worked sometimes, but just as often I have had to alternative solutions. På svenska har det följaktligen inneburit att det på vissa ställen har vuxit fram nya konstruktioner och abstraktioner - på gott och ont. In English, it has consequently meant that in some places have developed new designs and abstractions - for better or worse. Att Knott på sina ställen tenderar att flirta med japansk poesitradition, med strikta stavelsescheman som styr över formen, har sannerligen inte gjort saken lättare. The Knott at times tend to flirt with Japanese poetry tradition, with strict syllable patterns that govern over form, has certainly not made things easier. I dessa fall har jag helt enkelt bortsett från att räkna stavelse på fingrarna, och istället koncentrerat mig på att hitta överensstämmande tonfall och innebörd. In these cases, I simply except that the syllable count of the fingers, and instead focussed on finding consistent tone and meaning.

Med tanke på dessa svårigheter kan det kanske te sig konstigt att en novis som jag själv ger mig på att översätta Knott. In view of these difficulties, it might seem strange to a novice like myself to give me to translate Knott. Jag snuddar inte ens vid tanken på att jämföra detta arbete med översättningar utförda av yrkesmän som t ex tidigare nämnda Tranströmer. I touched not even at the thought of comparing this work with translations done by professionals, such as the aforementioned Tranströmer. Däremot ser jag ingen annan utväg när ingen annan vill uppmärksamma så stor poesi som Knott verkligen besitter förmågan att producera. However, I see no other way out when nobody else wants to pay attention as much poetry as Knott really possess the ability to produce. Det handlar med andra ord mer om lust än kompetens - och med det kan man komma rätt långt. In short, more about lust than skills - and with it you can get the right length.

faith and power: the struggle

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A poet who believes in the worthiness of his or her work

may, in the end, turn out to have been wrong in that belief—

but a poet who doubts the merit of their own work will almost always

turn out to be right.

(Maybe it's not just poets this applies to.)

**
This is in line with the terror expressed by (presumably) Delmore Schwartz, as it appears in Saul Bellow's Humboldt's Gift (1975), page 120, where the narrator summarizes a frequent lament of Humboldt (a character based on Schwartz) regarding the "profession" of poetry:

[Humboldt always said] that poetry was one of the frantic professions in which success depends on the opinion you hold of yourself. Think well of yourself, and you win. Lose self-esteem, and you're finished. For this reason a persecution complex develops, because people who don't think well of you are killing you. Knowing this, or sensing it, critics and intellectuals had you. Like it or not you were dragged into a power struggle.

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Whether this was said by Schwartz himself, or concocted by Bellow for his character Humboldt to voice,

I think it's one of the truest things I've ever read about the frantic experience of being a poet—

*

saint robert of hassisi

(reposted from an earlier blog)...

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The Canonization of Robert Hass

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Some of you may not remember an essay that appeared in the American Poetry Review sometime in the early 1990s, entitled "The Spiritual Progess of Robert Hass."—

Surely by now, almost two decades later, he must have spiritually progressed even futher, to the point where he's achieved sainthood?

Saint Robert of Hassisi. The Mother Teresa of American Poetry.

*
I start with a quote, and don't Dan (the Assassin) Chiasson's words here confirm my quibble (below) that Halfhass should really be writing novels?

Here's the excerpt I found apropos (google Chiasson/New Yorker/Hass for the full text):

"Then Time" is a magnificent new poem, probably Hass's best ever. The "girl" in "Meditation at Lagunitas" (or one like her) has become a woman ("Twenty years older, / She is very beautiful. An astringent person. She'd become, / She said, an obsessive gardener, her daughters grown"). Where once Hass might have located all the sentience in his own head, now, as in late James, sentience is collaborative, something people make together:

He's listening,
Studying her face, still turning over her remark.
He decides that she thinks more symbolically
Than he does and that it seemed to have saved her,
For all her fatalism, from certain kinds of pain.
She finds herself thinking what a literal man he is,
Notices, as if she were recalling it, his pleasure
In the menu, and the cooking, and the architecture of the room.

. . . . "Then Time" shows how lyric poetry can do what novels do so well, if at excruciating length: track the paths of consciousness and counter-consciousness across plots and characters.

*
But what kind of poet would WANT to write like the late James?! Is that a sine qua non any poet should shoot for?

Really? You're a poet and you want to write like a novelist?

(You're Halfhass and you are a prose-writer. A novelist in disguise. Playing the poet role. Hollywood always works for the Californian writer.)

Even Pound when he aspired "Mauberly" to be a boiled-down James novel didn't desert verse for his desire.

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Frustratingly a lot of my books are in storage, so I can't go to the exact quote from an essay out of Jonathan Galassi's superbly-translated-and-edited selection from Montale's prose writings, "The Second Life of Art,"

in which the Italian Nobelist says something to the effect that ever since Browning poets have tried to incorporate prose into their verse—

Surely this trend this tendency explains his success, Hass's, yes?

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As Oscar Wilde put the matter: "[George] Meredith is a prose Browning, and so is Browning."

*
"The Nineties tried your game": the sneering taunt which successful novelist Mr. Nixon tries to quash the young Mauberly with . . .

*
I don't see how Chiasson-the-Assassin can chide and chivvy Jane Hirshfield for her lax prosification of verse, and then turn around and praise Hass for the same thing . . .

yes, I understand he's rating the quality of their respective CONTENT, but isn't prose prose,

whether it's Jamesian or How-to-Build-a-Better-Buddhist . . .

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The American Poetry Review [Sept 07 issue] includes another chapter in their ongoing canonization of Robert Halfhass, whose careful-to-be-a-bit-bashful face photogs the cover.

There are a dozen or so new poems by him, followed by an obsequious essay devoted to his work: an extended advertisement for his new book which is certain to garner one or more of the major prizes.

[Note: my squib here was written before he won the National Book Award 07, on his way to the Pulitzer and or the National Critics Circle? Is he primed to be the first poet since Ashbery to take the Triple Crown? PPS: he nabbed the Pulitzer, but not not the NatCritCirc] . . .

The essayist quotes several banal (and typically clunky) lines from his poem "Bush's War"

(which was reprinted in the following year's BAPbatch, natch)

and then comments that these lines are "deliberately unsubtle . . . "

Deliberately unsubtle! What a revelation.

And here I was all these years thinking his poems were bad because he was a bad poet.

Here I was thinking his poems were filled with stale platitudes and pretentious apothegms;—

that they were, essentially, professorial or essayistic or diaristic prose, belletrist vignettes, chopped up into arbitrary lines.

Now I learn that he was being deliberately pretentious, deliberately obtuse, deliberately clicheish, deliberately prosaic—

I thought his verse-craft was amateurish at best: and that its incompetence showed he lacked any talent for or was unable to master the skills necessary to write poetry,—

and that if he wanted to be an author, novels were the answer . . .

But!— if all those defects were "deliberate"!?

Shouldn't that change my mind? No, sorrry: after reading his new poems in the new APR, I can only repeat:

All his new poems are boring; in this they resemble all his old.

*
I can't of course deny that he has achieved a degree of popularity in the USA poetry community, and that he is held in high regard by some poets . . .

I don't think his books will ever be bestsellers like those of Mary Oliver or Billy Collins or Jane Hirshfield et al, though.

On the whole his work can have no interest for the larger general public that buys and reads poets like these.

He's a poet for poets, not for readers.

I must admit that some of his lines, some of his phrases, could be adapted for commercial use:

Imagine a Hallmark card whose front text reads: Longing, we say, and then you open it, and on the inside it continues: because love is full of endless distances . . .

Homilies like this one (from his famous "blackberry" poem) could be excerpted for greater gain and distribution.

But in trying to account for the acclaim and admiration granted him by some of his fellow poets, I have a theory as to why that might be—

Based on the poems of his I've been able to muddle through and or start to read, I speculate that the reason he is appreciated by those poets is, quite simply, his subject matter.

Or not subject matter, actually: subject singular, because as far as I can see his poetry only deals with one subject—

What is this recurring subject and why does it make his work so appealing to other poets (and there are certainly enough of them to establish his reputation)—

It's a theme that is as old as poetry: or rather, a sub-theme, an ancillary topic:

a subordinate leitmotif that can always be found to a greater or lesser (usually lesser) extent in all poetry, Shakespeare's sonnets, Wordsworth's Prelude,

and summarized in these lines from Milton's Lycidas:

Alas what boots it with uncessant care
To ply the homely slighted shepherd's trade
And strictly meditate the thankless muse . . .

The proposition that can be spied poking its head up from time to time in all poetry of the past and present, is this:

being a poet/writing poetry is difficult.

This gripe and grumble lament reappears throughout the centuries of verse, but normally it only emerges overtly in a limited measure—

The genius of Halfhass has been to take this heretofore minor issue and to make it his main, indeed as I perceive it, his only thesis:

All his poems are Complaints.

Every poem he writes is about how hard it is to write the poem he's writing.

Everything else in his poems is ostensible, mere occasion.

Or is Apologia the right term.

Anyway, that's his secret:

that's what makes (some) other poets respond

with such empathy and recognition (or self-recognition) to his work—

The whine of it all is never far from many poets' hearts.

The drudgery, the defensiveness, the diffidence, the doubts, the day-after-day

of trying to write poetry is (as every poet knows, and every writer who ever aspired to write poetry, and golly even failed poets like me)—

is, to say the least, demanding. Or damned—

What is that ancient Welsh curse Robert Graves quotes somewhere: It is death to be a poet.

All the D-words. Whereof come in the end Despondency and Madness—

Not to mention Masochism, which is another aspect of it that pleasures the poets who esteem this theme above all others.

This perversity—this breastbeating of the bard over the troubles of his task—is a minor vice, albeit a seductive one.

Yes, it persists, it subsists as a flaw poets fall heir to, a fixation in the blood, a bittersweet urge that has proved irresistible to poets of all eras; who among them has not paused to scratch that itch.

But in the drama of poetry, it is an Aside. A brief interruption in the flow. Extraneous—

A bit part, not a star role.

Think of it as a pocket of self-pity whose acid bubbles up under stress, in resentful momentary spurts.

But it's a capillary, not a vein. A rivulet, not a river. Etcet—

And most poets have seen it for what is: a self-indulgent luxury, a chocoholic spree, an intramural solipsistic tic, an autoerotic fetish of interest to others in the biz but no one else.

All poets are susceptible to it; an unfortunate few become addicted.

Ultimately it remains a trivial subject, and Halfhass remains a trivial poet.

*
—Back to that earlier fawning piece in APR, the one entitled "The Spiritual Progress of Robert Hass" . . .

Regarding which I responded in an earlier blog post:

Yeah, spiritual progress, I mean he's a fucking saint, right?

Unfortunately there has been no corresponding poetical progress.

All his new poems are pretentious and cliche-riddled; in this they resemble all the old.

Even when he tries to write a 'political' poem it turns as usual into maundering piffle.

*
After reading (or failing to read) that "Spiritual Progess" essay, I wrote the following poem:

AT THE "FEDERAL CENSORSHIP AND THE ARTS" SYMPOSIUM

Just as the Nazis never proscribed Rilke
(he was no Expressionist, no Degenerate,
no Art-Bolshevik), so most of us poets
are thought no threat by those in authority—

Halfhass, for instance, his books won't get banned:
his Rilkemanqué wins awards, his "spiritual
progress" and "earned words" (—to paraphrase Wilde,
his genius gives good guru Po-Biz style while

his talent brooks those so serious ergo poems)—
what might please our fuehrers even more is
his patriot's part in The American Poetry Series.

Better silence than that? Better to hide, to write
for one's cabinet? (To paraphrase Benn,
the aristocratic form of publication.)

Note:
This poem was deleted from my collected comic poems by the publisher, BOA, whose chief fund-raiser at the time was Robert Hass. . . .

I've wondered if the BOA editors censored this poem on their own initiative, or whether they were ordered to do so by Hass.

If Hass had my poem suppressed, it wouldn't surprise me, prima donnas like him are notoriously touchy.

Their facades are sensitive, these sainted ones.

*

Knott translated by Transtromer: from "Sapristi" blogsite

två dikter av Bill Knott i översättning av Tomas Tranströmer

från Lyrikvännen 2/72:

Död

Innan jag somnar lägger jag händerna i kors på bröstet.
De ska lägga mina händer så.
Det kommer att se ut som om jag flög in i mig själv.

*

Sömn

Vi stryker längs den andra, osynliga månen.
Dess grottor kommer fram och hämtar in oss.

*
*

In defence of imitation

IN DEFENSE OF IMITATION

*
No, I'm not capable of such; I can't defend the indefensible practice of imitation.

Bad habit picked up in childhood or adolescence, wasteful act that must be outgrown.

Immature artists imitate; mature artists steal.

To paraphrase Eliot's injunction judgment.

It's not just that mature artists don't imitate, they initiate:

They create (synthesize, fashion) a mode their own—

each mature artist is unique, a continent split off from the mythical

Pangaia . . .

And those of us drowning daily in the oceans that separate the Land of Rich from the Domain of Ashbery,

salvation have we none.

*
As many Truthsayers have pointed out (see the comments appended below for some of their axioms)

my poetic process seems fixated stalled at an adolescent stage . . . .

The Verdict is in. The Jury finds me immature.

If I could only learn—if I had only learned—to steal!

Thievery is the path to maturity, the road I failed to take.

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I don't know if Charles Tomlinson is a great poet, but by Eliot's measure he is a mature one.

He did forge a singular style, a work that's reckon in its pace and placements.

I value his verse, and,

being the stunted stripling I am, was drawn to do my doom,

i.e., ape it.

Of course I always try to dignify-deny this shameful predilection with the term, "homage" . . .

(I even vanity-published a book of such poems under that rubric).

Anyway, here's my attempt at Tomlinson,—

puerile mimickry: call it callow, juvenile,

(parodies are permissible, but not this:)

condemn me for deliberately trying to write like someone I admire:

—the worst heinous a poet can commit, the prime crime, the original sin of unoriginality—

:

ON A DRAWING BY CHARLES TOMLINSON

By a swath of inks the eye
thinks it sees solidities
which alter with the watercolor
way his brush washes its dye

in distance, though even this
finds a faraway fixed not
by the surveyor’s plumb but
by the action of the thumb

delaying all the fingers meant
to draw out of the paper,
splashed dry. The clean grain

catches what it should retain
if enough pressure pleasure
is applied to the stain to lie.


Note:
Tomlinson is not only a distinctive poet, but a visual artist of repute. His graphics grace the covers of many of his books. This Homage attempts to imitate his verse style, or one of his verse styles.


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