Two poets
It's about 9: 50, coming to ten in the morning now. Ignore the time at the end of the post, the computer does it, not me and so it's wonky. In fact, it makes my sleeping patterns and I sound weird.
I'm introducing two poets--an arbitrary two--today. I'm still in a celebratory mood, so I guess I'll be making hay while the sun shines--later on, I will be tidying up my room, it's in a mess after months of living in total disorder.
These two poets have touched me immensely, and I believe that they're both really, really good and that it'll be interesting for anyone else who reads them.
The first is Wallace Stevens, he's one of the "Great American Poets", or so I'm told. You will most probably have heard of him unless you live in a place where nobody read very much (like...Singapore--!--for instance). I dicovered him two years ago in--no prizes for guessing--Harold Bloom's book of "One hundred best poems in the English Language" (I'm not plugging him though, in fact, I even reccommend that you look for the good books and poems yourself, get your own idea of them or read a less opinionated, biased commentary by somebody else--who does not ry to sound too arcane but instead, tells you what you need and want to know in a straightforward, fun and compact way), I read the poems as I couldn't really make much sense of the critique that Bloom provided--it was a help nonetheless--and I like them although they were (and still are) pretty much way over my head. They're something that will grow on you, and with you as your views and understanding of them mature.
Since I'm no scholar of literature (unless you count the Joy Luck Club I'm doing at school), so instead of treating you to a long and possibly flawed commentary on him, I'll reccomend a website where you can find in-depth material on him--have faith in me, I'm not talking about that lousy kind of baby stuff which only says that a poem is very "beautiful" or "sad". Here: http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets.htm, after you click and get there, you just scroll down to the "S" section or else you can click on "S" on the black and white bar just above the letter "a".
Great! Now for the next poet.
Keith Douglas: I've got an odd, friendly liking for this fellow. You might not have heard of him. He was one of the best poets of World War Two--which is often maligned by critics for not producing any poetry, unlike WWI, he and a couple of others prove them wrong. Douglas was a soldier on the front, and he got killed by a piece of shrapnel so small that one could barely make out a mark on his body. But in between that time--and even before that, I feel--he was a wonderful poet and it is a great pity that he had to die so unfulfilled. (And no, I'm not the way you think I am, I feel that the entire World War was a great tragedy--but that's another story.) I found out about Keith Douglas just two years or so ago, when I borrowed a book of "Mourning Poems" from the school library, and found the intriguing poem: Simplify Me when I am Dead. This touched me deeply, as it seemed a very personal poem--throughout his life, he did bear a "long pain" (look here: http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/S/soldier_poets/biog_douglas.html). There is no delicacy, not even the slightest euphemism, in it, it tells it as it is, stripped, bare as bones, angry, sad and rather resigned at Death's approach. (Douglas was quite the self-mourner--in the tradition of literary great such as Keats, Dickinson and hardy. Perhaps he was even fascinated at the meaning of death.) There is a palpable pathos infused throughout the poem, that reaches you to strike you hard in the face:
Simplify Me When I'm Dead
Remember me when I am dead
and simplify me when I'm dead.
As the processes of earth strip off
the colour of the skin:
take the brown hair and blue eye
and leave me simpler than at birth,
when hairless I came howling in
as the moon entered the cold sky.
Of my skeleton perhaps, so stripped,
a learned man will say
"He was of such a type and intelligence," no more.
Thus when in a year collapse
particular memories, you may deduce,
from the long pain I bore
the opinions I held, who was my foe
and what I left, even my appearance
but incidents will be no guide.
Time's wrong-way telescope will show
a minute man ten years hence
and by distance simplified.
Through that lens see if I seem
substance or nothing: of the world
deserving mention or charitable oblivion,
not by momentary spleen
or love into decision hurled,
leisurely arrive at an opinion.
Remember me when I am dead
and simplify me when I'm dead.
Keith Douglas
... and another:
Desert Flowers
Living in a wide landscape are the flowers --
Rosenberg I only repeat what you were saying --
the shell and the hawk every hour
are slaying men and jerboas, slaying
the mind: but the body can fill
the hungry flowers and the dogs who cry words
at nights, the most hostile things of all.
But that is not new. Each time the night discards
draperies on the eyes and leaves the mind awake
I look each side of the door of sleep
for the little coin it will take
to buy the secret I shall not keep.
I see men as trees suffering
or confound the detail and the horizon.
Lay the coin on my tongue and I will sing
of what the others never set eyes on.
[? El Ballah, General Hospital, 1943]
Other poems by Keith Douglas:
Cairo Jag
How To Kill
The Knife
Vergissmeinnicht
Vergissmeinnicht (Forget-me-not)
Villanelle Of Spring Bells
For more, I guess you'll just have to buy the book, check out the titles on Amazon.com or the local library.
My hard-earned Keith Douglas links (all the un-crap ones I can find at the momen)t:
http://www.durham21.co.uk/archive/archive.asp?ID=2134 (about Douglas)
http://themargins.net/anth/1930-1939/douglas.html (an early poem by Douglas)
http://www.wwnorton.com/nael/20century/topic_2/alamein.htm
http://www.getcited.org/?PUB=100066686&showStat=Ratings (a book you might consider reading)
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,11710,1494038,00.html (an article on the man himself--again--click on the links at the bottom too!)
http://www.britac.ac.uk/pubs/review/_pdfs/review05-09-kendall.pdf (great article on Douglas's "vision"--might take awhile to load, though)
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/nova_foresta_books/douglas.htm (not particularly good, but oh well, why not?)
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v23/n03/print/hami01_.html (a review of "Keith Douglas: The Letters by Keith Douglas ed. Desmond Graham · Carcanet, 369 pp, £14.95"
http://www.utpjournals.com/product/utq/582/582_sherry.html (wonderful! read this one even if you choose to ignore the others)
http://www.warchronicle.com/eighth_army/soldierstory/douglas.htm (from "Alamein to Zem Zem"--a book by Douglas)
http://www.suite101.com/discussion.cfm/performance_poetry/104447 (a pretty lousy link, but it provides the text of his beautiful "Farewell Poem")
I think that's about all. I've been through, like, TEN pages on the Altavista search engine.
Note: There are plenty of links and great books on Wallace Stevens, just search through Amazon.com or your local library. The link I provided above has a wealth of resources--have fun!
I'm introducing two poets--an arbitrary two--today. I'm still in a celebratory mood, so I guess I'll be making hay while the sun shines--later on, I will be tidying up my room, it's in a mess after months of living in total disorder.
These two poets have touched me immensely, and I believe that they're both really, really good and that it'll be interesting for anyone else who reads them.
The first is Wallace Stevens, he's one of the "Great American Poets", or so I'm told. You will most probably have heard of him unless you live in a place where nobody read very much (like...Singapore--!--for instance). I dicovered him two years ago in--no prizes for guessing--Harold Bloom's book of "One hundred best poems in the English Language" (I'm not plugging him though, in fact, I even reccommend that you look for the good books and poems yourself, get your own idea of them or read a less opinionated, biased commentary by somebody else--who does not ry to sound too arcane but instead, tells you what you need and want to know in a straightforward, fun and compact way), I read the poems as I couldn't really make much sense of the critique that Bloom provided--it was a help nonetheless--and I like them although they were (and still are) pretty much way over my head. They're something that will grow on you, and with you as your views and understanding of them mature.
Since I'm no scholar of literature (unless you count the Joy Luck Club I'm doing at school), so instead of treating you to a long and possibly flawed commentary on him, I'll reccomend a website where you can find in-depth material on him--have faith in me, I'm not talking about that lousy kind of baby stuff which only says that a poem is very "beautiful" or "sad". Here: http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets.htm, after you click and get there, you just scroll down to the "S" section or else you can click on "S" on the black and white bar just above the letter "a".
Great! Now for the next poet.
Keith Douglas: I've got an odd, friendly liking for this fellow. You might not have heard of him. He was one of the best poets of World War Two--which is often maligned by critics for not producing any poetry, unlike WWI, he and a couple of others prove them wrong. Douglas was a soldier on the front, and he got killed by a piece of shrapnel so small that one could barely make out a mark on his body. But in between that time--and even before that, I feel--he was a wonderful poet and it is a great pity that he had to die so unfulfilled. (And no, I'm not the way you think I am, I feel that the entire World War was a great tragedy--but that's another story.) I found out about Keith Douglas just two years or so ago, when I borrowed a book of "Mourning Poems" from the school library, and found the intriguing poem: Simplify Me when I am Dead. This touched me deeply, as it seemed a very personal poem--throughout his life, he did bear a "long pain" (look here: http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/S/soldier_poets/biog_douglas.html). There is no delicacy, not even the slightest euphemism, in it, it tells it as it is, stripped, bare as bones, angry, sad and rather resigned at Death's approach. (Douglas was quite the self-mourner--in the tradition of literary great such as Keats, Dickinson and hardy. Perhaps he was even fascinated at the meaning of death.) There is a palpable pathos infused throughout the poem, that reaches you to strike you hard in the face:
Simplify Me When I'm Dead
Remember me when I am dead
and simplify me when I'm dead.
As the processes of earth strip off
the colour of the skin:
take the brown hair and blue eye
and leave me simpler than at birth,
when hairless I came howling in
as the moon entered the cold sky.
Of my skeleton perhaps, so stripped,
a learned man will say
"He was of such a type and intelligence," no more.
Thus when in a year collapse
particular memories, you may deduce,
from the long pain I bore
the opinions I held, who was my foe
and what I left, even my appearance
but incidents will be no guide.
Time's wrong-way telescope will show
a minute man ten years hence
and by distance simplified.
Through that lens see if I seem
substance or nothing: of the world
deserving mention or charitable oblivion,
not by momentary spleen
or love into decision hurled,
leisurely arrive at an opinion.
Remember me when I am dead
and simplify me when I'm dead.
Keith Douglas
... and another:
Desert Flowers
Living in a wide landscape are the flowers --
Rosenberg I only repeat what you were saying --
the shell and the hawk every hour
are slaying men and jerboas, slaying
the mind: but the body can fill
the hungry flowers and the dogs who cry words
at nights, the most hostile things of all.
But that is not new. Each time the night discards
draperies on the eyes and leaves the mind awake
I look each side of the door of sleep
for the little coin it will take
to buy the secret I shall not keep.
I see men as trees suffering
or confound the detail and the horizon.
Lay the coin on my tongue and I will sing
of what the others never set eyes on.
[? El Ballah, General Hospital, 1943]
Other poems by Keith Douglas:
Cairo Jag
How To Kill
The Knife
Vergissmeinnicht
Vergissmeinnicht (Forget-me-not)
Villanelle Of Spring Bells
For more, I guess you'll just have to buy the book, check out the titles on Amazon.com or the local library.
My hard-earned Keith Douglas links (all the un-crap ones I can find at the momen)t:
http://www.durham21.co.uk/archive/archive.asp?ID=2134 (about Douglas)
http://themargins.net/anth/1930-1939/douglas.html (an early poem by Douglas)
http://www.wwnorton.com/nael/20century/topic_2/alamein.htm
http://www.getcited.org/?PUB=100066686&showStat=Ratings (a book you might consider reading)
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,11710,1494038,00.html (an article on the man himself--again--click on the links at the bottom too!)
http://www.britac.ac.uk/pubs/review/_pdfs/review05-09-kendall.pdf (great article on Douglas's "vision"--might take awhile to load, though)
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/nova_foresta_books/douglas.htm (not particularly good, but oh well, why not?)
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v23/n03/print/hami01_.html (a review of "Keith Douglas: The Letters by Keith Douglas ed. Desmond Graham · Carcanet, 369 pp, £14.95"
http://www.utpjournals.com/product/utq/582/582_sherry.html (wonderful! read this one even if you choose to ignore the others)
http://www.warchronicle.com/eighth_army/soldierstory/douglas.htm (from "Alamein to Zem Zem"--a book by Douglas)
http://www.suite101.com/discussion.cfm/performance_poetry/104447 (a pretty lousy link, but it provides the text of his beautiful "Farewell Poem")
I think that's about all. I've been through, like, TEN pages on the Altavista search engine.
Note: There are plenty of links and great books on Wallace Stevens, just search through Amazon.com or your local library. The link I provided above has a wealth of resources--have fun!
posted by fairypenguin at 6:51 PM
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