An Interview by Terry Stanion
This interview took
place at St. Michael's College in Winooski, Vermont, on October 20, 1971, where
Lewis Turco gave a reading before a room full of college students, a few
professors, some middle-aged people and some not so middle-aged, and a nun. It
appears here as it was edited from its original publication in The Vermont
Freeman, issue of "Early
November, 1971," page nine.
Mr. Turco was a
dark-haired, neatly groomed, mustached man dressed in a green shirt,
multi-colored vest, and red jeans. On a tour of several colleges in the
Northeast, the poet had read the day before at the University of Vermont in
Burlington.
Stanion. Mr. Turco, what did you think of your audience
this evening?
Turco. I thought they were responsive. I got the
impression they enjoyed the reading.
Stanion. The audience chuckled after you read your first
poem. It was titled "Old News," wasn't it? You wrote it when you
found out your wife was pregnant with your first child, I believe. Would you
read it again?
Turco. Yes. It appeared in my book Awaken, Bells
Falling three years ago:
OLD NEWS1
"Six
weeks gone," the doctor said,
that odd good luck look walking his lips along
the
trail blazed by the tip of
his tongue.
"Six weeks gone, son.
She'll be fine. Lousy
in
bed, though," shaking his head.
"You'll be used to the idea come
daylight,"
and
off he went, his eyes propped
wide with a good call's work — blasé, not quite
bored
by
the old wonder with which
I was left: the old bride whose acquiescence,
I
now find, can swallow down
this house with its carpet silences; stillness
of
pillows; the couch couching.
Outdoors, the dark lies in the hollows of trees.
Night
descends like a muffled
lamp.
These eyes seize on ancient things: the roadway
sleeping
between its curbs, the
lurking swell of a still flat belly, and the
lidded moon risen, unwinking, on the world.
Stanion. That is a crowd-pleaser, it seems. Do you
deliberately write for a particular audience?
Turco. That depends on what you mean by audience, and on when you mean I think about it. While one is writing, I
doubt very much that one thinks about the audience who will be reading the
finished poem. But eventually, it seems to me, one has to consider the audience
one wants to reach. I think most poets are concerned more with the horizontal
than the vertical audience.
Stanion. What are those?
Turco. The "vertical" audience for literature
consists of the mass of readers of any stripe who exist at any particular
moment, whereas the “horizontal” audience is made of those readers who exist
from one particular moment forward into the indefinite future. Although the
vertical audience appears to be massive in comparison with the horizontal
audience of that same moment, in fact the horizontal audience will be much
larger — good news for the writer of "serious" as distinguished from
"popular" literature.
Stanion. It's the difference between the cult and the mob?
Turco. More or less. The smallest possible audience is
one — oneself; the largest is everyone. Every audience in between these
extremes is limited to a greater or lesser degree. If the poet addresses only
himself or herself, he or she is a narcissist; if the poet addresses everyone,
he or she must seek the lowest common denominator, and art is exhausted. The
poet, then, must consider the audience he or she wishes to reach and settle for
that readership which is as large as his or her seriousness of intent and
talent will bear.
Stanion. How long have you been writing poetry?
Turco. For about as long as I can remember. I published
my first poems when I was nineteen and doing a stint in the Navy.
Stanion. In the Navy? That sounds like a TV sit-com. What
is your background?
Turco My father was an Italian Baptist minister who
served congregations in Buffalo, New York, and Meriden, Connecticut, where I
grew up. My mother is a Methodist missionary from Wisconsin who traces her
ancestry back to the Putnams of the Salem Village witchcraft trials of 1692.
Stanion. Are you an only child? Are you married? Do you
have children? Do you write about people who are close to you?
Turco I've written poems about my brother, Gene, my
wife, my parents, my daughter — in fact, I wrote a whole series, about my
family, friends, and acquaintances, titled The Sketches. It was originally published as a chapbook in 1962
and was reprinted in my Pocoanqelini: A Fantography & Other Poems this year.
Stanion. You've also written on occasion about public
figures and events, haven't you? One of your best-known poems, I recall, is
titled "November 22, 1963," about the assassination of John F.
Kennedy. It's been translated into other languages, hasn't it? Would you read
it?
Turco. I'd be happy to.
NOVEMBER 22, 1963(1)
for J. F. K.
Weeping, I write this: You are dead.
The dark
animal of the heart, the beast that bides
stilly in its web of flesh, has stolen
flight again out of the air. What is there
to say?
That I wish we were gods?
That the
mind of man were equal to his lusts? It
is not — not yet. You were a man, but more:
you were an idea dreamt in a sweet
hour while the spider slept. We make our
web; its habitant makes greatness of its
prey.
We are ourselves victim and victor.
You were and are ourselves. In killing you
we murder an emblem of what we strive
to be: not men, but Man. In mourning you,
good Man, we grieve for what we are, not what
we may become.
Sleep,
John. We will try
once more.
Sleep, sleep now. We will
try again.
Stanion. Robert Frost read at the inauguration of President
Kennedy, and you spent some time here in Vermont at Middlebury College's Bread
Loaf Writers' Conference. Did you ever meet him?
Turco. Yes, in 1961, when I was a Bread Loaf Poetry
Fellow, I spent an evening swapping stories with him in Treman Hall on the
Bread Loaf campus. He had died by 1968 when I was a member of the teaching
faculty there.
Stanion. Some people have commented on the similarity of
some of your poems to those of Frost. Did he have an influence on you?
Turco. In a way, perhaps. Not stylistically, but Frost's
feeling for people perhaps influenced me in my writing about people
Stanion. Why do you write poetry?
Turco Perhaps for the same reason that others read
poetry: they are driven to it in their quest for a richer understanding of
life.
Stanion. Is that why you wrote a sequence of poems,
"Bordello,"2 in your book Pocoangelini, about men who frequent a bawdy house?
Turco Yes. I tried to empathize with such people because
everyone seems to have written fiction and poetry about so-called "fallen
women," but I've never seen the other side of the coin. If there are
reasons why women become prostitutes, there must be reasons why men use them,
so I tried to put myself into those men's minds and attempt to understand the
psychology that motivates them. Each has a different reason — one has been
emasculated by his wife, another has had to work too hard and too long to find
a wife, and a minister deludes himself into believing that by knowing sin
firsthand he can serve his flock better.
Stanion. Probably the saddest of these men is Lafe Grat who
is too ugly to have a wife.
Turco Yes. For him the bordello is his only refuge:
LAFE GRAT(2)
In this house I am not ugly — nowhere
else.
Nor is there
a mirror in the room we use, my bought
bride and I.
What
images are reflected in her eyes
I recognize
as in a dream only, my face redrawn
by night.
Reborn
each evening of this woman, spared my name,
the cruel fame
of the publicly disfigured, I roar
with my old whore
like a whole man, transfigured for a time.
Sordid?
I am
Lafe Grat.
I work hard to make a living.
There's no giving
to a man who makes you think of darkness,
for my likeness
is found buried in everyone, hidden
till, unbidden,
it rises to gorge the beast in the blood.
So, out of mud
I am formed and rise each morning to stalk
where others walk
in a world of surfaces — till night when,
like other men,
I may purchase with coin my manhood, life —
a moment's wife.
Stanion. That sounds like an experiment in psychology.
Turco Writers were the first psychologists. A poet
experiments with words in much the same way that a scientist experiments with
physical data. Whereas the scientist explores the mysteries of the physical
universe, the poet tries to explore and understand the mysteries of the human
condition.
Stanion. You are a teacher as well as a writer — can
insight be taught?
Turco. A teacher can certainly teach technique, and he or
she can foster sensitivity, but no one can teach aptitude. I think it's
possible to teach almost anyone to write poetry — not great poetry, but poetry.
If I didn't think I could do so, I wouldn't be a teacher.
Stanion. And you've written a book on the subject, The
Book of Forms,(3) which
many other teachers use also, In a world that has become so depersonalized by
automation and overpopulation, perhaps we can use a few more poets.
NOTES
1Fearful Pleasures: The Complete Poems 1959-2007, www.StarCloudPress.com, 2007, ISBN 978-1-932842-19-5, jacketed cloth, $49.95; ISBN
978-1-932842-20-3, trade paperback, $32.95, 640 pages. ORDER FROM AMAZON.COM
2The
Collected Lyrics of Lewis Turco / Wesli Court, 1953-2004, www.StarCloudPress.com, 2004. ISBN
1932842004, jacketed cloth, $49.95; ISBN 1932842012, quality paperback, $26.95,
460 pages, © 2004, all rights reserved. ORDER FROM AMAZON.COM
3The
Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics, Third edition, www.UPNE.com, 2000. ISBN 1584650222, trade
paperback, $24.95, 337 pages. “The Poet’s Bible," A companion volume to The
Book of Dialogue and The
Book of Literary Terms.
ORDER FROM AMAZON
E-REMARKS
Lew,
I very much enjoyed
the Interview by Terry Stanion. The paragraph on one's audience was apt and I
was touched by “Lafe Grat”
Alice Teeter
Thanks, Alice,
I'm working on a
manuscript of my collected interviews over the years titled Craft or Sullen
Art. This is one of the earliest.
You wanted to know about qn even earlier one, "Interview with a Split
Personality" which was videotaped in 1968. I checked with SUNY Oswego, and
unfortunately it appears that it was destroyed when the "Learning
Resources Center" was eliminated.
Lew
Awfully short sighted of
SUNY Oswego, if you ask me.
Alice
Having a Nervous Breakdown
This weekend Lewis Turco is the featured poet at
http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/
where he is interviewed by his alter-ego “Wesli Court”
http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/lturco/2010/06/lewis-turco-the-tnb-self-interview/
and you can see his double poem titled “John”
http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/lturco/2010/06/john/
taken from his most recent collection of poems, a free, downloadable e-chapbook titled Attic, Shed and Barn, published by Ahadada books, www.ahadadabooks.com.
Later on in the summer, after Wesli Court’s new book of rhymed and metered poems titled The Gathering of the Elders and Other Poems is published by
http://www.StarCloudPress.com
on September first (his first solo book since 1981), Turco will turn the table on himself and interview Court. These are some comments about Court’s forthcoming collection:
This major collection by the astonishing Wesli Court is an event calculated to shiver all literary seismographs. Readers addicted to poetry, but weary of ill-made poems, can latch on to it with joy. Aspiring poets can seize it as a handbook of models, learning how to write anything from an ode to a sonnenizio, from an epigram to a blues epilogue. While often striking a wistful, wintery tone of hail-and-farewell, there are notes of infectious cheer and some genuine surprises — even a poem to fulfill an unused title that Wallace Stevens left lying idle. With unique skill, Court shows us what a truly good metrical poem used to be, could be, and (in his able hands) still is. — X. J. Kennedy
It’s an increasingly rare pleasure to read poems about the real world in language as clear as it is lyrical, with deep roots in the past and illuminated by carefree rhyme. — Miller Williams
The miraculous thing about all these poems is the way they avoid sentimentality and the temptation to reinvent the past, preferring, instead, a difficult blend of affection and detachment, honesty and regret. — Rhina P. Espaillat in The Hollins Critic.
COMMENTS
Hi Lew,
This week, since I have the proof copy of The Gathering of the Elders and Other Poems on my desk, I have treated myself to intervals of quiet so that I could read your poems again . . . and again, and have done so with great pleasure.
It is a superb collection, masterfully rendered by a true Master of Craft.
I hope that it will find the very wide readership that it deserves.
Dr. Steven E. Swerdfeger, Ph. D.
Publisher
www.StarCloudPress.com
Dear Mr. Turco,
I am an MFA student in poetry at Spalding University and have just completed a semester of study with Molly Peacock. Molly has pretty much turned me into a formalist, and I will be writing my extended critical essay about the creation of narrative in sonnet crowns, and the pressure that narrative exerts on sonnet form.
I've read that you've published a sonnet crown under your pseudonym. Would you mind sending me the name of the book that contains the crown.
Thanks so much for your help, and for all your wonderful poetry!
Sincerely,
Barbara Payne Freimuth
Hi, Barbara,
Sorry to disappoint, but I've written a sonnet redoublé, not a crown of sonnets, under my pseudonym Wesli Court. It's in the current edition of The Book of Forms, titled "Reflections in an Attic Room," and it will appear for the first time in a collection of my poems, The Gathering of the Elders (by Wesli), from StarCloudPress.com on September first. It was originally published in Miller Williams' Patterns of Poetry.
Yours,
Lew Turco
Thanks very much! I look forward to purchasing these books, and to hearing you read someday!
Best,
B. Freimuth
p.s. Great website!
Lew —
Congratulations on your Breakdown! I liked "John" very much — both scopes. The interview was great. Wish the videotape for classroom television was online.
Alice Teeter
Thank you, Alice,
Maybe I can get Oswego to put the interview on a cd. If so, I'll post it on my blog; meanwhile, it's in my blog archive as a document titled "Interview with a Split Personality."
Lew
OMG Lew, you are amazing and awesome. Thank you for sharing your exciting news with me!
Peggy Cooper
CooperHouse Publishing
Thanks, Peggy,
Whatever became of your forms chart?
Lew
I don’t know where to even start with this splendid history. So much that inspires me as a poet and a student of poetry. But I will say that this is the moment that gave me a frisson:
After a while you and I had all these poems lying around doing nothing, so we decided to start sending them out to periodicals in the middle-to-late 1970’s, sometimes under my name, but most of the time under your name. To my amazement, magazines began to accept them. In fact, you began to have more luck with your rhyming and metered poems than I was having with my syllabic poems! What was going on? I thought I knew. The worm was beginning to turn again, and there was a big pile of younger poets who had been using The Book of Forms for almost a decade, writing in the old forms, experimenting with the Bardic forms, publishing in the little magazines, and even beginning new periodicals that published what they were interested in.
Hooray for the turned worm. I personally share your opinion of the Beat Generation (and I throw in the Confessionals as well), as I’ve argued before here on TNB. I’ll admit that I was given occasion to examine a few of the writers more closely, and found some good bits here and there, but overall, I agree with the characterization of when the loudest camp in poetry was “consolidating its anti-intellectual stranglehold on a generation, and the self-righteous, self-indulgent decade of the 1960s loomed ahead.” In fact, you inspire me to publish my poem “Babel”, which I’ve long avoided doing because I thought that all the reflex reverence for the beats meant maybe I was just missing something.
I’m delighted to think you had some effect on the turning of the worm. I’m not dogmatic about form, but I do really wonder how a poet can develop the marvelous mimetic and compact power over language bards have perfected for eons, while ignoring all the hard work and miraculous achievements of those eons of bards. In my opinion, the fear of Erato is the beginning of poetic wisdom, even if sometimes that wisdom ultimately manifests itself in free verse.
Thank you, Uche,
And thank you for asking me to be the featured poet this issue of thenervousbreakdown.com. You've been very kind.
Lew Turco
This three-headed interview has left me dizzy, exhilarated, and schizoid. The professorial third of me is energized to tackle the long-needed revision and updating of my own “book of forms,” FORMS OF VERSE, BRITISH AND AMERICAN, first brought out in the early 70s by now-defunct Appleton-Century-Crofts. It was (and is–I still use it in teaching, as do a few others) more a learn-by-doing book than a handbook. The diffident and realistic third of me feels puny in the face of the erudition of all the Turcos. The poet third cries out, “Sit down, shut up, grab your copy of Turco’s BOOKOF FORMS and try some new experiments!” The poet third is the loudest. Thanks, Mssrs. Turco, and Wesli Court too.
Clarinda Harriss
Thanks, Clarinda,
And certainly you ought to update your book. The more, the merrier!
Lew
[“John” is] Beautiful. A wonderful homage to both John and Pythagoras.
I particularly like this… “into the nothingness that I could see and the rest of nothing I could not.”
Jude
Thank you, Jude. Delighted you enjoyed the poem.
Lew
My favorite bit is the ending of I, from “Who can compass it?” But as an amateur of physics I also love the standard model rendered into verse of the middle stanzas of II. Overall, the poem is a sheer pleasure.
Uche Ogbuji
June 20, 2010 in Books, Commentary, Interviews, Literature | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: The New Formalism