Poetics and Ruminations

At Home: A Poemoir

 

 

AT HOME: A POEMOIR

          As soon as I graduated from Meriden High School in 1952 I joined the Navy for two main reasons: Because I was eligible for the draft (the Korean War was going on), and I was sick of going to school and having other people tell me what I had to study. Even if I had wanted to go to college at that point in my life I couldn’t afford it, so I volunteered for the armed service to get the G. I. Bill eventually. I could have put in less time if I had joined the Army, but I didn’t want to spend any time at all crawling around in the mud, so I joined the Navy.

          This turned out to be a wonderful idea because the Navy taught me how to touch-type, made me a Yeoman – a clerk – rather than a deck hand, shipped me around the country and then, aboard the aircraft carrier Hornet, around the world, quite literally.  My friends all were attending college, but I was engaged in the Grand Tour.

          In port Yeomen have lots to do, but at sea there is little to keep them busy, so I spent an amazing amount of time taking correspondence courses in fiction writing and journalism, in reading poetry and 100 classic books (there was a fine library aboard), and teaching myself all about the craft of versewriting. I began sending my work out to the little magazines, and I began to publish in 1953, one year after high school.

          In 1956 I was released from active duty and just before I entered the University of Connecticut as a sophomore (I had done enough work in the service to have earned advanced placement), I had my first poem accepted by a major literary magazine, The Sewanee Review, which published it in 1959, the year I graduated from UConn and went for grad school out to the Writers’ Workshop of the University of Iowa. This was the poem (listen to Lewis Turco read his poem) "At Home"

 

Fearful Pleasures: The Complete Poems of Lewis Turco 1959-2007, Scottsdale, AZ: www.StarCloudPress.com, 2007. ISBN 978-1-932842-19-7, cloth; ISBN 978-1-932842-20-3, paper. Also available in a Kindle edition.

Epitaph of the Day 29

R.I.P. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

February 22, 1819 – August 12, 1891

 

He loved to warm himself beside

His fellows of the Fireside

Where he could roast them in the fire

Upon the spit of his satire.

 

From Wesli Court’s Epitaphs for the Poets, by Lewis Turco, Baltimore, MD: BrickHouse Books, 2012, paperback, ISBN: 978-1-938144-01-1.

 

 

R.I.P. EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

February 22, 1892 – October 19, 1950

 

Edna loved both girls and guys,

A liberal policy if not wise,

For it was difficult to say

Where she might write her latest lay.

 

From Wesli Court’s Epitaphs for the Poets, by Lewis Turco, Baltimore, MD: BrickHouse Books, 2012, paperback, ISBN: 978-1-938144-01-1. Published originally in Per Contra Spring 2009 Light Verse Supplement atwww.percontra.net/14lightverseentry.htm.

 

The Haiku in English

John Hoppenhthaler has asked me to post a definition of the haiku, but there is more complete information on pp. 294-6 of the fourth edition of The Book of Forms. This is part of it:

By various stages the term "haiku" — a corruption and blending of the dissimilar words "hokku" and "haikai" — came to denote an independent tercet of 5-7-5 syllables.  The haiku dropped all hankas, glosses, comments, and elaborations.  It became a poem which had as its basis emotive utterance, an image, and certain other characteristics as well, including spareness, condensation, spontaneity, ellipsis, and a seasonal element. A distinction has sometimes been made between the haiku and the senryu, though  both have exactly the same external form. The senryu is an inquiry into the nature of humankind, whereas the haiku is an inquiry into the nature of the universe. 

The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics, Including Odd and Invented Forms, Revised and Expanded Edition by Lewis Putnam Turco, Hanover, NH: University Press of New England (www.UPNE.com) , 2012 • 384 pp. 3 illus. 5 x 7 1/2" Reference & Bibliography / Poetry 978-1-61168-035-5, paperback.

Epitaph of the Day 28

R.I.P. W. H. AUDEN

February 18, 1907 – September 29, 1973

 

When Hitler started raising hell

In Europe, Auden had a smile

For England, said, “A fond farewell —

This British thing is not my style.”

 

From Wesli Court’s Epitaphs for the Poets, by Lewis Turco, Baltimore, MD: BrickHouse Books, 2012, paperback, ISBN: 978-1-938144-01-1.

Valentine's Day

Image by Tomie dePaola, all rights reserved.

Epitaph of the Day 27

R.I.P. THOMAS CAMPION

February 12, 1567 – March 1, 1620

 

Thomas Campion loved the lute

But not the trumpet…not a toot,

Nor did he care a bit for rhyme

Though he wrote lute songs all the time.

 

From Wesli Court’s Epitaphs for the Poets, by Lewis Turco, Baltimore, MD: BrickHouse Books, 2012, paperback, ISBN: 978-1-938144-01-1.

 

 

R.I.P. DANIELA GIOSEFFI

February 12, 1941

 

Although her spelling and grammar were iffy,

She was a well-known poetical lefty

Who never wrote junk, nor even graffiti;

Thus, we remember Daniela Gioseffi.

 

From Wesli Court’s Epitaphs for the Poets, by Lewis Turco, Baltimore, MD: BrickHouse Books, 2012, paperback, ISBN: 978-1-938144-01-1.

 

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R.I.P. JOHN SUCKLING

February 10, 1609 - June 1, 1642

 

He took a beating and he lost his pride

To his rival for a disputed bride;

As a rhymer he was a sort of duckling —

Or so it’s rumored of Sir John Suckling.

 

From Wesli Court’s Epitaphs for the Poets, by Lewis Turco, Baltimore, MD: BrickHouse Books, 2012, paperback, ISBN: 978-1-938144-01-1.

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R.I.P. AMY LOWELL

February 9, 1874 - May 12, 1925

 

She loved cigars and the School of Pound

And soon possessed what she had found;

When it came time for her to pass

She watched her image in the glass.

 

From Wesli Court’s Epitaphs for the Poets, by Lewis Turco, Baltimore, MD: BrickHouse Books, 2012, paperback, ISBN: 978-1-938144-01-1.

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R.I.P. ELIZABETH BISHOP

February 8, 1911 – October 6, 1979

 

She did not wish upon a star,

But wrote about things as they are

Except, of course, when she would dish up

The visions of a roaming Bishop.

 

From Wesli Court’s Epitaphs for the Poets, by Lewis Turco, Baltimore, MD: BrickHouse Books, 2012, paperback, ISBN: 978-1-938144-01-1.

 

 

R.I.P. PHILIP APPLEMAN

February 8, 1926-

 

“God didn’t make little green apples,”

Though it does rain in Indianapolis,

But a maker of dowdy apple-pan

Was Darwin’s poet Appleman.

 

From Wesli Court’s Epitaphs for the Poets, by Lewis Turco, Baltimore, MD: BrickHouse Books, 2012, paperback, ISBN: 978-1-938144-01-1.

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R.I.P. CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

February 6, 1564 – May 30, 1593

 

Some claimed Kit Marlowe was a spy,

Although he had a golden tongue

Which was cut short when he was stabbed

In his right eye, not in the lung.

 

From Wesli Court’s Epitaphs for the Poets, by Lewis Turco, Baltimore, MD: BrickHouse Books, 2012, paperback, ISBN: 978-1-938144-01-1.