Poetics and Ruminations

Uncle Wesli’s Daily Epitaph for Saturday, January 30th, 2010

 

R.I.P. GELETT BURGESS

January 30, 1866 – September 18, 1951

 

He never saw a purple cow,

He never hoped to see one,

But I can tell you anyhow,

Gelett thought they were gorgeous.

Uncle Wesli’s Daily Epitaph for Thursday, January 28th, 2010

 

R.I.P. MANOAH BODMAN

January 28, 1765 - January 1, 1850

 

A lawyer who never practiced law,

He spoke with angels that he saw…,

Or were they demons? He was an odd man,

His neighbors thought, old ‘Noah’ Bodman.

Uncle Wesli’s Daily Epitaph for Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

 

R.I.P. LEWIS CARROLL

January 27, 1832 – January 14, 1898

 

And glying came the Wamble Dog

Barking Lewis Carroll,

He met up with the Bandersnatch,

And tossed him in a barrel.

Keith Douglas, Everyone's Poet

 

 

         The British poet Keith Douglas was a tough-minded sophist and a courageous young man, as the editors make clear in their preface to his Collected Poems (1967). That he was a remarkable personality Edmund Blunden shows in his reminiscent introduction to this volume. But plainest of all is the fact that he was a genius who, when he died at the age of twenty-four behind enemy lines at Normandy in 1944, had already written a body of work that emerged as some of the finest poetry of the twentieth century — certainly the best poetry of World War II.

         It would be a mistake, however, to think of Douglas primarily as a war poet. He was far too universal, and too specific, for that. Specific in that his sense of image and description, and his ability to put them into language, were highly refined; universal because, as Blunden pointed out, he was able to fulfill Coleridge's dictum that the best poets utter a philosophy. Blunden says, "He hated decoration without anything behind it, but his verse is decorative...; yet it was his real aim in pleasing the imagination thus to impress truths of human affairs which he came at in his independent way. He did not wish to startle with novelty, but to fashion his work as definitely as physical objects."

         Even the earliest poems included in the book cited — pieces written in Douglas's fourteenth year — cannot be considered the usual juvenilia. They are completely realized objects of art, like "Famous Men," written when the poet was fifteen:

 

And now no longer sun,

not mourning, not remembered

more under the sun,

 

not enough their deserved

praise. The quick movement of dactyls

does not compensate them.

 

The air is advertised of seas

they smote, from green to copper.

They were merciful men.

 

And think, like plates lie deep

licked clean their skulls,

rest beautifully, staring.

 

         The idiom is as spare and modern as anyone could wish, and the thought is complex. More to the point, mode and idea suit each other, tense and flex to compound the effect of the poem as a whole.

         But this poem is not nearly so complex as his later, more textured work. The last poem he completed, "On a Return from Egypt," is mystic. Written just before his death, it is prophetic, ending thus:

 

The next month, then, is a window

and with a crash I'll split the glass.

Behind it stands one I must kiss,

person of love or death

a person or a wraith,

I fear what I shall find.

 

         This is not to say there are no flaws in the work of this Englishman. There are. His endings sometimes seem less successful than his centers. It is as though, for most of the poem, he were thinking as a painter but became self-conscious about being a poet when it came time to round off the piece in hand. Much of the fascination of his work derives from his ability to depict a scene and evoke the atmosphere of exotic places through an imagery that makes strangeness familiar yet retains the quality of strangeness. But even this does not begin to get at the heart of the matter, for, though Douglas had great range and depth, great craftsmanship, he was not a poet's poet — he is everyone’s poet.

 

Originally published in the omnibus review titled, "Of Laureates and Lovers," Saturday Review, l:41, October 14, 1967.

 

 

Visions and Revisions of American Poetry, Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, UArkansasPress  1986. Paperback, $12.95. 1986 Melville Cane Award of the Poetry Society of America. ORDER FROM AMAZON

Uncle Wesli’s Daily Epitaph for Monday, January 25th, 2010

 

R.I.P. ROBERT BURNS

January 25, 1759 - July 21, 1796

 

He wrote a poem “To a Mouse”

And yet another “To a Louse,”

But such were not his great concerns:

His lovers still love Robbie Burns.

Uncle Wesli’s Daily Epitaph for Friday, January 22nd, 2010

 

R.I.P. GEORGE GORDON

January 22, 1799 - April 19, 1824

 

He never used his club foot on a maiden,

And yet he often managed to get laid in

A damsel’s bed. Did cuckolds sometimes fire on

Him if they happened on the poet snorting

Over their panting women? How unsporting

To force the hasty dismount of Lord Byron!

New England Book Festival Wild-Card Winner, 2009

Lewis Putnam Turco. Satan’s Scourge, A Narrative of the Age of Witchcraft, a book review by Joe Danciger

Satan’s Scourge by Lewis Turco refers in its title to smallpox and also to the punishments applied to those believed to be involved with witchcraft or allied practices, such as alchemy or divination.  This book develops a story spanning the years from 1580-1697, chronicling the sweep from a more superstitious age to the age of science and reason. This book is a must read for anyone interested in early American history or witchcraft and magic.

Satan’s Scourge is rich in detail, and many scenes have a sense of immediacy that makes history exciting. The brilliant and graphic account of the Salem witch trials may be the best and most detailed ever written. By the time the trials begin, we have walked the cow paths of New England with these people and have seen the terrible hardships of colonial existence. These details make the trials all the more poignant. Turco is a descendant of the Putnam family, who were very involved in the Salem witch trials, and on whom the book is centered. One might say without exaggeration that this story is in Lewis Turco's blood.

At the time of "Satan’s Scourge,” in Europe Galileo was publishing and considered to be heretical, while in Salem, Massachusetts, farmers were planting and harvesting crops of corn and wheat. Turco describes the historical and philosophical beliefs of the times so thoroughly that the narration can be wholly readable without resorting to further references. In addition the bibliography and index contain favorites of those who are fond of books on demonology and magic, such as Sir Reginald Scot’s “The Discoverie of Witchcraft.” This anchors the story and lends its own pleasures. On both continents, riches could be gained by feigning or attempting diverse magical practices—and by hunting those who did so.  

The narrative of Satan's Scourge is not without humor: an occasional fool blows up a boat by accident, and some players are reliably unreliable. The legendary Mother Goose appears in her actual person and uses her herbal knowledge on some very bee-stung boys. The people portrayed in the book are documented by Turco’s scholarship.

The detailed and well-researched writing makes reading this book a pleasure: e.g., in a typical passage, “Early in the spring of 1679 John Stebbins of Northampton was working in a sawmill when he began to have trouble with the logs and boards with which he was working. They began to act up in strange ways- falling down by themselves, writhing out of his hands.” Stebbins later dies, covered with spots, and a neighbor is charged with witchcraft.

Written in such an engaging way that it is hard to stop reading, the narrative of Satan’s Scourge tells about a family and a time of superstition that was replaced by science. This book has depth, and goes far beyond retelling witchy stunts and acts of cruelty by stern patriarchs.

From Per Contra, Spring 2010, at http://www.percontra.net/18danciger.htm  

 
Satan’s Scourge: A Narrative of the Age of Witchcraft in England and New England 1580-1697 by Lewis Putnam Turco was the winner of the Wild Card category of the New England Book Festival 2009. The award ceremony was held at the Omni Parker House in Boston, Massachusetts, on Saturday, January 16, 2010, from 7:00-9:30 p.m. with the author and the publisher, Dr. Steven E. Swerdfeger of Star Cloud Press, Scottsdale, Arizona, both present.

 

Satan’s Scourge: A Narrative of the Age of Witchcraft in England and New England 1580-1694, www.StarCloudPress.com, 2009, ISBN 978-1-932827, jacketed cloth, $54.95; ISBN 978-1-932842-26-5; trade paperback, $39.95, 808 pages. ORDER FROM BARNES & NOBLE / ORDER FROM AMAZON  

WICKED

An interview by Deirdre Fleming, Staff Writer, The Maine Sunday Telegram, Sunday, March 15, 2009,

 

Dresden Mills writer Lewis Putnam Turco is out with a book, Satan’s Scourge: A Narrative of the Age of Witchcraft in England and New England 1580-1697, on the deadly and scurrilous witch hunts that plagued Britain and America in the 16th and 17th centuries. After 35 years Dr. Turco has finally had his 800-page historical work on the Salem witch trials published. The 74-year-old award-winning poet was determined not to cut it.

Fleming. Why not?

Turco. I was quite happy with what I had done  — I had researched all that stuff, found out so much information about my mother's family, the Putnams of Salem Village, Massachusetts, which is now Danvers. I really didn't care whether it was published or not.

Fleming. But published it was, and you will discuss this newest book on March 29 at the Augusta City Hall learning gallery at 16 Cony St. What will be the focus of your talk?

Turco. The talk will be on the only trial of a Maine witch that occurred during that period — the trial of Casco minister George Burroughs in 1692. Burroughs was convicted and hanged.

Fleming. When did you actually write this book?

Turco. In 1974 I researched and wrote about the history of the Putnams, as well as all of the witch trails that occurred in New England at the height of the age of "sympathetic magic." The book is told not only chronologically, but also from the point of view of the crystal gazers, alchemists and alleged witches as well as their accusers, other witnesses and clerics. Read in its entirety, the book fully explains the period of time when science was coming into being and those who believed in magic were sometimes hunted down and killed.

Fleming. How did you become interested in this subject?

Turco. I have known about my mother’s ancestors and been interested in the subject since high school, or even before — I had been reading about it for years.

Fleming. Yet for more than three decades, your work and writing were focused on poetry. You taught poetry at the college level since 1960, first at what is now Cleveland State University and then at the State University of New York at Oswego, from which you retired in 1996. Your book on literary criticism, Visions and Revisions of American Poetry, won the Poetry Society of America's Melville Cane Award in 1986, one of many awards your work on poetry has received. Why did this book sit around and not get published?

Turco. I tried to publish it. I wrote around, and publishers said it was too long. I wasn't willing to cut it, so I let it sit for 35 years. I didn't even try to peddle it for most of that time. Then, in 2006, I bought a new computer and decided to type it in. I had actually written the typescript in a spring and a summer, so I took another summer and rewrote it as I went along. — It didn't change much. I tightened it up a bit, but it is largely unchanged. When I mentioned it to my current publisher he asked to see it, so I sent it along.

Fleming. Why make it so long?

Turco. It is the only book that I know of that covers that entire history of witchcraft in England and New England during the period I specify, the year 1580, which is the birthday of my mother’s Putnam ancestor who founded the Putnam dynasty in America, to 1697 when the witch-hunts finally died out for good. That was the age when the system in America and in the world, really, was shifting from what we consider sympathetic magic to science, as for instance the shift from astrology to astronomy. It's a fascinating period. This changeover from magic to science is what the Salem witch-hunt was all about. It was the last big clash between science and sympathetic magic.

Fleming. What can we learn from that period?

Turco. There are lots of things we can learn — for instance, the way that witches could be saved in New England in the 17th century was if they confessed to being witches. If you read the whole book, all the accused witches who weren’t hanged in Salem confessed to being witches, and of course, they weren't witches. But some refused to confess, and they weren't witches either. They were hanged. That should tell us something about the ethics of torture. You also learn something about belief and the difference between belief and reality.

Fleming. Are those things relevant today?

Turco. We had a big witch hunt while I was in the Navy in the 1950s — it was called McCarthyism. That was a witch hunt. It is the same thing, exactly. You can learn a lot about human nature. We do repeat history. We're doomed to repeat. We never seem to learn. And there are so many mysterious things that no human being is ever probably going to get to the bottom of, such as “black holes” and “the big bang.” Well, if people have open minds, perhaps they can get their minds around such things, and then believe them.

But believing them is just taking them on faith. Some people take it on faith that there was an initial explosion that created the universe. Other people say God created it, but how do they know that? They take it on faith. The big question is, if God created the universe, who created God? And if there was an initial “big bang,” what came before the big bang? One of these two things is based on science, and the other is based on religion, but both of them are totally mysterious, and people believe in both.

Fleming. Do the same sorts of wrestling matches over ideas continue throughout history?

Turco. Right now there is a witch-hunt going on. We are looking for terrorists. And to a lot of people, anybody with a Muslim background is one. That is not a lot different.

Fleming. Are there others?

Turco. There is a small witch hunt getting started — it is the witch-hunt over the woman who had octuplets. The grandmother is getting threats, and the young “octomom” is getting threats. What is the most rational thing to do? To say, “forget all that, and take care of the babies.” The babies are there. Stop trying to blame the mother. So she's crazy — that's past. That's a good example of a modern witch-hunt.

Fleming. Do you think you'll write more on witchcraft?

Turco.  I doubt it. I'll be seventy-five years old in May. I'm not young, and can't really take on a huge project at my age. So I doubt I will. I will keep writing, though, and I'm giving that talk at Augusta City Hall that you mentioned. I went through my book and got all the information on the minister there in Casco who was hanged in Salem, and put it together as a lecture for this event. And in the summer I’ll be giving another such lecture in Connecticut on the Wallingford witch-hunt that took place about the same time as the Salem event. So I’m still fiddling with the subject to a degree. 

 

Uncle Wesli’s Daily Epitaph for Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

 
 

R.I.P. RHINA ESPAILLAT

January 20, 1932-

 

Wander among these monuments

And try to make of rime some sense;

You won't unless you ponder at

A stone marked "Rhina Espaillat."

Thanks for this epitaph you've penned 
And sent with birthday wishes, friend! 
I'll use the latter right away; 
The former...on some other day. 
 
Love, 
 
Rhina 

Uncle Wesli’s Daily Epitaph for Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

 

R.I.P. HENRY HOWARD

1517-January 19, 1547

 

He and his friend Sir Thomas Wyatt

Were fathers of the English sonnet

Which did no good, for the puppet jury

Condemned to death the Earl of Surrey.

 

R.I.P. EDGAR ALLAN POE

January 19, 1809 - March 24, 1882

 

The darkest poet of his time,

He threw a shadow over rime

And now, beneath this dome of woe,

Erato sleeps with Edgar Poe.

Published originally in Per Contra Spring 2009 Light Verse Supplement at www.percontra.net/14lightverseentry.htm 

Uncle Wesli’s Daily Epitaph for Monday, January 18th, 2010

 

R.I.P. AUSTIN DOBSON

January 18, 1840 – September 2, 1941

 

Austin Dobson wrote in verse

Forms he found in France. Perverse?

Indeed. He did it anyway,

But he has little more to say.