Listen to Lewis Turco read his poem titled "The Street."
“The Street,” which was reprinted in “Take Heart, A Conversation in Poetry,” a column edited by the Poet Laureate of Maine, Wesley McNair, and syndicated in 30 Maine newspapers including The Maine Sunday Telegram, Sunday, January 27, 2013, p. D7, is the central poem in a short series titled “Autumn’s Tales” that depicts a few moments during the onset of the first snowstorm of the winter in a town located in the northern United States of America. The series begins with “The Neighborhood,” progresses through “The Yard” of one of the houses in a row of dwellings, moves out to “The Trees” standing before those homes – originally elms but of latter years more likely maples or oaks -- then focuses on “The Automobiles” parked under the trees along “The Street” of the town. Then the “camera” pans farther along past the boundary of the settled section into the countryside to focus on “The Pond” at the edge of town, and farther still to follow the fences of the farm fields. Each poem describes an incremental increase in the growth of the storm. When the landscape rises the lens shows a high-angle shot of “The Valley,” and the poem ends as the full strength of the snowstorm falls upon a panoramic shot of “The Vista” we have traversed, and everything behind us is lost in the blowing snow.
AUTUMN'S TALES
I. THE NEIGHBORHOOD
The houses are settling into their foundations.
On this block, the houses are settling
into the heat of their furnaces.
The snow settles on the roofs,
into the eaves, onto window sills.
In the houses there is a settling:
the windows go hollow,
the doors set single irons
into their jambs.
The night settles on the houses,
but there is something that arises
to go out to walk in the starlight.
It will not settle,
not even under the moon's great weight.
II. THE YARD
This year's garden is a series of ridges
frozen against the hedge.
A tricycle, forgotten on the lawn,
stands in the arrest of the season:
it rusts among exploded milkweed
as a blue-jay melts out of the sky, alights,
encircles the handlebar with silence.
Not even a wingstroke breaks
the wind rising and descending
to trifle with playthings — husk, seed,
the rag end of dusk.
If the night should come now
it would pin snow to spokes,
to the feathers of the jay,
to the garden which would blossom
with darkness and trailing frost.
III. THE TREES
They stand there
as the first snow comes to lie
among their roots.
In the afternoon some bird, ruffle-voiced,
had told a blue story among them.
They had not answered.
The wind winds up silence
which will hang from the limbs
like a summer kite.
A kite, worn thin by scraping
against the sky, rustles
along the prow of night:
It is a figurehead of tissue,
of soft wood, its ragged tail
caught in shadow, pulling darkness.
IV. THE AUTOMOBILES
The storm seems to gather
from within the steel.
Their fires curbed,
the autos stare down the avenue
as night hunches along its highway
somewhere over the trees
winding its horn.
V. THE STREET
In the street the wind gutters, moving papers
and leaves into heaps or sworls.
The scraps of the year make some kind of pattern,
some calligramme of their own,
beyond the imprint of new snow.
Lightly, on the flourishes of silence,
on the heaps of leaf,
the snow touches and explores.
Finally, in folds of stillness,
flakes begin to form wrinkles of crystal.
By the time dusk deepens,
the wrinkles will be pure streams
drowning whatever is old.
Then, in the night, in the darkest hours,
the road will be a river of snow
aiming toward morning, lost at either end
in the curbs of vision.
VI. THE POND
The pond at the edge of town
looks straight up.
Its hard gaze sees little more
than a hard sky looking down.
A brow of old lilies
wavers at the edge of storm.
Then the first flakes
begin to build a cataract of crystal
across the eye of daylight;
the wind and the blind night
come touching through lily stalks.
VII. THE FENCES
In the pastures the wind walks
browsing beside the fence.
Snow falls among the weeds
that talk together in an unknown language.
The fences parse this tongue.
The farmhouse lies beside the great barn,
ruminative in the early falling,
its chimney rolling up gray against gray.
The doors are closed,
the fields are closed and silent
except for rumors between siftings.
Soon the imprints of cattle hooves
will be small pools of white.
Later, the fences will cut through dusk
as though they were knives with white edges.
VIII THE VALLEY
Seen from the side of this hill
the valley and the river go
together along the ridges into the woods
where the river disappears, where the forest
eats the river and the snow
comes blowing now out of the dusk whitely,
the valley turning white, the river gray
between the flakes falling, the snow and the blue,
hard blue of the river blending into gray,
eating the valley, its river,
eating the snow and, behind,
the night watching from a darkening hill.
IX. THE VISTA
As the storm comes now like a cage of dark air,
the snowflakes fall before it:
they have been frightened by nothing
into their descent.
The trees are filled with small cries.
The avenue becomes a river of still forms.
The cars are trapped in frost fire;
the eye of a pond witnesses what it can
before the cataract steals its sight.
Houses settle into their yards,
farms into their fields and fences.
The hills rise over the valley,
and the river is lost.
-- Lewis Turco
“Autumn's Tales" was originally published in The Mad River Review, Volume I, No. 1, Winter 1964-65, collected first in American Still Lifes by Lewis Turco with cover design and illustrations by George O’Connell, Oswego, NY: Mathom Publishing Company, 1981, and finally in 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.
Inauguration Hypocrisy Extended
U. S. Poet Laureate
According to The Concise Oxford English Dictionary, “Poet Laureate” is a noun (plural Poets Laureate...), “an EMINENT [emphasis added] poet appointed by the British royal household to write poems for royal and official occasions.” [© Oxford University Press, 2004.]
Generally speaking, according to Wikipedia, it is “a poet officially appointed by a government, or conferring agency, who is often expected to compose poems for special events and occasions.” Furthermore, “The United States Library of Congress has since 1937 appointed an official Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress until 1984. An Act of Congress changed the name of the position in 1985 to Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress.” On June 7, 2012, Librarian of Congress James H. Billington … announced the appointment of Natasha Trethewey as the Library’s Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry for 2012-2013.
On January 10th of this year, on this blog, I posted an entry titled, “Inauguration Hypocrisy” in which I discussed the fact that President Barack Obama had appointed as his inauguration poet a little known (I had personally never heard of him) gay, Hispanic civil engineer living in Maine (where I live). Now that the inauguration is over and we have heard the aptly named Mr. Blanco read the “poem” he wrote for the occasion, I have a question to ask:
Why was the official “Poet Laureate” of the United States, Natasha Trethewey, not given the assignment to write and deliver the President’s Inauguration Poem?
In response to my original posting I received this message from a writer in Montana:
“’Gay, Hispanic-American’ hits enough political buttons to make his [Obama’s] point with all but people who think that the poetry might be the best reason for choosing the poet. Maybe choosing a gay, Hispanic-American policemen would be the right choice if you wanted to dress up the balcony to salute the blue states.” J. H.
I think that response answers my question. The consequence? Today I received this email message from California:
OY OY OY “THE PLUM BLUSH OF DUSK”
Blanco was
Another
Blank
In the Great
Blank
Tradition
Of Inaugural
Poets
A lotta
Corn
In "One"
Really
Bad
Poem
Jack Foley
I replied, “It didn't come close to being a poem, Jack. It was as bad and lengthy a speech as any we heard today, including the interminable Invocation. The full text is on-line in several places; here is one of them:
http://www.denverpost.com/nationalpolitics/ci_22419123/inaugural-poem-text?source=pkg. And Stephen Colbert took a shot with a limerick at Inaugural Poet Richard Blanco on “The Colbert Report”: "Of course, folks, being Democrats, there legally had to be a liberal, gay Latino poet from Maine." After showing a clip of the poem, Colbert said, "Would it kill you to throw a rhyme in there? It's a poem. It's not that hard. Here:
BACK TO BARACK
There once was a man named Barack
Whose re-election came as a shock
He raised taxes I pay
And turned marriage gay
And now he's coming after your Glock."
Stephen Colbert
I figured that, if Colbert could do it, so could I:
BLANCO VERSE
A poet named Blanco wrote verse
That wasn't quite, but, what was worse,
As everyone knows,
Was rather like prose
That never approached being terse.
Lewis Turco
And apparently, so did Jack Foley:
OBAMA DREW A BLANK
Obama, alas, drew a Blank.
He’d heard from his famous think tank,
“We need a poem
To serve as a proem.”
He got one but, honey, it stank.
Jack Foley
I am considering a new term to be included in The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics, Including Odd and Invented Forms, Revised and Expanded Fourth Edition: "Blanco verse," non-verse; prose, an ode without metrical form or linguistic interest.
On Jan 22, 2013, at 12:05 PM, [email protected] took umbrage with my Blanco send-up of Sir W. S. Gilbert's "I am the very model of a modern major general":
I AM THE VERY MODEL OF A POET ORATORICAL
With apologies to the shade of Sir W. S. Gilbert
I am the very model of a poet oratorical.
Although I have no store of clever pictures metaphorical,
I know the presidents of the United States historical
And I can name them in an order that is quite rhetorical.
I am a civil engineer, but I can wax poetical
To some degree – I’ve written now and then, I think, a versicle
That, though it may not strictly be what some might call prosodical
At least, perhaps, it’s prose put down in documents methodical.
CHORUS: At least, perhaps, it’s prose put down in documents methodical -
At least, perhaps, it’s prose put down in documents methodical --
At least, perhaps, it’s prose put down in documents methodical.
I’m very good at writing town reports that are quite legible,
Unlike my fellow townsmen’s that are rather inaccessible.
They did not know my talents are in no way antithetical
To writing odes for Presidents in masks that are poetical.
CHORUS: In short, although he has no clever pictures metaphorical
He is the very model of a poet oratorical.
In matters of my gender I am gaily interchangeable
And not at all what Baptists might believe to be derangeable
Which counts in politics these days almost as much as ethnical,
But I have that as well because my genes are called “Hispanical.”
I’m middle-aged at forty—five, but I am adolescent-ish
In people’s minds because when I perform I’ll still be youngest-ish,
Compared with Robert Frost who was the first to read for Kennedy
A famous verse which he applied to Russia as a threnody.
CHORUS: That famous verse which was applied to Russia as a threnody.
That famous verse which was applied to Russia as a threnody.
That famous verse which was applied to Russia as a threnody.
Oh, I can write a parking ban in Babble-on cuneiform
And tell you every detail of a housing codex uniform.
In short, although I have no store of pictures metaphorical.
I am the very model of a poet oratorical.
CHORUS: In short, although he has no store of pictures metaphorical
He is the very model of a poet oratorical.
Athough I don’t know what is meant by "anapest" or "triolet"
I’m Puerto-Rican, born in Spain, I understand the word “Ole!”
And that, no doubt, is nothing short of something more than wonderful,
For I can tell the difference ‘twixt “chattels” and a lotta bull,
And I hope soon to learn what progress has been made in punnery
Though I suspect that nonesuch will be found in any nunnery;
In short, when I've a smattering of elemental poesy
I’m sure Obama will agree I’ve done him proud in poetry.
CHORUS: You’ll say he’s done Obama proud in what must pass as poetry!
You’ll say he’s done Obama proud in what must pass as poetry!
You’ll say he’s done Obama proud in what must pass as poetry!
In versifying practice, though I'm plucky and adventurous
I’m sure you’ll find there’s nothing found that’s rhyming or censorious,
But still, although I have no store of pictures metaphorical.
I am the very model of a poet oratorical.
CHORUS: But still, although he has no store of pictures metaphorical.
He is the very model of a poet oratorical.
Lewis Turco
He wrote:
Lew,
Not as much charm and wit as I remember in G&S and too much mocking of Blanco's heritage and homosexuality for my taste. Blanco did a stand up job, I thought. Just because he doesn't do poetry in meter and rime doesn't mean he couldn't if he chose to. You presume a lot (unless you know Blanco more than you're letting on.)
Jim
I replied,
I've looked his work up on-line and read as much as I care to; however, the point is that he was chosen, not as a poet primarily, but as a politically correct symbol because he is gay, Hispanic, and the son of a Cuban immigrant, all target demographics for the Obama administration. Natasha Trethewey is the official Poet Laureate of the US, and it ought to have been her job to deliver the Inaugural Poem, no?
As to your remarks about Blanko's metrical abilities: he has none that I can discover. I have always felt that an artist ought, at the very least, to be able to draw. Likewise, any poet ought at least to be able to hear the music of the language and to demonstrate it in verse. Ignorance is not bliss, Jim, it is simply ignorance.
Lew
January 21, 2013 in American History, Americana, Commentary, Criticism, History, Humor & Satire, Literature, Poems, Poetry, Politics | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: inauguration poet, poet laureate