Winter 2010
Volume 1
substantive poetry substantive poetry
+ +
Distance
art art
THE ISSUE D I S DISTANCE TA N C E 44 RUTH WARTMAN RUTH WARTMAN p 44 Cues from the Crows Cues from the Crows 50 PHILIP LARKIN PHILIP LARKIN p 50 England’s Other Poet Laureate England’s Other Poet Laureate D I S TA N C E Winter 2010
1
[Cover photograph] NINE BIRDS Taisha Shrine, Honshu, Japan
Michael Kenna English, b. 1953 2001
2
Substantive poetry + art
Before you love, Learn to run through snow Leaving no footprint. –A Turkish Proverb
SELECTED ART WHISPER I–V Gunda Förster 09 RAW SUNLIGHT BLUES Jon Schueler
12
WIND FROM THE SEA Andrew Wyeth 16 CHRISTINA’S WORLD Andrew Wyeth 17 SEED CORN Andrew Wyeth 19 COOLING SHED Andrew Wyeth 20 ALZHEIMER’S BRAIN SCAN J Neurol Neurosurg
23
WHITE WOVE POT Mary Rogers
24
LODGE Marie Watt
27
TWENTY-ONE FENCE POSTS Michael Kenna 28 RENDEZVOUS OF FRIENDS Max Ernst
31
STUDY FOR HOMAGE TO THE SQUARE, DISTANT
Josef Albers 33
INDIGENOUS FAMILY, GUATEMALA
Jacob Aue Sobol
34
PALE BLUE DOT Voyager I
37
EARTHRISE Apollo VIII
39
SMALL RED FIGURES WITH DOGS
Anasazi 42
FEATURED ARTIST
#A5 45
RUTH WARTMAN Cues from the Crows
#A23 46 #A58 47 #B11 48
EGO SKETCH 48 #C2 49 #C6 49 #C7 49 #C8 49
6
Substantive poetry + art
SELECTED POEMS THE QUIET WORLD Jeffrey McDaniel
08
POEMA XV Pablo Neruda
11
OUT OF THE ROLLING OCEAN THE CROWD
Walt Whitman
13
RIVERBANK BLUES Sterling A. Brown
14
A ROOM IN THE PAST Ted Kooser 18 MY GRANDMOTHER’S LOVE LETTERS Hart Crane 21 THE BEES Bruce Mackinnon
22
AMORETTI LXXV Edmund Spenser
25
WHEN YOU RETURN Teton Sioux 26 AT PARTING Anne Ridler 29 MEETING AT NIGHT Robert Browning
30
YESTERDAY HE STILL LOOKED IN MY EYES
32
Marina Tsvetaeva
DIFFERENT Clere Parsons 35 PALE BLUE DOT Carl Sagan 36 JOB 38 Author Unknown
FEATURED POET
PHILIP LARKIN High Windows
40
XXV 52 GOING 53 HERE 54 TALKING IN BED 55
D I S TA N C E Winter 2010
7
from The Forgiveness Parade
1998
United States
b. 1967
THE QUIET WORLD In an effort to get people to look into each other’s eyes more, and also to appease the mutes, the government has decided to allot each person exactly one hundred and sixty-seven words, per day. When the phone rings, I put it to my ear without saying hello. In the restaurant I point at chicken noodle soup. I am adjusting well to the new way. Late at night, I call my long distance lover,
by
Jeffrey McDaniel
proudly say I only used fifty-nine today. I saved the rest for you. Jeffrey McDaniel is the author of three books:
When she doesn’t respond,
Alibi School (Manic D, 1995), The Forgiveness
I know she’s used up all her words,
Parade (Manic D, 1998), and The Splinter Factory
so I slowly whisper I love you
(Manic D, 2002). His poems have appeared in nu-
thirty-two and a third times.
merous journals and anthologies, including Best
After that, we just sit on the line and listen to each other breathe. u
American Poetry 1994 and New (American) Poets. The recipient of an NEA Fellowship, a translated volume of his poems, Katastrophenkunde, is coming out this summer on Lautsprecherverlag in Germany. He lives in Brooklyn and teaches creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College.
8
Substantive poetry + art
1948
United States
1917– 2009
by
Pablo Neruda
D I S TA N C E Winter 2010
9
1999
Germany
b. 1973
WHISPER I 窶天 Gunda Fﾃｶrster C-print 23ﾂｽ" x 17ﾂｾ"
10
Substantive poetry + art
from Twenty Love Poems
1924
Chile
1904 – 1973
POEMA XV It pleases me when you grow silent, as though you were absent, and you hear me from afar, and my voice does not touch you. It seems that your eyes have flown from you and it seems that a kiss has closed your mouth. As everything is filled with my soul, you emerge from everything, filled with that soul. Dream butterfly, you resemble my soul and you resemble the word melancholy. It pleases me when you grow silent and are as if far away. As if moaning, butterfly lulled to sleep. And you hear me from afar, and my voice does not arrive: let me quiet myself with your silence.
by
Pablo Neruda
Let me speak with you also with your silence, clear as the lamplight, simple as a ring. You are like the night, quieted and clustered with stars.
Pablo Neruda was the pen name and, later,
Your silence is of the star, so faraway and simple.
legal name of the Chilean poet and politician
It pleases me when you grow silent, as though you were absent.
Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. He chose his
Distant and dolorous as though you were dead.
pen name after Czech poet Jan Neruda. Neruda
One word then, one smile is enough. And I am happy, happy that that is not so. u
was accomplished in a variety of styles, ranging from erotically- charged love poems like his collections Twenty Poems of Love and a Song of Despair, surrealist poems, historical epics, and overtly political manifestos. In 1971, Neruda won the Nobel Prize for Literature. He always wrote in green ink because it was “the color of hope.”
D I S TA N C E Winter 2010
11
1982
United States
1916 –1992
from Leaves of Grass
1867
United States
1819 –1892
RAW SUNLIGHT BLUES Jon Schueler Oil on canvas 60" x 50"
OUT OF THE ROLLING OCEAN THE CROWD Out of the rolling ocean the crowd came a drop gently to me,
by
Walt Whitman
Whispering, I love you, before long I die, I have travell’d a long way merely to look on you to touch you, For I could not die till I once look’d on you,
Walt Whitman was an American poet, essayist
For I fear’d I might afterward lose you.
and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and
Now we have met, we have look’d, we are safe,
realism, incorporating both views in his works.
Return in peace to the ocean my love,
Whitman is among the most influential poets in
I too am part of that ocean, my love,
the American canon, often called the father of
we are not so much separated,
Behold the great rondure, the cohesion of all, how perfect! But as for me, for you, the irresistible sea is to separate us,
free verse. His work was very controversial in its time, particularly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was often described as obscene for its overt sexuality.
As for an hour carrying us diverse,
yet cannot carry us diverse forever;
Be not impatient— a little space — know you I salute
the air, the ocean and the land,
Every day at sundown for your dear sake, my love. u
D I S TA N C E Winter 2010
13
from The Collected Poems of Sterling A. Brown
1980
United States
1901–1989
RIVERBANK BLUES A man git his feet set in a sticky mudbank, A man git dis yellow water in his blood, No need for hopin’, no need for doin’, Muddy streams keep him fixed for good. Little Muddy, Big Muddy, Moreau and Osage, Little Mary’s, Big Mary’s, Cedar Creek, Flood deir muddy water roundabout a man’s roots,
by
Sterling A. Brown
Keep him soaked and stranded and git him weak. Lazy sun shinin’ on a little cabin,
Born in Washington, D. C. into the family of an
Lazy moon glistenin’ over river trees;
eminent minister, Sterling Brown attended
Ole river whisperin’, lappin’ ‘gainst de long roots:
Williams College and Harvard, where he gave
“Plenty of rest and peace in these . . .” Big mules, black loam, apple and peach trees, But seems lak de river washes us down Past de rich farms, away from de fat lands, Dumps us in some ornery riverbank town.
14
Substantive poetry + art
early signs of his brilliance. Inspired by such American masters of the vernacular as Edgar Lee Masters and Carl Sandburg, Brown did extensive fieldwork in the ways of rural African Americans, then drew a vibrant portrait of their life by filling traditional poetic forms with idioms drawn from the blues and jazz.
Went down to the river, sot me down an’ listened, Heard de water talkin’ quiet, quiet lak an’ slow: “Ain’ no need fo’ hurry, take yo’ time, take yo’ time . . .” Heard it sayin’—“Baby, hyeahs de way life go . . .” Dat is what it tole me as I watched it slowly rollin’, But somp’n way inside me rared up an’ say, “Better be movin’ . . . better be travelin’ . . . Riverbank’ll git you ef you stay . . .” Towns are sinkin’ deeper, deeper in de riverbank, Takin’ on de ways of deir sulky Ole Man— Takin’ on his creepy ways, takin’ on his evil ways, “Bes’ git way, a long way . . . whiles you can. “Man got his sea too lak de Mississippi Ain’t got so long for a whole lot longer way, Man better move some, better not git rooted Muddy water fool you, ef you stay . . .” u
D I S TA N C E Winter 2010
15
1947
United States
1917– 2009
WIND FROM THE SEA Andrew Wyeth Tempera 19" x 28"
16
Substantive poetry + art
1948
United States
1917– 2009
CHRISTINA’S WORLD Andrew Wyeth Tempera on gessoed panel 32 ¼" x 47 ¾"
D I S TA N C E Winter 2010
17
from One World at a Time
1985
United States
b. 1939
A ROOM IN THE PAST It’s a kitchen. Its curtains fill with a morning light so bright you can’t see beyond its windows into the afternoon. A kitchen falling through time with its things in their places, the dishes jingling up in the cupboard, the bucket of drinking water rippled as if a truck had just gone past, but that truck
by
Ted Kooser
was thirty years. No one’s at home in this room. Its counter is wiped, and the dishrag hangs from its nail,
Ted Kooser is the author of ten collections of
a dry leaf. In housedresses of mist,
poetry, including Winter Morning Walks: One
blue aprons of rain, my grandmother
Hundred Postcards to Jim Harrison (2000),
moved through this life like a ghost, and when she had finished her years,
which won the 2001 Nebraska Book Award for poetry. Other honors include two NEA fellowships in poetry, a Pushcart Prize, the Stanley
she put them all back in their places
Kunitz Prize from Columbia, and a Merit Award
and wiped out the sink, turning her back
from the Nebraska Arts Council. In the fall of
on the rest of us, forever. u
2004, Kooser was appointed the Library of Congress’s thirteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry. He is a visiting professor in the English department of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. He lives on an acreage near the village of Garland, NE, with his wife Kathleen Rutledge.
18
Substantive poetry + art
1948
United States
1917– 2009
SEED CORN Andrew Wyeth Tempera 15 ½" x 22"
D I S TA N C E Winter 2010
19
1953
United States
COOLING SHED Andrew Wyeth Tempera 25" x 12½"
20
Substantive poetry + art
1917– 2009
from White Buildings
1926
United States
1899 –1932
MY GRANDMOTHER’S LOVE LETTERS There are no stars tonight But those of memory. Yet how much room for memory there is In the loose girdle of soft rain. There is even room enough For the letters of my mother’s mother, Elizabeth, That have been pressed so long Into a corner of the roof That they are brown and soft,
by
Hart Crane
And liable to melt as snow. Over the greatness of such space Steps must be gentle.
Born in Garrettsville, Ohio, Hart Crane left his unhappy home for New York before his last year
It is all hung by an invisible white hair.
of high school. He planned, against his father’s
It trembles as birch limbs webbing the air.
wishes, to pursue a career as a poet. Crane became part of the poetry scene in Greenwich Village
And I ask myself:
where he produced his most important work, the book-length poem “The Bridge.” At age 33, Crane
“Are your fingers long enough to play Old keys that are but echoes:
committed suicide by jumping from the deck of a steamship en route from Mexico to New York.
Is the silence strong enough To carry back the music to its source And back to you again As though to her?” Yet I would lead my grandmother by the hand Through much of what she would not understand; And so I stumble. And the rain continues on the roof With such a sound of gently pitying laughter. u
D I S TA N C E Winter 2010
21
from Poetry, February 2009
2009
United States
b. 1955
THE BEES One day the bees start wandering off, no one knows why. First one doesn’t come back, and then another and another, until those who are supposed to stay and guard the hive, those who are making the royal jelly and feeding it to the queen, those who form different parts of the great brain, must put down what it is they are doing and go off in search— having no choice, not if the hive is going to survive, and where do they go, each one vanishing, never to be seen again, off wandering in the wilderness, having forgotten how, forgotten what it was they were after, what it was that gave meaning, having known it at one time, now a veil drawn. Is it that each one is a cell, a brain cell, and now they’re failing one by one, plaque to Alzheimer’s, or the way the cells in the esophagus will begin to mimic the stomach if the acid is too intense, if you’re sleeping and the valve won’t close, a lifetime of eating and drinking the wrong things, those cells compensating, trying their best, but opening the door to those other cells, the wild ones, the ones that call those bees, out there,
by
Bruce Mackinnon
somewhere, lost, having nowhere to return at night, their search for nectar fruitful, their small saddlebags full,
Bruce Mackinnon’s Mystery Schools won the
but no one to go home to, no home, no memory of home,
Washington Writers’ Publishing House Prize in
it’s as if they’d stumbled into some alternate world,
Poetry for 2007. He teaches creative writing at
one looking like ours but just a glass width different,
George Washington University.
just a fraction of sunlight different, the patient waking up, finding herself wandering, someone leading her back to bed, but there is no bed. Confusion of the hive, they call it, and the hive dies, each bee goes down, each light goes out, one by one, blinking out all over town, seen from a great height as the night ages, darkens, as you’re parked in your car with your own true love, until it’s just you two and the stars, until it’s just you. u
22
Substantive poetry + art
2004
United States
jnnp.bmj.com
ALZHEIMER’S BRAIN SCAN from J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 2004; 75: 1– 4
D I S TA N C E Winter 2010
23
1975
Great Britain
b. 1929
WHITE WAVE POT Mary Rogers Unglazed porcelain h 3 ½" diam 4 ¾"
from Epithalamion
1595
England
1552–1599
AMORETTI LXXV One day I wrote her name upon the strand, But came the waves and washèd it away: Again I wrote it with a second hand, But came the tide and made my pains his prey. “Vain man,” said she, “that dost in vain assay A mortal thing so to immortalise; For I myself shall like to this decay, And eke my name be wipèd out likewise.” “Not so,” quod I, “let baser things devise To die in dust, but you shall live by fame; My verse your virtues rare shall eternise, And in the heavens write your glorious name: Where, when as Death shall all the world subdue, Our love shall live, and later life renew.” u
by
Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser was an English poet best known for “The Faerie Queene,” an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognized as one of the premier craftsmen of Modern English verse in its infancy, and one of the greatest poets in the English language.
D I S TA N C E Winter 2010
25
sung by Siya’ka
1595
United States
WHEN YOU RETURN You may
go on the warpath.
When
you return
I will marry you. u
by
Teton Sioux
The Lakota, also known as the Teton Sioux, are a Native American tribe. They are part of a confederation of seven related Sioux tribes. The Lakota are the western-most of the three Sioux-language groups, occupying lands in both North and South Dakota. Notable persons include Sitting Bull from the Hunkpapa band; and Crazy Horse from the Mnicoujou band, Red Cloud, Black Elk, Spotted Tail, Billy Mills, and Touch the Clouds from the Oglala band. Translated by Frances Densmore.
26
Substantive poetry + art
2005
United States
b. 1967
LODGE Marie Watt Woodcut lithograph 6" x 8"
D I S TA N C E Winter 2010
27
2004
England
b. 1953
TWENTY-ONE FENCE POSTS Shirogane, Hokkaido, Japan
Michael Kenna Photograph
28
Substantive poetry + art
from Penguin Book of Contemporary Verse
1950
England
1912– 2001
AT PARTING Since we through war awhile must part Sweetheart, and learn to lose Daily use Of all that satisfied our heart: Lay up those secrets and those powers Wherewith you pleased and cherished me these two years. by
Anne Ridler
Now we must draw, as plants would, On tubers stored in a better season, Our honey and heaven;
Anne Ridler was a British poet and Faber &
Only our love can store such food.
Faber editor, selecting the Little Book of Modern
Is this to make a god of absence?
Verse with T. S. Eliot (1941). Her Collected Poems
A new-born monster to steal our sustenance?
(Carcanet Press) were published in 1994. She
We cannot quite cast out lack and pain.
later in life that she earned official recognition,
Let him remain—what he may devour We can well spare:
turned to libretto work and verse plays; it was
receiving an OBE (Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) in 2000.
He never can tap this, the true vein. I have no words to tell you what you were, But when you are sad, think, Heaven could give no more. u
D I S TA N C E Winter 2010
29
from Bells and Pomegranates, Volume VII
1845
England
1812– 1889
RENDEZVOUS OF FRIENDS— THE FRIENDS BECOME FLOWERS Max Ernst Oil on canvas 51" x 63 ¾"
MEETING AT NIGHT by
Robert Browning
The grey sea and the long black land; And the yellow half-moon large and low; And the startled little waves that leap In fiery ringlets from their sleep, As I gain the cove with pushing prow, And quench its speed i’ the slushy sand. by
Robert Browning
Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach; Three fields to cross till a farm appears; A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
Robert Browning was born in Camberwell,
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
England, and his education mostly took place
And a voice less loud, through its joys and fears, Than the two hearts beating each to each! u
among his father’s 6,000-book library. As a writer, Browning was regarded as a failure for many years, living in the shadow of his wife Elizabeth Barrett Browning. However, late in life Browning’s brilliant use of dramatic monologue made him a literary icon. Today, his most widely read work is Men and Women, a collection of monologues dedicated to his wife.
30
Substantive poetry + art
1928
German / French
1891–1976
from Marina Tsvetaeva: Selected Poems
1920
Russia
1892–1941
YESTERDAY HE STILL LOOKED IN MY EYES Yesterday he still looked in my eyes, yet today his looks are bent aside. Yesterday he sat here until the birds began, but today, all those larks are ravens. by
Marina Tsvetaeva
Yesterday he lay at my feet. He even compared me with the Chinese empire! Then suddenly he let his hands fall open, and
Marina Tsvetaeva (also Marina Cvetaeva and
my life fell out like a rusty kopeck.
Marina Tsvetayeva) was born in Moscow, Russia. At 18, Tsvetaeva published her first collection of
I know everything, don’t argue with me!
poems, Evening Album. She wrote poems, verse
I can see now, I’m a lover no longer.
plays, and prose pieces; she is considered one of
And now I know wherever love holds power
the most renowned poets of 20th-century Rus-
Death approaches soon like a gardener. It is almost like shaking a tree, in time some ripe apple comes falling down. So for everything, for everything forgive me, —my love whatever it was I did to you. u
32
Substantive poetry + art
sia. Collections of Tsvetaeva’s poetry translated into English include Selected Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva, translated by Elaine Feinstein (1971, 1994). She is the subject of several biographies as well as the collected memoirs No Love Without Poetry (2009), by her daughter Ariadna Efron (1912–1975). Translated by Elaine Feinstein.
1964
German/American
1888 –1976
STUDY FOR HOMAGE TO THE SQUARE, DISTANT Josef Albers Oil on masonite 24" x 24"
D I S TA N C E Winter 2010
33
2005
Denmark
b. 1976
INDIGENOUS FAMILY, GUATEMALA Jacob Aue Sobol Photograph 30 ½" x 54"
34
Substantive poetry + art
from Poems
1928
India / England
1908 –1931
DIFFERENT Not to say what everyone else was saying not to believe what everyone else believed not to do what everybody did, then to refute what everyone else was saying then to disprove what everyone else believed then to deprecate what everybody did, was his way to come by understanding how everyone else was saying the same as he was saying believing what he believed and did what doing. u
by
Clere Parsons
Clere Parsons was an English poet, born in India. He was educated at Christ Church, University of Oxford, and edited the 1928 edition of Oxford Poetry. His only collection, Poems, was published after his death by Faber & Faber. Both the Oxford University Press Anthology of Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry, and Penguin Books' Poetry of the Thirties include selections from his work. His work was influenced by that of W. H. Auden and Laura Riding.
D I S TA N C E Winter 2010
35
from Pale Blue Dot
1994
United States
1934 –1996
PALE BLUE DOT Voyager I Image courtesy of NASA
PALE BLUE DOT The spacecraft was a long way from home. I thought it might be a good idea just after Saturn to have them take one last glance homeward. From Saturn, the earth would appear too small to make out any detail. Our planet would be just a point of light, a lonely pixel, hardly distinguishable from the many other points of light Voyager would see—nearby planets, far off suns. But precisely because of the obscurity of our world thus revealed, such a picture might be worth having. It had been well understood by the scientists and philosophers
by
Carl Sagan
of classical antiquity that the earth was a mere point in a vast encompassing cosmos, but no one had ever seen it as such. Here was our first chance, and perhaps also our
Carl Sagan was an American astronomer, astro-
last for decades to come.
physicist, author, cosmologist, and highly suc-
So here they are — a mosaic of squares laid down on
and other natural sciences. He published more
top of the planets in a background smattering of more distant stars. Because of the reflection of sunlight off
than 600 scientific papers and popular articles and was author, co-author, or editor of more than 20 books. In his works, he advocated
the spacecraft, the earth seems to be sitting in this beam
skeptical inquiry and the scientific method.
of light, as if there were some special significance to
He pioneered exobiology and promoted the
this small world. But it’s just an accident of geometry
Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI).
and optics. There are no signs of humans in this
Sagan became famous for his popular science
picture—not our reworking of the earth’s surface, not our machines, not our songs. From this distant vantage
36
cessful popularizer of astronomy, astrophysics
books and for the award-winning television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, which he narrated and co-wrote. Sagan read this excerpt
point, the earth might not seem of any particular
of Pale Blue Dot at a commencement speech
interest. But for us, it’s different.
seven months before his death.
Substantive poetry + art
1990
United States
D I S TA N C E Winter 2010
37
from Pale Blue Dot
1994
United States
1934 – 1996
EARTHRISE Apollo VIII Image courtesy of NASA
Consider again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the
That’s us. On it, everyone you love, everyone you know,
delusion that we have some privileged position in the
everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever
universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.
was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and
Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping
suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies,
cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there
and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager,
is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save
every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer
us from ourselves.
of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there—on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner—how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
38
Substantive poetry + art
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit—yes. Settle— not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot—the only home we’ve ever known. u
1968
United States
D I S TA N C E Winter 2010
39
from New International Version (NIV)
1973
JOB 38 The LORD Speaks Then the LORD spoke to Job out of the storm. He said:
1
“Who is this that obscures my plans
2
with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you,
3
and you shall answer me. “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
4
Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
5
Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone—
6
Author Unknown
while the morning stars sang together
7
and all the angels shouted for joy? Although most of the book consists of the words
“Who shut up the sea behind doors
8
of Job and his friends, Job himself was not the
when it burst forth from the womb,
author. The author was definitely an Israelite,
when I made the clouds its garment
9
and wrapped it in thick darkness, when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place,
10
when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;
11
here is where your proud waves halt’? “Have you ever given orders to the morning,
12
or shown the dawn its place, that it might take the earth by the edges
13
and shake the wicked out of it?
since he (not Job or his friends) frequently uses the Israelite covenant name for God (Yahweh; “the Lord”). While the author preserves much of the archaic and non-Israelite flavor in the language of Job and his friends, he also reveals his own style as a writer of wisdom literature. Footnotes 38:7 Hebrew: the sons of God 38:31 Septuagint; Hebrew: beauty 38:32 Or the morning star in its season 38:32 Or out Leo 38:33 Or their
The earth takes shape like clay under a seal;
14
its features stand out like those of a garment.
40
Substantive poetry + art
38:36 Wisdom about the flooding of the Nile 38:36 Understanding of when to crow
15
and make it sprout with grass?
and their upraised arm is broken.
The wicked are denied their light,
28
“Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea
16
or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been shown to you?
17
Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness? Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the
18
earth? Tell me, if you know all this. “What is the way to the abode of light?
19
And where does darkness reside? Can you take them to their places?
20
Do you know the paths to their dwellings? Surely you know, for you were already born!
21
You have lived so many years! “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow
22
or seen the storehouses of the hail, which I reserve for times of trouble,
23
for days of war and battle? What is the way to the place where the lightning
24
is dispersed, or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth? Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain,
Does the rain have a father?
Who fathers the drops of dew? From whose womb comes the ice?
29
Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens when the waters become hard as stone,
30
when the surface of the deep is frozen? “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades?
31
Can you loosen Orion’s belt? Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons
32
or lead out the Bear with its cubs? Do you know the laws of the heavens?
33
Can you set up God’s dominion over the earth? “Can you raise your voice to the clouds
34
and cover yourself with a flood of water? Do you send the lightning bolts on their way?
35
Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’? Who gives the ibis wisdom
36
or gives the rooster understanding? Who has the wisdom to count the clouds?
37
Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens when the dust becomes hard and the clods
38
of earth stick together?
25
and a path for the thunderstorm, to water a land where no one lives,
26
an uninhabited desert, to satisfy a desolate wasteland
27
“Do you hunt the prey for the lioness
39
and satisfy the hunger of the lions when they crouch in their dens or lie in wait in a thicket?
40
Who provides food for the raven when its young
41
cry out to God and wander about for lack of food? u
D I S TA N C E Winter 2010
41
SMALL RED FIGURES WITH DOGS Fremont or Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi) Mill Creek, south of Moab, Utah Pictograph Photographer: Susan S. Pierce
from ruthwartman.com
Featured Artist
RUTH WARTMAN Cues from the Crows Awareness is vigilance to detail and pattern — a selfmotivated attempt at evolution that makes me feel present and lets me know I’m still breathing. In painting, the body, or canvas, acts as a setting, but largely it is an archive of the accumulation of days. In all of this, my vehicle, my constant reminder of both my own mortality
The crows act as mental or psychological self-portraits, but they’re also my chosen messengers between the internal and external due to their perspective of flight. Furthermore I employ them for their menacing presence and grace. For their black and blue shine — like a bruise or a stormy sky, the sea.
and the past, is the human machine, the concrete fact of
On the surface, existence seems absurd, but when one
the matter. This brings with it a feeling of futility. Thus,
pays attention, clarity results. The individual is the
the only hope is in the chance to glimpse the ethereal—
starting point, the filter, but one has to find a way to be
to have faith in the invisible “might be.” Perhaps
subjectively objective—to see with disinterest, so as to
paradoxically, painting forces me to look calmly,
see with perfect depth. I sometimes have trouble seeing
both into and past the mirror, as I struggle to exist
through my eyes, so I have to get distance in order to
comfortably in my own skin by means of introspection.
look up and out, so that I can look in and be. I perch on high for the lucid view. I take my cues from the crows. u
44
Substantive poetry + art
2009
United States
b. 1985
#A5 Charcoal on paper 10" x 9"
D I S TA N C E Winter 2010
45
2009
United States
b. 1985
#A23 Charcoal on paper 10" x 9"
46
Substantive poetry + art
2009
United States
b. 1985
#A58 Charcoal on paper 10" x 9"
D I S TA N C E Winter 2010
47
2009
United States
b. 1985
#B11 Charcoal on paper 9 ½" x 11"
EGO SKETCH Charcoal on paper 20" x 12"
48
Substantive poetry + art
2009
United States
#C2 (top left)
#C6 (bottom left)
Charcoal on paper
Charcoal on paper
20" x 12"
20" x 12"
b. 1985
#C7 (top right)
#C8 (bottom right)
Charcoal on paper
Charcoal on paper
8 ½" x 9 ½"
8 ½" x 9 ½"
D I S TA N C E Winter 2010
49
from poetryfoundation.org / bio /philip-larkin
Featured Poet
PHILIP LARKIN
England’s Other Poet Laureate Philip Larkin, an eminent writer in postwar Great
experiences thrust upon common people in the modern
Britain, was commonly referred to as “England’s other
age. As Alan Brownjohn notes in Philip Larkin, the
Poet Laureate” until his death in 1985. Indeed, when
poet produced without fanfare “the most technically
the position of laureate became vacant in 1984, many
brilliant and resonantly beautiful, profoundly disturbing
poets and critics favored Larkin’s appointment, but the
yet appealing and approachable, body of verse of any
shy, provincial author preferred to avoid the limelight.
English poet in the last twenty-five years.”
An “artist of the first rank” in the words of Southern Review contributor John Press, Larkin achieved acclaim on the strength of an extremely small body of work— just over one hundred pages of poetry in four slender volumes that appeared at almost decade-long intervals. These collections, especially The Less Deceived, The Whitsun Weddings, and High Windows, present “a poetry from which even people who distrust poetry, most people, can take comfort and delight,” according to X. J. Kennedy in the New Criterion. Larkin employed the traditional tools of poetry—rhyme, stanza, and meter—to explore the often uncomfortable or terrifying
50
Substantive poetry + art
Despite his wide popularity, Larkin “shied from publicity, rarely consented to interviews or readings, cultivated his image as right-wing curmudgeon and grew depressed at his fame,” according to J. D. McClatchy in the New York Times Book Review. To support himself, he worked as a professional librarian for more than forty years, writing in his spare time. In that manner he authored two novels, Jill and A Girl in Winter, two collections of criticism, All What Jazz: A Record Diary 1961–1968 and Required Writing: Miscellaneous Pieces 1955–1982, and all of his verse. From his base in Hull,
Larkin composed poetry that both reflects the dreariness
as well as The North Ship, his first volume of poetry.
of postwar provincial England and voices “most
After working at several other university libraries,
articulately and poignantly the spiritual desolation of a
Larkin moved to Hull in 1955 and began a thirty-year
world in which men have shed the last rags of religious
association with the library at the University of Hull.
faith that once lent meaning and hope to human lives,”
He is still admired for his expansion and modernization
according to Press. McClatchy notes Larkin wrote “in
of that facility.
clipped, lucid stanzas, about the failures and remorse of age, about stunted lives and spoiled desires.” Critics feel that this localization of focus and the colloquial language used to describe settings and emotions endear Larkin to his readers.
Larkin stopped writing poetry shortly after his collection High Windows was published in 1974. Small though it is, Larkin’s body of work has “altered our awareness of poetry’s capacity to reflect the contemporary world,” according to London Magazine
Throughout his life, England was Larkin’s emotional
correspondent Roger Garfitt. A. N. Wilson draws
territory to an eccentric degree. The poet distrusted
a similar conclusion in the Spectator: “Perhaps the
travel abroad and professed ignorance of foreign
reason Larkin made such a great name from so small
literature, including most modern American poetry.
an oeuvre was that he so exactly caught the mood
He also tried to avoid the clichés of his own culture,
of so many of us. . . . Larkin found the perfect voice
such as the tendency to read portent into an artist’s
for expressing our worst fears.” That voice was
childhood. In his poetry and essays, Larkin remembered
“stubbornly indigenous,” according to Robert B. Shaw
his early years as “unspent” and “boring,” as he grew
in Poetry Nation. Larkin appealed primarily to the
up the son of a city treasurer in Coventry. Poor eyesight
British sensibility; he remained unencumbered by any
and stuttering plagued Larkin as a youth; he retreated
compunction to universalize his poems by adopting
into solitude, read widely, and began to write poetry
a less regional idiom. Perhaps as a consequence, his
as a nightly routine. In 1940 he enrolled at Oxford,
poetry sells remarkably well in Great Britain, his
where he studied English literature and cultivated the
readers come from all walks of life, and his untimely
friendship of those who shared his special interests,
cancer-related death in 1985 has not diminished his
including Kingsley Amis and John Wain. He graduated
popularity. Andrew Sullivan feels that Larkin “has
with first class honors in 1943, and, having to account
spoken to the English in a language they can readily
for himself with the wartime Ministry of Labor, he took
understand of the profound self-doubt that this century
a position as librarian in the small Shropshire town
has given them. He was, of all English poets, a laureate
of Wellington. While there he wrote both of his novels
too obvious to need official recognition.” u
D I S TA N C E Winter 2010
51
from The North Ship
1945
XXV Morning has spread again Through every street, And we are strange again; For should we meet How can I tell you that Last night you came Unbidden, in a dream? And how forget That we have worn down love good-humouredly, Talking in fits and starts As friends, as they will be Who have let passion die within their hearts. Now, watching the red east expand, I wonder love can have already set In dreams, when we’ve not met More times than I can number on one hand. u
52
Substantive poetry + art
England
1922 –1985
from The Less Deceived
1955
England
1922–1985
GOING There is an evening coming in Across the fields, one never seen before, That lights no lamps. Silken it seems at a distance, yet When it is drawn up over the knees and breast It brings no comfort. Where has the tree gone, that locked Earth to sky? What is under my hands, That I cannot feel? What loads my hand down? u
D I S TA N C E Winter 2010
53
from The Whitsun Weddings
1964
HERE Swerving east, from rich industrial shadows And traffic all night north; swerving through fields Too thin and thistled to be called meadows, And now and then a harsh-named halt, that shields Workmen at dawn; swerving to solitude Of skies and scarecrows, haystacks, hares and pheasants, And the widening river’s slow presence, The piled gold clouds, the shining gull-marked mud, Gathers to the surprise of a large town: Here domes and statues, spires and cranes cluster Beside grain-scattered streets, barge-crowded water, And residents from raw estates, brought down The dead straight miles by stealing flat-faced trolleys, Push through plate-glass swing doors to their desires — Cheap suits, red kitchen-ware, sharp shoes, iced lollies, Electric mixers, toasters, washers, driers — A cut-price crowd, urban yet simple, dwelling Where only salesmen and relations come Within a terminate and fishy-smelling Pastoral of ships up streets, the slave museum, Tattoo-shops, consulates, grim head-scarfed wives; And out beyond its mortgaged half-built edges Fast-shadowed wheat-fields, running high as hedges, Isolate villages, where removed lives Loneliness clarifies. Here silence stands Like heat. Here leaves unnoticed thicken, Hidden weeds flower, neglected waters quicken, Luminously-peopled air ascends; And past the poppies bluish neutral distance Ends the land suddenly beyond a beach Of shapes and shingle. Here is unfenced existence: Facing the sun, untalkative, out of reach. u
54
Substantive poetry + art
England
1922 –1985
from The Whitsun Weddings
1964
England
1922 –1985
TALKING IN BED Talking in bed ought to be easiest, Lying together there goes back so far, An emblem of two people being honest. Yet more and more time passes silently. Outside, the wind’s incomplete unrest Builds and disperses clouds in the sky, And dark towns heap up on the horizon. None of this cares for us. Nothing shows why At this unique distance from isolation It becomes still more difficult to find Words at once true and kind, Or not untrue and not unkind. u
D I S TA N C E Winter 2010
55
When we are in love, we love the grass, And the barns, and the lightpoles, And the small mainstreets abandoned all night. “Love Poem” – Robert Bly, 1977
D I S TA N C E Winter 2010
57
60
Substantive poetry + art