literary passport

a little visit to Dave Oliphant's "Woodville"

Woodville is a small town in East Texas. A small town where you might not think much happens. But life happens in Woodville, history happens in Woodville, reflection happens in Woodville. In fact, Woodville is the "alpha and omega of them all." All of what? All of the thirty poems about Texas towns and cities that Dave Oliphant brought together for his volume of memories. The memories in "Woodville" run in a group of unrhymed quatrains with a strong feel of iambic pentameter. There is no punctuation and no capitalization except for proper names. We are lost in thought. Thought that begins with the physical act of moving a china shelf from one side of the room to another, or at least the request that the china shelf be moved. For the wood in the shelf is East Texas yellow pine with concentric rings each holding its own history.

How many years? The poet begins with three, since that is when the shelf was found at a garage-sale. And with history we’re off to the races. Suddenly we are at the kitchen sink with the poet as he uses a knife to conduct the savage rhythms of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring playing on the radio. But this is more than personal history; this is mythic history writ large, for the music

     rips & tears into & through
all four seasons with their sun & rain
soaked by the rhythmic rise & fall
of that composer’s primitive strains

We are at the beginning and the end of everything. The virgin sacrifice, the call to the muse, the fertility of the poet’s knife as it rises and falls to the strains of Stravinsky’s earth-shattering invocation of death and rebirth.

paradise lost #15

As if (which might induce us to accord)
Man had not hellish foes anow besides,
That day and night for his destruction waite.

Well, that’s just not fair! After describing the fiery lake and the tortures the fallen angels are enduring, Milton turns and tells us that people should be more like these creatures.

paradise lost #14

The bold design
Pleas’d highly those infernal States, and joy
Sparkl’d in all thir eyes; with full assent
They vote

I’m always amazed at how close to a democracy Hell looks during the debate about whether to go to war or stay at home and mope.

the call of the apocalypse

On reading Days Between Stations
by Steve Erickson:

Lauren can call the cats in from the fields, but can she revive Adrien/ Michel’s lost past? He doesn’t stammer anymore, but he wears an eyepatch. Why did his siblings have to drown? Is there a reason that this is one of the very few things he recalls? The instant he woke in Paris with no recollection of the previous nine years, a nine-year-old child died in his sleep. Lauren never understood how Jules could fall asleep healthy one night and not wake up the next morning. Guilt, loss. Jason is in a bicycle race. He is beautiful. Lauren won’t leave Jason even though she has had sex with the stammering Michael nine years before Jules dies. Jason takes everything as his due. His Lovers. His wife. His beauty. His existence. Jean-Paul Marat was assassinated by Charlotte Corday while bathing after the French Revolution. Adolphe Sarre will make a film after being blinded in World War I and regaining his sight. The film will never be finished. A vision. There are sandstorms in Los Angeles. The lights have gone out and there is no power. Fog has enveloped Venice and cyclists disappear as they ride in the dried bed of the Grand Canal. Winter freezes so in Paris that people set houses aflame to warm themselves. Yet, there are the eyes in the jar. Explosions begin and the wall collapses leaving Lauren alone in the Kansas plains. There are the stars. They have new names. Names only one child knows. The walls have been built. Will the cats still gather?

The Traveler asks himself: if he lived out
a lifetime, pushing the distance away,
does he come back to the place where his
    grieving began:
squander his dose of identity again,
say his goodbyes again, and go?

         — Pablo Neruda

paradise lost #13

        we must exasperate
Th’ Almighty Vicor to spend all his rage,
And that must end us, that must be our cure,
To be no more

Belial has one heck of a plan, born of the deepest defeat and despair. He counsels the recently assembled demons to war against God and the heavens until the almighty is so enraged that He annihilates the very being of the immortal but fallen creatures. What actually is this absolute nothingness Belial is hoping for?

paradise lost #12

        and by what best way,
Whether of open Warr or covert guile,
We now debate; who can advise, may speak.

As we begin Book II, Satan and his minions are sitting in their ostentatious palace debating whether to attack heaven directly or wreak vengeance by other means. As Moloch rises to begin the discussion amidst the torture and flames, I would like to mention my three favorite critical books about Paradise Lost. While these authors might not be arguing the merits of attacking heaven, they do have differing points of view concerning the epic, which is always fun.

paradise lost #11

Behold a wonder! They but now who seemd
In bigness to surpass Earths Giant Sons
Now less then smallest Dwarfs, in narrow room
Throng numberless, like that Pigmean Race

Growing, shrinking and glorifying material wealth are the themes that wrap up Book One of Paradise Lost. These demons can’t just stand around on the blasted heath to plan their vengeance. They must build a vast palatial hall of gold where they can plot the downfall of mankind.

epistolary intrusions

From Friedrich Nietzsche's The Wanderer and His Shadow (261, Letter):

A letter is an unannounced visit; the mailman, the mediator of impolite incursions. One ought to have one hour in every eight days for receiving letters, and then take a bath.

Ain't no shower hot enough!
Ain't no shampoo strong enough!
What would Fred think about email, cell phones, and faxes?

paradise lost #10

        Peace is despaird,
For who can think Submission? Warr then, Warr
Open or understood must be resolv’d.

The New York Public Library has an exhibition on Milton that you can see if you rush (it closes June 14th) and if you can see the small room where it is tucked away. Not to poke fun, but the author of Paradise Lost gets less space in the library than it took to stretch out the scroll manuscript of On The Road.