Poets you should read

I was hoping to put this post off* until I got around to taking out a few volumes of James Emanuel's poetry from the Grad library here, but I am apparently too lazy to do that - even though I have classes in said library. Recently Cosmoetica did an interview with Mr. Emanuel, and it is a great interview. Not only are the questions better than what you will see elsewhere, but Emanuel's answers are great too. Some people do not interview well (perhaps part of the problem is the questions they are asked), but Emanuel's answers are enjoyable, even if you are not familiar with his work. I must admit to not being familiar with much of his work, save that which has appeared on Cosmoetica, but from what I can tell it is many cuts above the "poetry" that you will find in the New Yorker or the Paris Review. (Not a hard task, to be sure, but that's the highest compliment my brain can muster right now.) Here is a link to some of his poems.

The title of this post reads "poets" as I thought I might as well throw in a couple more that you may not have heard of. I first discovered Conrad Aiken a couple years ago, browsing through the poetry section at my local Borders. I noticed that the introduction was written by none other than Harold Bloom. And, while I am suspicious of some of his criticism, I nonetheless respect his aesthetic sense. Unfortunately the only poems by Aiken that are in print are the "Selected Poems," but I was able to find a copy of his "Preludes" at a used bookstore. Perhaps my favorite is the second Prelude, which reads:

II

Two coffees in the Español, the last
Bright drops of golden Barsac in a goblet,
Fig paste and candied nuts...Hardy is dead,
And James and Conrad dead, and Shakspere dead,
And old Moore ripens for an obscene grave,
And Yeats for an arid one; and I, and you-
What winding sheet for us, what boards and bricks,
What mummeries, candles, prayers, and pious frauds?
You shall be lapped in Syrian scarlet, woman,
And wear your pearls, and your bright bracelets, too,
Your agate ring, and round your neck shall hang
Your dark blue lapis with its specks of gold.
And I, beside you-ah! but will that be?
For there are dark streams in this dark world, lady,
Gulf Streams and Arctic currents of the soul;
And I may be, before our consummation
Beds us together, cheek by jowl, in earth,
Swept to another shore, where my white bones
Will lie unhonored, or defiled by gulls.

What dignity can death bestow on us,
Who kiss beneath a streetlamp, or hold hands
Half hidden in a taxi, or replete
With coffee, figs and Barsac make our way
To a dark bedroom in a wormworn house?
The aspidistra guards the door; we enter,
Per aspidistra-then-ad astra-is it?-
And lock ourselves securely in our gloom
And loose ourselves from terror...Here´s my hand,
The white scar on my thumb, and here's my mouth
To stop your murmur; speechless let us lie,
And think of Hardy, Shakspere, Yeats and James;
Comfort our panic hearts with magic names;
Stare at the ceiling, where the taxi lamps
Make ghosts of light; and see, beyond this bed,
That other bed in which we will not move;
And, whether joined or separate, will not love.

c. 2003 by Joan Aiken, Jane Aiken Hodge, and Joseph Killorin

You can find some more of his poems at (surprise) Cosmoetica, and also over at a blog dedicated solely to Aiken.

If James Emanuel and Conrad Aiken have suffered the indignity of being largely overlooked, the third poet I'll mention, Derek Walcott, is just the opposite. (He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1992.) I am suspicious of modern poets who have won accolades (Billy Collins, anyone?), but I rather like Walcott. Here's a poem of his:

Piano Practice
(for Mark Strand)

April, in another fortnight, metropolitan April.
A drizzle glazes the museum's entrance,
like their eyes when they leave you, equivocating spring!
The sun dries the avenue's pumice facade
delicately as a girl tamps tissue on her cheek;
the asphalt shines like a silk hat,
the fountains trot like percherons round the Met,
clip, clop, clip, clop in Belle Epoque Manhattan,
as gutters part their lips to the spring rain -
down avenues hazy as Impressionist cliches,
their gargoyle cornices,
their concrete flowers on chipped pediments,
their subway stops in Byzantine mosaic -
the soul sneezes and one tries to compile
the collage of a closing century,
the epistolary pathos, the old Laforguean ache.

Deserted plazas swept by gusts of remorse,
rain-polished cobbles where a curtained carriage
trotted around a corner of Europe for the last time,
as the canals folded like concertinas.
Now fever reddens the trouble spots of the globe,
rain drizzles on the white iron chairs in the gardens.
Today is Thursday, Vallejo is dying,
but come, girl, get your raincoat, let's look for life
in some cafe behind tear-streaked windows,
perhaps the fin de siecle isn't really finished,
maybe there's a piano playing it somewhere,
as the bulbs burn through the heart of the afternoon
in the season of tulips and the pale assassin.
I called the Muse, she pleaded a headache,
but maybe she was just shy at being seen
with someone who has only one climate,
so I passed the flowers in stone, the sylvan pediments,
alone. It wasn't I who shot the archduke,
I excuse myself of all crimes of that ilk,
muttering the subway's graffiti;
I could offer nothing but the predictable
pale head-scarf of the twilight's lurid silk.

Well, goodbye, then, I'm sorry I've never gone
to the great city that gave Vallejo fever.
Maybe the Seine outshines the East River,
maybe, but near the Metropolitan
a steel tenor pan
dazzlingly practices something from old Vienna,
the scales skittering like minnows across the sea.

c. 1986 by Derek Walcott

That's all for right now. You may have noticed I deleted the last post; I did so because I refuse to turn this blog into a personal one, and I also refuse to believe that you are interested in the particulars of my life. Even if you are, I'm not interested in telling them to you. (No offense.)




*I wanted to put it off because I am suspicious of people who are wont to recommend works of art that they have not read or watched. But based on the quality of the poems I have read, in addition to the interview (and Schneider's exuberant praise), I feel safe in telling you to read the interview, at least.