The Range of a Poet's Focus


Some poets' eyes are trained on their community, city, state, on their life experiences on a farm, in the northwoods or their respective family experiences, and, as such, those poets are often tagged as a poet of their city, state or region. While I probably secretly wish that I could hang a hook on one of the above, it appears that I simply cannot do so.

As I noted in the preface to my book, The Silent Tango of Dreams, a realization that I have developed over the course of my adult life is that there is no geographic place that I can boast of as my home. Rather, I have come to realize, much like the peripatetic writer, Pico Ayer, that I am really a person of the world, not of any one town, village, city or nation. I have learned that my home is in my heart where my love and the love of others toward me resides, and that, on the scale of things, is what is really important and dear to me. Given my what might be termed my nomadic existence as a child living in different parts of the United States, my subsequent foreign language studies, Peace Corps experiences in Chile, marriage to a woman from the Caribbean, and my numerous travels and stints living abroad, I cannot help but to have an international perspective and respect for other cultures.

I believe that my poems collectively represent, to a large extent, this condition of mine, one that I proudly embrace like a global nationhood in this often confusing though fascinating world of ours. The world has offered me what I regard as an international citizenship, one that my poems fondly embrace.


—Stephen Anderson

FEET OF CLAY

Charles Bukowski was a hero during the anti-establishment era of the 60’s; a time when boozing, drugs and abusive rhetoric were mythologized and sanctified. Anything or anyone against the status quo and the pursuit of wealth was despised. How society has changed!

    “Drink, write and fuck” defined life for Bukowski. He hated rules and regulations, was appalled by Disney and Mickey Mouse for not having souls. He claimed to dislike the human race and considered most people and talk, boring. Freud would have a field day!

   His poetic style was without metaphor, directly self-referral and autobiographical. But, the violence he reports must have been imagined since I suspect he never had the skill or courage or else was too drunk to punch anyone.

   He did have the jealous gall to rail against the “greats”. He preferred to see them suffer: “I like to read about Joyce blind and prowling……G. B. Shaw ….a bore”*

   Stephen Holden called him a “cantankerous misanthrope and professional low life”** who wanted to piss on his competitors. Donald Hall named him a “bogus proletarian”.

         playing it out    

 I keep trying these

 drunk poems

 sitting on this chair

 smoking too many…..

 not understanding anything

 and finally

 not wanting to.

   How shall I fit him into a category of drink and poetry? Is the answer to open a bottle of the cheapest Italian red wine and let it stand in my view as I read and compose?

*The Last Generation, C.B.

**Poetry Foundation Biography

QUINTESSENTIAL AMERICAN

 

   William Carlos Williams, a quintessential American poet of immigrant mixed nationality parents; born, resided, practiced medicine, and died in a small town in New Jersey.

   How shall we propose a toast to him and with which libation? What can we sip while reading his poetry? Which beverage would help us simplify the contradictory and complex workings of his mind and art?  He probably did not imbibe, but empathized and learned from those who did. With enormous unquenchable energy he delivered babies, practiced pediatrics, listened patiently and sympathetically to those he treated, and wrote prodigiously.

   In contrast to T.S.Eliot, love and imagination were the essence of life for him. He broke with Pound and Eliot insisting they abandoned America in favor of Europe’s old world culture and its morose view of the future.  All Williams’ works were derived from the observations of every day circumstances of the lives of common people.   “……blossoming, thriving, opening, reviving….”*,  were the tenets of  his positive philosophy of the future.

  Thus, we must find a potion, truly, wholly and simply American. Beer comes to mind, if brewed and bottled in New Jersey.  More apropos may be an American original Bourbon or pure backwoods American Moonshine, shockingly and wonderfully raw, but possibly lacking imagination and precision. Both might induce something vivid, Zen-like, providing “images not ideas”.  After a “few” we may grasp his early Cubist restructuring of reality.

   Join me in this plethora of offerings. WCW is worth the exploration.

                                          *In the American Grain, WCW.

Elliot O. Lipchik

Neruda

Pablo Neruda (nee Basoalto) is in my estimation, the greatest poet of the 20^th Century, who has intimate, deep relevance today. Student, teacher, editor, diplomat, politician, myth sayer, Nobelist, and most importantly, humanist.

A fiery poet of leftist politics and love, stirring both body and soul, rebellious against superficial manners and inane social customs which hide nature’s and man’s beauty and justice.

 I toast his myths, imagination and humor. I drink to his understanding of “love” and his language of every day life.

How shall I pair this word genius, this multi dimensional poet with a specific wine? Do I do him justice with the finest champagne, the most carefully constructed cognac, the most elegant and complex Chilean wine?  My words are stifled, drowned by the dramatic, sensual tsunami of his thoughts and talent.

       “I drink to the word, raising

        a word or a shining cup;

        in it I drink

       the pure wine of language……..

       ……cup and water and wine

       give rise to my song”

               from “The Word” by Neruda.

Elliot O. Lipchik

A Taste of T. S. Eliot

Since the ancient Greeks to the present time poems about wine are abundant. I shall follow a different path by pairing poets and their non-wine poems to a particular grape or wine or, perhaps a drink. Hopefully,

this will provide an added understanding of the poets and their work.

   Not all poems or wine are savory. Some may be bitter, spoiled, sulfurous, or exaggerated by pomposity or chemicals. Others may be simple or sweet, full bodied and complex, or subtly mature.

   My first example reflects on the character and philosophy of T. S. Eliot,

a Nobel prized, modernist poet with a love of cats, but with a serious flaw of deep anti-semitism. 

        “The rats are underneath the piles.

        The jew is underneath the lot” *

Thus, I suggest medicinally bitter herbal wine while reading his work.

Those concoctions may be potently emetic to some, but concurrently complex and perhaps intellectually stimulating.

 *Burbank With A Baedeker, Bleistein With A Cigar    

 Elliot O. Lipchik                              

Milk Metaphors

Both Robert Hass and Wislawa Szmborska and perhaps others have written meaningful, beautiful poems about Vermeer's milkmaid painting.

As long as the milk pours, there is a future and a hope for the world. The luminous pouring white reminds
one of a reading of poetry, a continuous chorus, an expectancy of life, a nourishment for the soul, a never ending negation of evil.
Art may represent a myriad of thoughts, ideas, creations, and creativity. It instructs us to listen and observe slowly and carefully.

to be continued...
(posted by Elliot O. Lipchik)

Book Release Event, Friday (March 9)

Everyone is invited to drop by Woodland Pattern Book Center (720 E. Locust) on Friday for the 'official' debut of Portals and Piers.  We'll be celebrating the book's release, reading poems, answering questions and generally having a good time.  Reading begins at 7pm.