Ecstatic Occasions, Expedient Forms 0025702416

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I1ARIN

COUNTY FREE LIBRARY

.ASSI

31111010058400 £R

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HOWAR

WILL BIDA

McCU

HAM WAL MOL

LEADING CONTEMPORARY POETS SELECT AND COMMENT ON THEIR POEMS 65

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RICH

ROB LO

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Expedient formS

WILB

HARR ANN LAUTERBACH CLAMPITT LEWIS TURCO BERNARD DEBORA CRECER LLOYD SCHWARTZ ALFRED CORN BRAD LEITHAUSER JO LEHMAN JONATHAN GALASSI MAX1NF COHEN PAUL HOOVER HOWARD MOS WILLIAM HATHAWAY A. R. AMNIONS GFRRIT H STALLWORTHY- DONALD BR1TTON RAC WILLIAM MATTH CHARLES WRIGHT BIDART RICHARD HECHT McCLATCHY ANTHONY HAMMOND MARY JO SALTER JOHN KO; R K) WALDROP DAVE MORICE JOHN HOLL

FULTON

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RICHARD STULL MARJORIE WELISH PAUl HIRSCH WILLIAM LOGAN JOH LETT! LOUIS SIMPSON MARIA FLOOK WILBUR MICHAEL MALINOWITZ DOU HYLL1 FULTON ANN LAUTF CLAMPITT LEWIS TURCO BEK MOLLY PEACOCK JOYCE CAROL MONA VAN DUYN ROBERT PINSKY TOM Dl LO UIS SIMPS* •

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w.'lS

EDITED

STAL BIDAR

HARLI

McCLA

HAMM( WALDROI

MAR) DAVE

BY

__^

DAVID LEHMAN LI

AN

RIE

U

•

>*M.^S

FPT

ECSTATIC OCCASIONS,

EXPEDIENT FORMS Contemporary American poetry

is

now

experiencing a golden renaissance, with

more extraordinarily

gifted poets here than

ever before, or presently country. David

Lehman,

has created

critic, editor,

casions, Expedient

dazzling banquet of the growing

in

poet, essayist,

Forms a unique and American poems for

number

how

content.

lively, instruc-

form in poetry.

of

Sixty-five notable poets

ing

His

of poetry lovers.

forum on the question

contribute a

Oc-

in Ecstatic

anthology also serves as a tive

any other

were invited

to

poem and a statement explain-

the poem's form relates to

The forms vary from modern

its

free

verse to such traditional formal structures as the sonnet, the sestina, and the villanelle.

The

poets'

comments range from

offhand remarks on the gist of a illuminating,

pithy,

poem

exegeses.

line-by-line

to

A

number of the poems in this collection have never been published before, and many of the poets

— including

Ammons, Ashbery,

Hacker, Hecht, Hollander, Howard, Merrill, Simpson, Updike, Van Duyn, and Wilbur have rarely, if ever,

Clampitt,

—

discussed their

The

result

own work.

is

a book that enriches our

appreciation of poetry by allowing us to

eavesdrop on our greatest contemporary poets "talking shop."

Many

of the contrib-

utors include winners of the Pulitzer prize, the Bollingen prize,

the National

Book

'Continued on back flap)

Copyright

1987 Macmillan Publishing Com>

I

Macmillan,

Inc.

ECSTATIC OCCASIONS, EXPEDIENT

FORMS 65 Leading Contemporary Poets Select and

Comment

on Their Poems

EDITED BY

David Lehman

MACMILLAN PUBLISHING COMPANY NEW YORK COLLIER MACMILLAN PUBLISH!

LONDON

Rs

Copyright

No

All rights reserved

mitted

in

©

1987 by David Lehman

book may be reproduced or

part of this

trans-

any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, includ-

ing photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission

in

writing from the Publisher

Company

Macmillan Publishing 866 Third Avenue,

New

York,

NY.

10022

Collier Macmillan Canada, Inc

Permissions and acknowledgments appear on pages

251-256

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ecstatic occasions, expedient forms 1.

American poetry

— 20th century

Lehman, David,

I

1948-

PS615E37

1987

86-33313

81l'.54'08

ISBN 0-02-570241-6

Macmillan books are available for sales promotions,

at special

discounts for bulk purchases

premiums, fund-raising, or educational use For

details,

contact

Special Sales Director

Macmillan Publishing

Company

866 Third Avenue

New 10

York,

NY

10022

987654321

Book design by Sarabande

Press

Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

Preface

xi

Ammons

A. R.

i

John Asbbery

3

Frank Bidart

Donald

6

i9

Britton

Lucie Broch-Broido

Jobn Cage

22 25

Maxine Cbernofj

Amy

28

30

Clampitt

Marc Coben

32

Alfred Corn

34

37

Douglas Crase Robert Creeley

Tom Discb

1

1

1

1

Maria Flook

46

Alice Fulton

49

Jonathan Galassi

Dana

Gioia

Dehora Greger

t

>

58 62

Marilyn Hachtl Rachel Hadas

7()

Miu Hammond

7

\

CONTENTS William

Hathaway

Anthony Hecht Gerrit

Daryl

Henry

Him

14

77 84

87

Edward Hirsch

89

John Hollander

93

Paul Hoover Richard Howard Colette Inez

98

100 104

Phyllis Janowitz

107

Lawrence Joseph

110

Richard Kenney

113

John Koethe

Ann

Lauterhach

117 119

David Lehman

ill

Brad Leithauser

125

William Logan

127

J.

D. McClatchy

130

Michael Malinowitz

Harry Mathews William Matthews

James Merrill Robert

Morgan

Dave Morice

Howard Moss Joyce Carol Oates

133

i36 138 i43

145 148 151 154

Molly Peacock

156

Robert Pinsky

i59

Mary

Jo Salter

161

Lloyd Schwartz

164

4

CONTENTS Louis Simpson

Jon Stallworthy

Richard

172

175

Stull

Lewis Turco

78

1

John Updike

1

82

Mona Van Duyn

f

Paul Violi

86

1

i

Rosm^n> Waldrop

196

Marjone Welish

198

Bernard Welt

200

Richard Wilbur

203

Gw/es Wright

206

John Yau

209

Stephen Yenser

Afterword

A

212 2

1

Bnej Glossary

Further Reading

225 24

Notes on Contributors

Acknowledgments

i

243 25

i

—

PREFACE

to come up with working definition Tryingtrying to measure the circumference of

of form

a

like

ter,

a deity

Pascal

tells us,

everywhere

is

to look for safety in tautologies

way, what

is

form,

what

is

that at

it

Howard Nemerov

answers,"

"For

In

both

all

one

cases,

when we

ask,

is

a little

whose centempted

is

our hopeless

in

holds poems together, echo

has written

appears that poems are

"It

held together by people's opinions of what holds poems together

Nemerov would counsel

us to "talk,

if

we

talk at

not about sonnets

all,

or villanelles and so forth, but about the working-out of whatever

hand

to be

or because

At

a

worked

—

time

it

out." This

makes eminent good where we

leaves us right back

when

"

is

in

sense, although

started

traditional poetic structures propose themselves as

options rather than exigencies,

when

the author of a sonnet sequence

may cavalierly break the rules or invent new ones as he goes along, when it is a commonplace argument that poems fashion their own requirements for the poet to apprehend only after the an

for

geance

enlightened practical criticism establishes

Wisdom

itself

with

a

ven-

dictates that the question of form be addressed with

reference to specific texts

who

then the need

fact,

And,

the absence of

in

all

other authority

better to talk about the formal dimensions of a

poem

than

its

author?

Out

of such thoughts

emerged

mentary by the poets themselves:

come by

a

a

a

anthology of poems and com

forum on form that has

form Each contributor was asked to provide

statement on the decisions that went into

in all their variety,

a

this

follow

As the volume's

its

editor,

a

I

wanted merely

I

sought

compelling context rather than lay the framework

debate,

be-

poem accompanied

making I

itself

t«»r

In-

t

results

establish

polemic

>\nd

to create an expedient occasion tor various

poets to ruminate variously about a

M

common

concern

Accordingly

in

— PREFACE

my

communication with the

initial

hand and

composition.

its

limited myself to raising,

I

such questions

as possible points of departure, at

poets,

What

as these

constraints,

if

upon yourself? Which formal choices preceded the which grew out of

you impose and

act of writing,

the case of a traditional or exotic form,

In

it?

poem

about the

any, did

a

given stanzaic pattern or metrical arrangement, what chiefly attracted

you

to

gem, or

tum

To what

it?

inspiration?

broadly

sense."

I

(as

that "the I

them

urged contributors to

license to disregard just

It

realized from the outset that the

work

as easily to

unsolvable quandary:

sum

muddy

"What

is

queries

if

What

pretext or preamble.

seems

they seemed

about themselves,

poets,

of the statements

what any

in

when

is

it

seemed

to me,

that at

pressed, have to say

inevitably

and

their assumptions,

it

their

comments

Given so diverse be

folly to

a

What

on

with customary

tell

us a great deal

their procedures.

How,

What

in

group of poets

From the

more than one contributor her

I

form

tone? Mightn't their statements prove

went beyond the

writers'

as that

spoken intentions?

assembled here,

it

would

practicing poet's point of view, form

insists

—

is

concomitant to composition.

This opinion of the matter was stated definitively by Marianne

&

a sub-

look for anything resembling consensus. Yet some conclu-

sions are inescapable. as

take?

holds

all

rife

wondered, would the poets elect to approach the subject?

revealing in ways that

received

I

our abstract and

case, constitute a useful

once so nebulous and yet so

at

associations would,

would

narrow

in a

about went without saying

as to clarify

form,

poems together?" The questions would, ject that

my

free to construe

poem) or

needn't exemplify a specific verse form."

reply might

finally

"feel

for organizing a

leading questions.

like

poem

I

momen-

of composition generate your

any strategy

also gave

uncomfortably

in

method

a distinctive

—and

'form'

extent did a principle of form, a technical strata-

Moore

poem "The Past Is the Present." "Ecstasy affords the occasion" Moore wrote, "and expediency determines the form." Form,

for poetry, in

other words, proceeds not from theory but from the pressures of

specific occasion.

Talking about their poems, most poets are empiri-

cannot surprise us to find one poet

cists,

and

lofty

pronouncements

it

a

in

after

another eschewing

favor of expedient explanations.

That

is

cer-

tainly the case in this book. In effect,

talking shop,

the reader will have the chance to eavesdrop on poets

working out "whatever

freely or grudgingly giving themselves

XII

is

in

hand

away

It

to

be worked out,"

adds an extra dimen-

PREFACE sion to our understanding of the individual poets to find

ing in a crisp,

way about

matter-of-fact

verse-making technique, while

A and

B lean back and take

risking an occasional aphorism,

view,

or a precedent

It's

significant,

one poet may choose

Holiday Inn dining room) while another

at a

to re

an idle

dwell on the

will

nature of his self-assigned task (to animate a photograph ol an

The outcome could be

bar in Milan).

looking

blackboard on which,

at a

and frequent

erasures,

poem

a

number

after a suitable

tentatively

Precisely because form

a

term,

it

emerges

Nor

that can best

A

of false starts is

it

an acci-

range of dis

a

so elusive a concept, so multilayered

is

seems perfectly emblematic of the poetic process

something that can be

few words are perhaps

No

reflects.

chosen instance

a

in

itsell

never rigidly denned, something

illustrated but

be grasped with

anthology

this

artists

described as sixty-five ways ol

dent that the question of form should trigger off such closures

their

longer

a

construct the actual circumstances of her poem's composition

meal

talk

gingerly invoking an influence

that

too,

X and V

the nuts and bolts of

in

mind

order on the methods of selection that

was made

effort

be comprehensive

to

I

followed no quota system, invoked no specific criterion other than the sense that the poets'

work be

somehow exemplary What it boils down

in this context.

nerve," Frank

with I

a knife

was

is

instinct

you

"If

you

just run,

Clearly, this

—and

maker of anthologies in

perusing the

omission of

a

list

On

everyone

I

I

'

it

up

as apposite

I

necessarily

the college admissions theory that you accept places I

for,

solicited material

I

hoped

to

end with

admired could be reached, and

asked chose to participate

Still,

I

from

Even so

not

course

not

of

can't help expressing

The poems dnd

luminating or usefully dissenting from one another

They

street

poet

as for the

satisfaction with the finished product

instruct

call

go on your

The remark seems

"

it

of contributors to this volume, you spot the

poets than the sixty-five

everyone whose work

judgment

don't turn around and shout, 'Give

more applicants than you have

many more

a

just

name, please don't assume that

favorite

snubbed him or her

nerve

was

"You

someone's chasing you down the

track star for Mineola Prep

a

for the If,

to

O'Hara wrote

would make

of a quality and kind that

statements

delight

as

my il

they

argue well for the healthy state of contemporary poetry Diivnl LchmMi

XII!

ECSTATIC OCCASIONS, EXPEDIENT

FORMS

AMMONS

A. R.

Out

Inside Among

/\

the

many

kinds of poetic form are those that realize chem

by motion) and those

selves in stasis (achieved

A m

their intelligibility through motion,

their shape,

Sonnets, villanelles are inventions like triangles (these eries)

and

do so

their use

in arbitrary

internal,

is

to cause "nature" to find

human

There

terms.

organic form and imposed,

occasions complement each other as

forms please us even cause they reassure us

when they that we can

is

nature (or energy)

danger

is

is

for a lack of native force,

tive

may be

prosody can

There

in a single

show how

it

can

beings,

splendid

But arbitrary

and impositional be

repress nature, our

may be

own

and

natures

a trifling threat

we

or

have devised systems I

he

boringly clever compensations

boxes to be

filled

with crushed material

taken to exhaust the unlimited existences inven-

and

figural forms,

are narratives shaping transactions to

may on

necessity

find to station the arbitrary in the

are gestural

di^ if

clearly, truly, abundantly released through

that arbitrary forms

boxes which

may be

the famous possibility that

are interposed

human

motion

as

form only

external form

achieve sufficient expression with no more than

can take delight that we, mere

its

that identity

I've

work

of art

too, internal assimilations that

chosen

the figure of winding can suggest

a

short

tin-

poem

of

mine

manifold accuraC)

brook or stream summarizes the meteorological action ol whole terrains, so that wherever there are hills aul\ valleys one \" by which

a

confidently look to find the winding ol this dragon ol assimilation

ECSTATIC OCCASIONS, EXPEDIENT FORMS

Serpent Country Rolled off

out

a side of

mountains or

bottomed

hills,

in flatland

but getting

away, winding,

be found a

will

bright snake

—brook,

stream, or river, or,

in sparest gatherings,

a

wash of stones or

a

green

streak of chaparral across sand.

The sions,

figures,

though,

in this

poem

and these progressions are the

real

form of the poem.

motion, the figure enlarges from brook to stream to figure disappears

green

in the

The form

till

of the

the only "stream" in the landscape

poem

of internal form.

It

is It

In

one

but then the is

a trace of

the motion from the indelible river to the is

a figure of disappearing.

allows to nature

full

faculties to

material, to derive

That

is

one kind

presence and action,

cludes nothing a priori and imposes nothing.

human

river,

brush where an underground stream once briefly moved.

nearly vanished green.

uses

by other progres-

are controlled

It

it

discovers within.

exIt

imagine means, analogies to simplify so much

from the broad sweep of action the accurate

and the ineluctable, suitable form of motion.

figure

—

JOHN ASHBERY

Variation on a Noel "when deep

the

and

snow lay round crisp

about,

and even ..."

A year away from the pigpen, and look at him A thirsty unit by an upending stream, Man doctors, God supplies the necessary medication were

If

elixir

A

thirsty unit

Ashamed

to

be found

the world's dolor, where

in

none

is

by an upending stream,

of the

moon,

of everything that hides too

little

of her

nakedness If

elixir

were to be found

the world's dolor, where

in

Our emancipation should be Ashamed

of the

moon,

is

none,

great and steady

of everything that hides too

little

ot her

nakedness,

The twilight prayers begin to emerge on a country Our emancipation should be great and steady As crossword puzzles done

in this

room,

The twilight prayers begin to emerge on Where no sea contends with the interest As crossword puzzles done I

see the

in this

room,

crossroads

this after-effect

a

countrv crossroads

of the cherry trees this after effect

whole thing written down

Where no

sea contends with the interest ol the cherry trees

Everything but love was abolished

It

staved

oil

I

stepchild

— ECSTATIC OCCASIONS, EXPEDIENT FORMS I

whole thing written down

see the

Whatever the partygoing public needs

Business, a lack of drama.

Everything but love was abolished.

The bent towers

of the

It

stayed on, a stepchild.

playroom advanced

to

something

like

openness,

Whatever the partygoing public needs

Business, a lack of drama.

To be

kind,

and

The bent towers

to forget, passing

of the

through the next doors.

playroom advanced

to

something

like

openness. But

you heard

if

and

it,

if

you

didn't

want

it

To be kind, and to forget, passing through the (For we believe him not exiled from the skies) But

you heard

if

Why For

do

we

I

Your own Because

you

call to

I

Agree

A

exiled from the skies.

after

all

this time?

to.

running for mayor, behaving outlandishly,

friends,

have known him cheaply) to,

say.

Let's leave that

to

remove

all

that concern, another exodus

form of ignorance, you might

Agree to remove

all

say.

Let's leave that

a blessing, taking us far.

that concern, another exodus.

year away from the pigpen, and look at him.

The mere whiteness was

Man

though.

have known him cheaply

The mere whiteness was

A

it,

this time?

form of ignorance, you might

And

want

?

running for mayor, behaving outlandishly

friends,

Spend what they care

A

all

didn't

.

wish to give only what the specialist can give,

I

Your own I

you

after

him not

Spend what they care

(And

if

.

wish to give only what the specialist can give,

I

do

you

call to

believe

Because

Why

I

and

it,

next doors .

doctors,

God

a blessing, taking us far.

supplies the necessary medication

though.

JOHN ASHBERY

first

came

across the

word pantoum

as the title of

one

ments of Ravel's "Trio," and then found the term

I

prosody

my book

I

Some

wrote Trees.

ever used the form

a

poem

in

a

The poem was

is

December its

ol

stricture,

1979

restraints

seem

to

have

a

paradoxically liberating effect

t

in

I

I

I

even greater

other hobbling forms such as the sestina or canzone tor

is

it

the only other time

written in

move

manual

called "Pantoum" in the early '50Sj

"Variation on a Noel"

attracted to the form in both cases because of

than

ol tin-

in

me

These at least

The form has the additional advantage of providing you with twit much poem for your effort, since every line has to be repeated twice

FRANK BIDART

Thinking Through Form am

boy

a

still

bed

lying on his

in

a

dark room every afternoon

after school.

I

am

I

listening to radio-dramas

Then

before dinner. try to force I

insist

on

me

to

go to

listening to

sleep.

"my

ironic,

—

Olivier's

one

until

They

after the other,

my

why

don't understand

friends.

"To be or not

men" on the soundtrack of

A

to be." Garland's

Star

MGM's

Much

I

months, and

later

Born.

The

poems

the works of art that as a Soliloquies.

we

Arias.

I've

feel

my

boy

I

imagined someday

its

us.

Forms

—read about

trails

for

I

denouement

we

in

would make!

—what-

discover what art can

are the language of desire

object.

brain always slightly short-circuits in front of this

word Like "freedom" or "Romanticism," and

sung

heard

written are next to the intensities,

crave to experience over and over as

I

arias

arias

Father-son dramatic agon. Symphonies

be. Love buries these ghost-forms within

before desire has found

—

again and again.

at last seen,

thin the actual

Kazan's East of Eden

the symphonic panoramas of ecstasy and conflict and

essary,

Is

I

Toscanini's Beethoven Ninth.

How

Julius Caesar.

The shape of these songs, soliloquies, times when was discovering what loved.

Callas.

thousands of

"Form"-.

after school

massive outraged fury of Brando's "Friends, Romans, country-

by Maria

ever

for hours,

mother and grandmother

programs'' on the radio instead of staying

my

outside and playing with Later

—

dinner

after

behind

it

a long,

it is full

of contradictions, nec-

bloody history of passionately held

FRANK BIDAR1 opportunities for mutual contempt and condescension

way

Is thru- some which we can escape habitual aSStimp

to think about "form" in

predilections, the hell of "opinions

tions,

Perhaps

the use or practice our ideas are meant to serve

What

they contradict, or try to enlarge

Most present-day theory seems

orists.

we can do

all

— and

the conceptions

poets say never

to

ask

is

most poets

satisfies the

remote

a

rival

universe

The

idea about form that has been most compelling and useful to

as a

poet

me

seemed

—

the idea that,

to describe

when

something

what

like

"

Coleridge's notion of "organic form etics of

embodiment The

discovered

I

work

the

is

artist

—

is

po

a

on Shakesp

"

but must not "copy" the subject

must imitate that which

and

active through form

on

think,

I

crucial texts are his lectures

artist "imitates,"

"The

of art

which

that

already had experienced

finally rests,

It

and wonderful essay "On Poesy or Art

For Coleridge, the

I

graduate school

in

it

within the thing

is

"

figure

ol

If

Shakespeare had

imitated merely the external "form or figure" of his characters, he would

have produced dead copies, figures Romeo and

human

for example,

Juliet,

doesn't talk the

"We know

being) talked:

that

way

real nurses

the true

(just as "that

"nature")

work

which

—and by

a

of is

its

period of each thing, this

is

active" in

it

its

is

if

"

in

the living world itself to us

\

in a

—

work

the

of art

to "mechanical regularity,"

ach

and so has each

self-exposition,

the disturbing forces of accident

thing

—

is

that

lives

embodying

"organic form

form that

is

its

being by

Coleridge

opp

imposed from without

determined:

a

in

the business of ideal art

shape

The form

that

in

within the thing" takes on form

took on form

it

moment of we remove

Such "self-exposition" finding

which

kind of self-manifesting, shows

thing that lives has

To do

"that

art,

in

or any

no Nurse talked exactly

way, tho' particular sentences might be to that purpose In

The Nurse

wax museum

a

in

is

mechanic when on any given material we

pre-determined form, not necessarily arising out

erties of the material,

as

whatever shape we wish

when it

to a

to retain

ganic form, on the other hand,

is

mass

of

of the-

it

prop

wet clay W

when hardened

innate

im;

shapes

as

I

it

Ik-

01

devel

pre

— ECSTATIC OCCASIONS, EXPEDIENT FORMS ops

from within, and the fullness of

itself

one and the same with the perfection of the

is

ditional forms like

"all

nations have

vention of metre and measured sounds" of poetry") His point

poem

that

is

that only by

is

reveal itself already

not attacking tra-

"the vehicle

is

imagine

can't

felt"

that "the in-

and involucrum

form can the subject

the appropriate

—the poem's formal means must embody the innate structure at least implicit

there,

The

properties of the material."

difference between the

work

the "the

in

and

of art

must never be obscured:

"nature"

there be likeness to nature without any check of difference,

If

the result ture, .

.

is

meter or formal stanzaic patterns. (He

poetry without meter, arguing that

form

is

such the form.

life,

By attacking "pre-determined form" Coleridge

of the

development

its

outward form Such

its

as .

is

disgusting.

waxwork

You

set out

.

.

figures of

.

Why

are such simulations of na-

men and women,

with a supposed reality and are disappointed

and disgusted with the deception, whilst

in respect to a

work

you begin with an acknowledged

total

and then every touch of nature gives you the

plea-

of genuine imitation, difference,

so disagreeable?

sure of an approximation to truth.

But to have "genuine imitation" (the phrase catches that reconciliation of the seemingly irreconcilable Coleridge so often insists

and

form:

is

necessary

the source or ground of form must always be

possible),

"The idea which

puts

form

the

together

cannot

beyond

itself

be

the form."

When

form

proceeds

from subject, "developing

what speaks, what the work "witnesses" that lives itself.

The

tion of the author: as

subject "witnesses

"Remember

that there

or the imprisonment of the thing,

and self-effected sphere of agency

—

the latter

the former

thing

without the interven-

a difference

is

—

from within,"

the at-last-manifested

is

itself," as if

proceeding, and shape as superinduced,

itself

is

is

its

between form

either the death

self-witnessing

"

Coleridge's language often implies that self-witnessing "organic form"

has an inner

shapes as art

has

its

it

life

of

its

develops

own

own, independent of the

itself

from within

" .

.

will of the artist:

Similarly, the

laws, the organic laws of a living body:

work

"it

of

FRANK BIDAR T Imagine not

The

am about

I

spirit of poetry,

cessity circumscribe itself

with beauty is

by

were

rules

order to reveal

in

"It

at

is

of necessity an organized one,

once end and means

must embody

order

in

a

itself

— and

but

what

whole so

art

all

a

It is

—

for Coleridge,

generous and enabling principle,

world," reality, what

is

—can

real

beyond words or

take on

this

the funda-

is

semi-opaque,

me

for

how

tor

In a typically

it

this

pregnant

he meditates the

and the power

of law

ol

original, of creation:

indeed

is

there any danger of this

can

be lawless

—

Coleridge

in

power

of true genius dare

nius

the

extremely eloquent passage,

No work it,

medium

the art

mystery of the relations between the

something

poem

lite

role in or control over

artist's

ol a

says that

it

an

single formula or paradigm,

its

tor

its

There

no

each

ol

art

is

01

appropriate form and reveal

can get into

happens, the

is

thai

mental process, the great principle lying beneath the making

and

nc

ol

1

reveal itself"

to

I

must

only to unite poM

it

ganization, but the connection of parts to part

to rules

other living powers

must embody

It

body

living

oppose genius

to

like all

the

power

For

1

is

it

want

even

its

appropriate form, neither

As

it

must

so neither

not,

this that constitutes it[s] ge-

of acting creatively under laws of

own

its

ori^

ination

How a

does

"organic form"

poem? The

organic form

is

in a

I

most poems

"subject" of

character

as the

bear on what

drama

embedded

—

experience is

when

in his lectures

or nameahle

not as defined

so the fact that Coleridge

trv to write

I

discussion of

s

on Shakespeare

plays leaves

s

a great deal unexplored, unsaid In /

what sense

know

to write a it

is

I'll

when

that

The form first

read a poem in

end of

I

of the

of an

want

the sensation that

write,

relation

I

have to

/(

at least

is

I

its

m

sub

only able

the illusion that

mv poem

to

tin-

\\\\d

this essay)

poem

consciously taken

made up

what

I

to explore this in

(printed at the

at

I

poem when, try

of

the form of a lyric the "self-witnessing

is

opening

— though in

idiosyncratic

^d

undoubted!)

by the reader— is perfectly regular

o( six lines

two middle sections

,.t

It

is

twelve lines

ECSTATIC OCCASIONS, EXPEDIENT FORMS each, and a closing section that

the end

comes

kind of "refrain"

a

—

Aside from these "refrain" is

in

made up

the same length as the opening

is

two middle sections there

of the

it is

the same as the

opening section

"refrain" line

throughout the

(same

of the opening

the

poem

structure,

this.

middle section (about The

first

At

which be-

line,

and one-line stanzas The

(6 lines in 4 stanzas

line stanzas

last line

set off as separate stanzas,

lines,

of alternating two-line

other words, looks like

an extra

is

—

alternating 2-line

as last line of

—

1-

poem)

rest of the

Gorilla

and

12 lines in 8 stanzas)

opening section)

second middle section (about the "y° u " addressed by the poem 12 lines in 8 stanzas) "refrain" line

closing section (6 lines in 4 stanzas)

This I

the stanzaic structure of the poem.

is

didn't,

begin by deciding to

of course,

and seemingly arbitrary I've

a structure.

The

first

unrhymed lines

The

I

couplets.

)

love

I've

known

—

How

wrote were the

out so idiosyncratic

(The other formal stanzaic patterns

used have been either traditional

simple, like

fill

a sonnet,

did

last

it

a villanelle

—or very

happen?

three of the poem:

the love of

is

two people staring

not

At

first

I

not

each other, but

wrote them

didn't look the

The

at

way

love at

I

I've

as

two

in

lines

the same direction

They looked

terrible

lousy.

They

heard them:

known

is

each other, but

the love of two people staring in

the same direction

Nothing of the dynamic within the idea

is

present

in

how

this looks

on the page

So

I

tried setting

it

up

in

three lines, with a stanza break after the

10

FRANK BIDART

I've

—

as

it

now

known

is

the

second

cause

—which

stanza ("two people staring")

stanza break, the sentence

an expectation

same

—

had something balanced

I

is

not "balanced" but points

is

After the gap,

completed by

The

the

outsidt

the slight pause ol the

which

a line

reestablishes "balance" ("not

direction").

["he loot

followed by something linked to it— be

love of"),

the same stanza

in

Now

stands

— by denying

each other, but

at

denial of an expectation

becomes

the

in

means

the

understanding the nature of the thing (love) that caused

ol

the

pectation.

To my This

eyes, set

in three lines this action

didn't, of course,

sense that turns out

was quoting

I

I

quoted

as

Rudy

in

lines

who

wasn't sure

had the

I

— Augustine?

It

Kikel's "Local Vi-

was quoting Saint-Exupery

turns out,

it

present

is

make them good

necessarily

somebody, but

was quoting Auden,

I

Auden,

sions."

up

(Was

quot-

be

ing Augustine?) felt

1

the lines should end the poem, but they looked hardly more

When

than a moralism, or homily.

were accompanied by

the words

very strong affect

a

—

came

Loss

But

The poem

the

came before them, would have

still-unwritten lines that

head, they

bleakness, misery

themselves, on the page, they were curiously blank

in

my

into

to

them

fill

across

which

(during an extremely long tracking shot) one reads the most

oppositt

a

like

little

Garbo's face

(Her

emotions.

misery, bleakness

seem

irrelevant,

I

I

)

The

wanted the

fact that

wanted them

given of the culture, of our across

and on

the end of Queen

which we read very

I

life

lines to

her to

told

seem

—

just

(in their

lines

"eloquence")

boulder

like a

there,

different emotions

think ol

be denser than simply

was probably quoting the

to

depending on what we

air,

Christina,

Rouben Mamoulian,

director,

or a banana

nothing,

at

a

A

didn

kind

t

ol

boulder

depending on the

light

when we come

are already feeling

it

So the poem had love, It

and

still

at least four

be written The poem

people

I

was close

has seemed again and again

of greatest connection of later connection

had had

if

—

—

in

my

to

experience that the moments

moments of intimacy happened when one ol us are always

only secret from our daylight selves

same

were the ground

that foi

whatevei reason

into the nearly intolerable things that

changed These things

staring at "in the

imagined was about

I

who were dc^l

the

to look straight down,

couldn't be

even

to

direction",

I

this

i

m some

way

SCCTCtS

His was what

was what

I

knew had

we to

-•

b

—

—

—

ECSTATIC OCCASIONS, EXPEDIENT FORMS down on

For a long time

know what

do

to

I

Like the

had had banging around

NIGHT

a

is

lines,

final

was associated

it

ments

still

at least) in fact line,

language

common

I

mysticism

in

the

this night:

want

didn't

—

my mind

in

I

.

.

.

of this line

movement

this

(for

mo-

the night, like

inside

seemed

inside

to "rationalize" the line in the

associated with

alone,

with a great deal

have been describing, the

I

the night

is

it

repetition, in different contexts,

things

didn't

through the kind of violation of

this

The movement

apprehension of

I

alive there

embodies

for me,

but unlike night

a line

and the sense that both of us were

yearning to return to

The

head

NIGHT

within the

with that intimacy, that "staring"

in part,

my

in

which looked so emotionally "blank"

entirely "unexplicit" line

by

as the reader read the final lines.

with:

There

out.

poem

the reader of the

a

kind of ecstatic

which

poem

is

—

I

an opening

hoped

would accrue the density

it

that

of the

it.

the movement have described couldn't be The whole texture of the poem the movement of the poem throughout had to embody at least variations on this movement inside that is an opening out Or, conversely, a breaking out that is also somehow a completion.

For this to happen,

isolated in

one

I

—

line.

—

After

wrote a version of the three

I

final three,

I

saw that

a pattern

seemed

one-line stanzas. This

immediately preceding the

lines

was possible

to catch the

—

alternating two-line

motion of something partly

"balanced," enclosed yet also partly "unstable"

thing breaks that, in freeing pletes"

what came

before.

followed by one-line as

Then

I

I

motion

wrote the opening of the poem, which has

repetition

existed.

out of which some-

some degree balances and "com-

a "unit" of this

I

across lines ("see each other again,

"It

—

began to think of each group of two-lines

"balancing" in the lines ("What

The

to

itself,

It

and

(when

hope

—

/

and

.

I

hope)"),

a great deal of

and repetition

again reach the VEIN").

and balancing partly betray uncertainty, over-assertion: existed."

The

first

single line of the

"breaks out" of the opening couplet

(".

but the second single line does this

There

is

a

NIGHT

.

.

to a degree,

and again reach the VEIN"),

much more:

within the

12

poem,

NIGHT

FRANK BIDART The

section that follows

is

an elaborated parallel to the experience

with the "you" addressed by the poem, reader should finally see

comic

came out

It

parallel

its

is

of The Gorilla, a

starring the Ritz Brothers

unmask,

is

The

depends,

where the

"outer" house

because,

house

"inner"

—on which

The

who

mansion

a

The

d Both

Mid-

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS for the National Book Critics Circle Award. She has held a Guggenheim Fellowship and in 1984 was named the forty-eighth Fellow of the Academy of American Poets.

nominated

MARC Cohen's and in

a four-part

New

York

poems have appeared

anthology

and

Crowd, The Various Light,

DOUGLAS CRASE ROBERT CREELEY

He

Gardens (1986).

where he

(stories),

and The

of verse include

lives

Award

year

latest

book

of verse

Gray Professor

of Poetry

This (poems),

Toaster (a children's book),

Little

the

He

i945-i975

Collected Poems,

His

later.

the David

A

Midst oj

the

re-

for poetry in 1985.

DlSCH's books include Burn The Brave

Call in

teaches at the State University of

is

Businessman-.

A

Notes Jrom a Child of Paradise.

published his

his Collected Prose a

TOM

He

Black and White.

the author of The Revisionist (1981).

is

ceived a Whiting Writer's

Buffalo,

to

City.

ALFRED Corn's books

and

jn Partisan Review, Shenandoah,

titled The Return

New and

Memory

York

at

Letters.

Getting into

Camp

1983

in

is

Death

Concentration

Tale of Terror (novels). Electronic Arts

is

bringing

out his computer-interactive novel Amnesia.

MARIA FLOOK been

a

Fellow of the Fine Arts

and now teaches

rina,

won

Work

Center

in

Provincetown, Mass.,

University of North Carolina, Asheville.

at the

ALICE FULTON's

She has

the author of Reckless Wedding (1982).

is

book

first

of poems, Dance Script with

the 1982 Associated Writing Programs Award.

Electric Balle-

Her second

book, Palladium, was a selection of the 1985 National Poetry Series.

She recently completed Society of Fellows

a three-year stint as a Fellow of the

Ann

in

JONATHAN GALASSI

Michigan

Arbor. the poetry editor of The Paris Review.

He

has published two volumes of translations of Eugenio Montale:

The

Second

Life of Art-. Selected

Dana GlOIA

is

is

Essays

and

businessman

a

Otherwise: Last and First Poems. in

New

poems, Daily Horoscope, was published

Weldon Kees. DEBORA GREGER is the author

in

York. His

first

collection of

1986. Gioia has also edited

the short stories of

able Islands

of

two collections of poetry, Mov-

(1980) and And (1985). She has lived

in

England

as

an

Amy

Lowell Poetry Traveling Scholar.

MARILYN Hacker i3th

Moon. Her

book

latest

narrative in sonnets.

National Book

Award

RACHEL HADAS

the editor of the feminist literary magazine

is

is

Love,

An

earlier

in

poetry

Death and

volume, in

the

Changing of

Presentation Piece,

the Seasons, a

received the

1975

teaches English at the

244

Newark campus

of Rutgers

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS University.

and

She

Seferis.

A new

the author of Slow Transparency,

is

Form, Cycle,

Landscape

Infinity:

Mac Hammond

(1982) and

Sleep

forthcoming

is

member

a

is

& Fowl

Fish, Flesh

of the faculty of

and recently held the post of Consultant

brary of Congress. The Hard Hours

SUNY

at

won

Obblicjati:

Essays

in

in

I

Poetry to the

Li

the Pulitzer Prize for poetry

in

(poems) and

Vespers

Criticism.

GERRIT HENRY News and

198

Georgetown Uni-

in

Hecht's most recent books are The Venetian

Art

Q

Robert host and

oj

Son from

the author of four hooks ol poetry,

is

Inertia

Anthony Hecht

1968

poems

l

heads the creative writing program

William Hathaway eluding The Gymnast of

ica,

Poetry

A

titled

hook

a

His books include The Horse Opera and Cold Turkey

Buffalo.

versity,

in

poems

collection of

the

is

Arts.

an art

critic

who

writes regularly for Art

His poems have appeared

Amer-

in

and American

in Poetry

Poetry Review.

DARYL HlNE was riod ending in 1978.

lowed,

a

year

Theocritus

later,

the editor of Poetry magazine for a ten-year pe-

His

by

Selected

At present he

is

Poems appeared

1981 and was

in

translation of the Idylls and Epigrams

his

teaching

fol-

of

Northwestern University and

at

translating Ovid's Heroides into English.

EDWARD HlRSCH walkers

has published two books of poems, For

(1981) and Wild Gratitude

including a

the Sleep-

(1986), and received numerous awards

Guggenheim Fellowship He

teaches at the University of

Houston.

John Hollander's

latest

book

of poetry

1982

jointly

Time and Pine

i

Guide

English Verse

to

awarded the Bollingen

Powers

He and

Prize in poetry in

Hollander teaches at Yale

Paul Hoover Somebody Talks a in

A

(poems), and Rhyme's Reason:

Anthony Hecht were

In

Figure of Echo (criticism),

Other recent publications include The of Thirteen

is

Lot,

is

the author of

and

Letter to Einstein

Nervous Songs.

He

teaches

Beginning Deal Albert. at

C

olumbia

C

ollegc

Chicago

Richard Untitled Subjects

Howard

was awarded the Pulitzer Prize

(1969) and the American Book Award tor

of Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal (1982)

poetry

in

his translation

Alone With America, his landmark

book on contemporary American poetry, was reissued in an edition in 1980 Howard's ninth book ol poems is No Travtia

COLETII INEZ She

is

teaches poetry workshops

the author of Eight Minutes from

Names (1977)

She received

a

tot

the

Sun

.it

C

1983

r

The

New

Rcpuhlu

New RepMi And

in the- Fall

Wmte-i 1983

Novcm

1 I

)

the-

issue

authoi oi Epo.h

Reprinted by permission of the poet Alfred

Corn

by Alfred Corn

"Infinity Effect at the