Golden Anniversary

We've been jabbering about contemporary poetry for so long, it's about time for an example of somethin' real swell:

Golden Anniversary

by Wislawa Szymborska

They must have been different once,
fire and water, miles apart,
robbing and giving in desire,
that assault on one another's otherness.
Embracing, they appropriated and expropriated each other
for so long,
that only air was left within their arms,
transparent as if after lightning.

One day the answer came before the question.
Another night they g uessed their eyes' expression
by the type of silence in the dark.

Gender fades, mysteries molder,
distinctions meet in all-resemblance
just as all colors coincide in white.

Which of them is doubled and which missing?
Which one is smiling with two smiles?
Whose voice forms a two-part canon?
When both heads nod, which one agrees?
Whose gesture lifts the teaspoon to their lips?
Who's flayed the other one alive?
Which one lives and which has died
entangled in the lines of whose palm?

They gazed into each other's eyes and slowly twins emerged.
Familiarity breeds the most perfect of mothers--
it favors neither of the little darlings,
it scarcely can recall which one is which.

On this festive day, their golden anniversary,
a dove, seen identically, perched on the windowsill.

---

I first heard this poem on the front porch of the Donnybrook last spring, read by Daniel Spiotta (ah, I miss those Friday nights). Before I picked up his collection of Szymborska's poetry, it had been a long time since I had discovered an author who completely captured and delighted me. Is she an excellent poet, you ask? one of the greats? I don't know, honestly; I've only read her in translation. But even if she's not, who cares? Since when did we loose the joy of good books in favor of "great" ones?

I remember one evening, sitting in the lamplight outside the library, and talking about writing poetry with a talented friend. He said that he's content to write little sentimental poems and grow old enjoying flowers. I'm content to grow old enjoying little poems like Szymborska's with good friends.

Betsy and I together on the New York Subway.
(Courtesy of Maria Lams)

Jury's Out: Steve Gehrke is Brilliant

After a phone call to the disgruntled office of the Poetry Foundation, I finally got my July/August issue in the mail. I swear, the woman who runs the phones at that place has a beehive hairdo and butterfly glasses. She probably chainsmokes. She is not helpful at all (I've had to call a couple times), but I can deal with her if I think of her as being a poetic Marge Simpson or something.

Anyway, I'm not all the way through with it, being a slow reader, but let me put in a little plug for Poetry: if you don't subscribe, you should. It's a fantastic publication. It has something for everyone in almost every issue. Also the layout is fantastic, so even if you didn't think you liked modern poetry, the pure splendor of typface and expansive margins will spell love for you.

If you read nothing else, I'm going to put in my vote with Betsy and say that Steve Gehrke's "The New Self" is totally a must-read. It's phenomenal, and don't let its length put you off: the work's cadence and rhyme pulls you along the ripples in the spring rush of a river. You'll find yourself tapping your foot like a swimmer's strokes.

The poem's musicality--never overwhelming--belies its anguish. I won't tell you what it's about; that would spoil the fun, but this is introspection at it's best. (Speaking of introspection, have you read Wislawa Szymborska's "In Praise of Feeling Bad About Yourself"? I'll paste it at the end of this. Consider this a teaser to get you to read the whole post.) The poem is about guilt, or as my pal Jung might say (I've been reading a lot of him this summer) "being at variance with oneself." Introspection easily implodes into self-pity, and the brilliance of this poem is the way Gehrke unmasks the games of blame and self-victimization with which we try to absolve ourselves from responsibility for this strange other which is none other than us. "And it is funny, isn't it," he writes--and here the poem turns itself inside out and exposes itself, leading to its phenomenal second half,

the way that which starts as confession ends
     in blame, this constant search
for the marionettist of your brain, the ghost
     who stole the controls to your soul.

I read once that the key to a great poem is a great line, that most of the celebrated poems in history have that one razor sharp edge that cuts all the way to the end of brilliance into the sublime. Okay, so I'm not going to get carried away with myself--I'm trying, really--but I will say that this poem is stuffed with great lines which are both aweful in their insight and masterful in their language. He writes, "...the self / I am keeps evading the curses of the self / I meant to be...." Darn you, Steve Gehrke. Why couldn't I have written that? How dare you.

Betsy, I think the "jeweler's bluff" bit at the end is precisely about the ways in which Gehrke tries to use language--really excuses--to veil his own culpability, and the words reveal his bad faith. I have no idea what a "jeweler's bluff," is, though. I tried to Google it (a word, by the way, which somehow--again I say curse, you Steve--actually pulls off). No go. The internet failed me. Back to the point, Betsy, I think what he's doing here is basically what Tony Hoagland is saying in "There Is No Word" a few pages before: "how there are some holes [language] will not cover up; / how it will move, if not inside, then / around the circumference of almost anything", etc.

At any rate, I started to scan and try to get a handle on the rhym scheme (if there is a scheme) to delve deeper into analysis and whatnot, and then I realized I'm not in college any more and I just sat back and read the thing again. I humbly suggest you, dear reader, do the same. I don't think you'll regret it.

P.S. I know some of you are also subscribers to Poetry. Can we please get a conversation about this going? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

In Praise of Feeling Bad About Yourself

 by Wislawa Szymborska

The buzzard never says it is to blame.
The panther wouldn't know what scruples mean.
When the piranha strikes, it feels no shame.
If snakes had hands, they'd claim their hands were clean.
A jackal doesn't understand remorse.
Lions and lice don't waver in their course.
Why should they, when they know they're right?
Though hearts of killer whales may weigh a ton,
in every other way they're light.
On this third planet of the sun
among the signs of bestiality
a clear conscience is Number One.

Let's figure out if Steve Gehrke is brilliant

I'd never heard of this poet before, Steve Gehrke, but he has two things in the July/August issue of Poetry, and one of them, "The New Self", is kind of crazy. This piece has something to it that I'm not sure I've seen before -- this weird energy or movement or musicality, and a slippery darkness that's hard to explain but really vivid/visceral. You all should read it and tell me what you think. Serena, I especially want know what you think about the "this language is the jeweler's bluff" bit. And if anyone picks up any Prufrock/Eliot references besides in the sixth stanza, please let me know.

My Life in Books Right Now

Oh hey, this is the part of the blog where I list the books I'm reading and try to tread the fine line between pretentiousness and asininery (and hey, sometimes you fail in the first sentence -- lawl, as the kids say these days) without boring both of you to death. Let's see how it goes, shall we?

Anyways. Books. Here's what I'm reading:

-The Seven Storey Mountain -- I'm supposed to be reading this with friends from school and I so totally am, but I don't know where my copy is right this second, so that's all I have to say about that.

-The Power and the Glory -- I can't even explain how good this book is. I don't want to write about it because I'm worried I'll jinx it, but it's too good not to talk about. I read it as a senior in high school and was absolutely stunned, and I'm happy (but not surprised) to say it stands up to re-reading (unlike some other books I read in high school.) Greene writes beautiful sentences, his story gets under your skin, his characters -- from the half-caste to the pious woman in the prison to the atheist 13-year-old to the whisky priest himself -- throb right off the page, and he's heavy-handed enough that you can't escape what he's saying (like that hate is a failure of imagination, or that tiny sins can be deadlier than huge ones, or that you can't outrun the devastating speed of the mercy of God) but so artful you can't get it out of your head.

-1Q84 -- I'm kind of on the fence about this one, but I can't stop reading it because it's insanely immersive; I can't remember the last time I got this wrapped up in a story, so Murakami must be doing something right. It's in translation, so some of the sentences are kind of clunky (I might start a feature called Ugly Sentences in Murakami, time will tell), but I've almost missed my stop on the subway multiple times because I've been so lost in it. Reading it is, honestly, therapeutic -- it makes me completely forget I'm in New York, which is impressive. And it's probably even worth the shoulder problems I'm getting from carrying it everywhere.

-The Sportswriter -- I started reading this because I left 1Q84 at the office over the weekend and needed something to read and couldn't find Power and the Glory. I'd almost forgotten how good Richard Ford is, which is a scary thought. He takes the boring life of a middle-aged divorcee living in a made-up town in New Jersey and makes it the most absorbing thing you can think of. He's crazy. Plus anyone with a head as big as his has to pump out good stuff.

And I'm always kind of perusing St. Bernard of Clairveaux's sermons on the Song of Songs because they are beautiful and I love them.

You know, this is kind of frustrating. I feel like I'm great at explaining why I hate books, but as soon as I find one I like, I turn into some sort of cotton-mouthed fangirl. Whatever, make of it what you will. I'll be reading Greene until I die, and you should too.

What I'm Reading: Jhumpa Lahiri

I was hot, but not in a sexy way. I was tired, and also grumpy. I wanted a milkshake. Instead of luxuriating in the burger joint across the way, however, I found myself stomping up and down the aisle ways of The Strand. Poor mortal, I am, alas, but human, and in the great battle between appetite and intellect too often the gut wins.

The Strand: that great New York monument to cheap books, a reader's paradise, the book glutton's delight. And all I wanted was a chocolate milkshake.

Instead, I discovered Jhumpa Lahiri.

I had first heard of her while interning at Mars Hill Audio three summers ago, but her name languished in a dark file titled "Books to Read" which I never open on principle; the sheer number of titles and authors is more depressing than impressive and I'm afraid of being too intimidated to ever flip open a title page again.

But as I looked over copies of Aristotle's Ethics, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude (more on Marquez some other night), and dozens of other cheery covers stacked in intelligent little piles on the browsing tables, this book caught my eye:

In a fit of impulsiveness, I tossed it in my $1 red Strand totebag and marched up to the counter. 

I started reading it last night and I finished it today. Perhaps the highest praise I can give Lahiri's enchanting collection of stories is that it's the first book I've read in two sittings in a long time. 

Published in 1999, Interpreter of Maladies was Jhumpa Lahiri's first book and won her a Pulitzer. The back cover tells me that Lahiri "was born in 1967 in London, England and raised in Rhode Island." Most of her stories unravel the mundane and colorful difficulties of life as an Indian ex-pat, usually from a domestic point of view. While her prose style isn't exactly the brightest I've stumbled across, her characters and their little dilemmas are engrossing. It's a quick book; the plots are sparse and snappy, sometimes humorous, sometimes tragic, but always thought-provoking. 

I give Interpreter of Maladies 4 stars out of 5 as a great summer read. If you're looking for something to read on the subway or beach this July, check out Jhumpa Lahiri and tell me what you think.