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William Cullen Bryant

I have recently been reading the first volume of the Library of America’s American Poetry The Nineteenth Century. It is the first time in many years (since high school?) since I have read William Cullen Bryant’s “Thanatopsis” and “To a Waterfowl.” I can say that my opinion of his verse remains unchanged: Boring. I will continue to work through the work selected here, but I find it of so little interest that it may take me some time. Why do I dislike his work so much? It may be a combination of my teacher in high school insisting on a prolonged and detailed analysis of the the poems (and note, I did not really come to poetry until my freshman year in college, so I found little use for poetry in high school – even then, I disliked Bryant’s work more than others). My dislike certainly is not related to the quality of his work that I can see (other selections of a variety of epic poems in the same volume will attest to that), though it must touch on the quality as it seems to me in some way.

My only answer at this time is that I find his work too derivative of Wordsworth and English poetry. Not that John Neal and Richard Henry Wilde are not also derivative (both attempting epic poems), but somehow they are different, searching for an American voice even while failing. Bryant never seems to leave the realm of Europe, specifically the Lake Poets. I prefer my Wordsworth as Wordsworth.

Perhaps some of the lesser known poems to me will strike a greater resonance, for “Thanatopsis” and “To a Waterfowl” were youthful poems. Perhaps something later will strike well with me. Perhaps…

Talk Radio

Yesterday, my wife and I returned from a trip to New York City. Of course, there is so much to do there, so much to see, so much to enjoy, but one particularly strong feature of NYC is it’s theater. On Friday night (June 22nd), we attended a performance of Eric Bogosian’s Talk Radio, starring Liev Schreiber. Unfortunately for those of you who have not had a chance to see it, its run ended on Sunday, June 24th.

I say “unfortunately” because this was a performance for which the reviews have said it: Mesmerizing, outstanding, etc. Schreiber’s performance is so good that you believe shock jock Barry Champlain is before you, in the flesh, alcoholic, radical. I have never seen a performance by an actor that fully lives the character. From the moment he enters to the moment he leaves, Schreiber owns that stage and convinces you you are peering in on a world.

One of the play’s conceits is that you are the audience listening to the radio show. You are simply provided a look into the world we normally do not get. This is emphasized by the opening of the play: A dark stage and channel-surfing of the radio. It is also emphasized more emphatically and meaningfully in Champlain’s last monologue:

“AND YOU HAVE NOTHING TO SAY. NOTHING TO TALK ABOUT…What do you want to talk about? Baseball scores? Your pets? Orgasms? You’re pathetic. I despise each and every one of you…The only thing you believe in, is me. What are you, if you don’t have me?”

It is hard to describe how well Schreiber delivered these lines. When he said them, you felt as if he were talking to YOU.

The play is much more than that, however. It is a tragic tale of a man’s addiction to rebellion, to shocking, to pushing every one and every thing to its breaking point. Champlain has no regard for any person but himself. But Champlain is a contradiction. He spits on those he knows he needs: sponsors, callers, friends, lover. No one is safe from his anger. He, it seems to me, wants to break every rule because the rule is there. He wants to destroy everything meaningful in life – at least to him – because it or them might possess some claim on him.

Because I cannot stop praising Schreiber’s performance, I must note that in many ways he nails the role by his non-verbal actions. Throughout the play, he coughs, sniffs, grunts, and many, many other seemingly random actions a person performs daily. He made Champlain real is basically what I am saying: I cannot imagine any other actor performing this role. (I have never seen Oliver Stone’s film version starring Bogosian, but I have added it to my “to-see” list.)

I could go on and on, but I think I will stop now (though I will revisit this later, I think, for the play has many topics to discuss), though I should say that Stephanie March, Peter Hermann, and the rest of the supporting cast were all top-notch.

One last note: I will discuss Spring Awakening in a future post, but I will say now, if you have an opportunity to see this musical do so (just know it is an R-rated musical).

Whitman and New York

Since I will be traveling soon to the Big Apple, I decided to reread Walt Whitman’s “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.” Here are some lines that struck me:

“And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose”

“A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others will see them,/
Will enjoy the sunset, or the pouring-in of the flood-tide, the falling-back to the sea of the ebb-tide.”

“It avails not, time nor place – distance avails not,/I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence,”

“Closer yet I approach you,/What thought you have of me now, I had as much of you – I laid in my store in advance/I consider’d long and seriously of you before you were born.”

This reminded me of Hart Crane’s “The Harbor Dawn”:

Insistently through sleep – a tide of voices -
They meet you listening midway in your dream,

Or his “To Brooklyn Bridge”:

How many dawns, chill from his rippling rest
The seagull’s wings shall dip and pivot him
Shedding white rings of tumult, building high
Over the chained bay waters Liberty -

Then there’s Federico Garcia Lorca’s Poet in New York. From “After a Walk”:

Cut down by the sky.
Between shapes moving toward the serpent
and crystal-craving shapes,
I’ll let my hair grow.

Of course, I am shamelessly and regretfully not including many poems and poets. However, I’m sure I will be looking them up. This is one of the wonderful things I find about poetry: One poet or poem leads me to another. Lines rest in the quiet spaces of my mind and let me linger over them. These lines here seem to me to lift from the pages I was reading them on, lodging insistently in my brain. I’ll have them for life.

Portrait of a Woman Brushing Her Hair and Other Poems

I have completed an extensive content revision of the website. Long standing poems have been replaced (though not all) and the small book of seven poems alongside photographs called Portrait of a Woman Brushing Her Hair and Other Poems is now available for $2.00 from the website. Besides photographs, each poem includes an audio version read by me.
I am not quite sure what kind of response (outside of friends and families) this will garner, but I think the experiment worth doing.

In putting this together, I need to thank my wife, Gina, for her continued support in my poetic endeavors and for letting me use some of the wonderful photographs she has taken. Also thanks to Keith Cline, who let me use his photograph for the cover. Finally but not lastly, thanks to Louisa Adair, who took my Word document and large number of photographs and turned it into a beautiful design.

One Writer’s “Definition of Poetry”

I quote from Edward Hirsch’s book Poet’s Choice:

“Poetry is a means of exchange, a form of reciprocity, a magic to be shared, a gift. There has never been a civilization without it. That’s why I consider poetry–which is, after all, created out of a mouthful of air–a human fundamental, like music. It saves something precious in the world from vanishing. It sacramentalizes experience. It is an imaginative act that starts with the breath itself. It arises from breathing. It is a living thing that comes from the body, from the heart and lungs, and thus seems hardwired into us. It enters our bodies through the material stream of language. It moves and dances between speech and song. These words rhythmically strung together, these electrically charged sounds, are one of the ways by which we come to know ourselves. A poem beats out time.”