Written by Himself

One of the beauties of my pandemic-long poetry practice has been finding a poem by a different poet each week to use as a model—sometimes more of a jumping-off point—for my own work. This week it’s a poem by Gregory Pardlo who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2015 for his book, Digest. After reading this NYTimes piece, and having a look at him at Poetry Foundation—“The Pulitzer judges cited Pardlo’s ‘clear-voiced poems that bring readers the news from 21st Century America, rich with thought, ideas and histories public and private’”—I’d like to read more.

In the NYTimes, Stephen Burt calls his style, “deliberately elegant in a modernist kind of way,” and Pardlo admits trying to lampoon academic language. It’s another vein that intrigues me:

But he also writes intensely personal poems—with scenes that describe shopping for groceries with his daughter or unpack his anxieties about fatherhood—and delivers funny and poignant dispatches from the front lines of gentrifying Brooklyn.

“He’s interrogating the everyday,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Tracy K. Smith said. “Another poet might be afraid to draw on so much of the true stuff that a life is made of.” (New York Times, April 22, 2015)

So here’s our poem:

Written by Himself 

I was born in minutes in a roadside kitchen a skillet

whispering my name. I was born to rainwater and lye;

I was born across the river where I

was borrowed with clothespins, a harrow tooth,

broadsides sewn in my shoes. I returned, though

it please you, through no fault of my own,

pockets filled with coffee grounds and eggshells.

I was born still and superstitious; I bore an unexpected burden.

I gave birth, I gave blessing, I gave rise to suspicion.

I was born abandoned outdoors in the heat-shaped air,

air drifting like spirits and old windows.

I was born a fraction and a cipher and a ledger entry;

I was an index of first lines when I was born.

I was born waist-deep stubborn in the water crying

ain’t I a woman and a brother I was born

to this hall of mirrors, this horror story I was

born with a prologue of references, pursued

by mosquitoes and thieves, I was born passing

off the problem of the twentieth century: I was born.

I read minds before I could read fishes and loaves;

I walked a piece of the way along before I was born.

—Gregory Pardlo, from Digest p. 3

Find a recording of Pardlo reading “Written by Himself” here.

I want to know if this is the poet speaking, the “supposed person of the poem,” or is it a digest of voices, rising together?

I admit that I’m struggling with what I’ll write in response to this assignment. I mean, how do you follow, “I was born in minutes in a roadside skillet,” or “I was born a fraction and a cipher and a ledger entry”? How about “I read minds before I could read fishes and loaves”?

But I’m about to open my notebook and see what will happen.

 

Shirley Kaufman’s “Lake”

A friend recently shared this poem by Shirley Kaufman (1923-2016). I wrote it into my morning journal, and I have been pondering it every morning since, wanting to understand how it works its magic. “She is more lost to me than ever,” is such a simple, unadorned way to begin. Then—without ever describing the lost friend—the poem conjures a dreamlike (and somehow distinct) vision.

Lake

She is more lost to me than ever
where I stand on her birthday in the June light
next to a lake she never heard of.
The trees at the edge are dissolving
under themselves. She’s not in my dreams,
she has returned to her first language,
drifting over the mountains
while my father rows the small boat.
His sleeves are rolled up
and he’s milder than I remember,
though his suspenders are cutting his shoulders
and the oars blister his soft palms.
The mountains are upside down. They’ve left me
with someone on the shore.
I watch how she leans back
trailing one hand in the water,
her pinned hair starting to fall down
and her eyes crinkled. I forget everything
I had to tell her. If only she’d wave
before we are gone. If only I knew
what she’s saying about the future
that makes her happy.

—Shirley Kaufman (from Rivers of Salt)

I am caught up in two big projects, and don’t seem to have the wherewithal to explain what makes me happy about this poem. But maybe explaining and analyzing this poem isn’t the right thing to do anyway. Maybe the right thing to do is to conjure a dream of our own.

Writing from a Place of Delight

So, about a week ago I thought I would write a blogpost inspired by Steven Pressfield, about…pain. I copied Pressfield’s recent post and linked it (see bottom of page), and I added this passage from the painter Grant Wood:

“The public does not realize, perhaps, the amount of work that goes into one painting before I begin to set it down on canvas. In my last picture, I spent two months–fourteen hours a day, including Sundays–sketching, making notes, rejecting ideas.” –Grant Wood

It’s all very wise and was meant to encourage me to push through a rough patch. But it really just made me feel  the complete opposite of encouraged. I wanted to go back to bed.

On a whim I googled “DELIGHT,” and it took me straight to J. B. Priestley’s book Delight, published in 1949. Not long ago my husband and I watched the 2018 film of Priestley’s play, An Inspector Calls, so this seemed like one of those synchronicities that we ought to pay attention to. I bought the book, downloaded it, and, well, was delighted.

In the preface, Priestley begins, “I have always been a grumbler.” He goes on to explain the benefits (the delights?) of a good grumble. But then we get 114 short chapters on what delights him: reading detective stories in bed, lighthouses, waking to the smell of bacon, the ironic principle, orchestras tuning up, making stew, departing guests. Some of it is a little dated (the stereoscope, wearing long trousers, and several chapters about the delights of smoking). But it’s also a window into Priestley’s time (1894-1984), bits of a lost world.

I’m rushing off to a task this morning (and finishing it will delight me), but here’s a post from another blog that does a better job than I have time for: https://www.stuckinabook.com/delight-jb-priestley/

And that’s your assignment for this week. Sure, I hope you sometimes push through, dig deep, suffer for your art, but meanwhile: what delights you? I’d love to hear about it.

Deliberate Practice

About the featured image:

Every day I walk — I’ve walked at least 5 miles a day for 416 days in a row (yes, I’m a little compulsive) — and every day I snap a photo of something. Sometimes I post the photo at Instagram with #gratitude. I’d like to get more consistent about this, and make gratitude, like walking and writing, a daily practice.

Skill, surgeons believe, can be taught. Tenacity cannot….There have now been many studies of elite performers — concert violinists, chess grand masters, professional ice-skaters, mathematicians, and so forth — and the biggest difference researchers find between them and lesser performers is the amount of deliberate practice they’ve accumulated. The most important talent might be the talent for practice itself. –Atul Gawande

#gratitude