William Wharton: an Appreciation (Redux)

Jacket illustration and design by Fred Marcellino

In a previous post, I mentioned the death of William Wharton and how important his book Dad had been to me during my father's long illness. I also mentioned that I was working up an extended post on the subject for Eleventh Stack, the blog at my place of work.

Well, it is done; it is very personal and, I hope, worth sharing. Ron Silliman picked it up for a recent listing of posts on his blog.

Here it is. Hope you like it.


best,
Don

William Wharton and Sharon Olds

It's come to my attention that one of my favorite writers, William Wharton, has died recently. Wharton is best known for his first novel Birdy (possible spoiler alert), an eccentric, moving, emotionally charged novel about the relationship of two young men growing up in the 50's and 60's. Birdy is obsessed with birds, his love at times going beyond what can be safely described as psychologically healthy. Al, his best friend, recounts his life and the story of his attempt to bring him back from the brink when he is damaged seemingly beyond repair during war .

Even more relevant for me personally was his second book Dad, which I read while my own father was going through a long, painful process of dying. It was a comfort and revelation, as sometimes only a book can be. A novel doesn't have to be by a Tolstoy or Proust to move us to the point of changing our world. This book did that and it's impossible to say how grateful I was.

Wharton himself lived a wonderful, tragic, eccentric life. I intend to post about him in some depth at the blog, Eleventh Stack, that I contribute to at my job and so will notify folks when that goes up. Though all the obituaries internationally praised him (oddly, he was beloved in Poland, having a number of works recently translated from English to Polish, including a sort of sequel to Birdy entitled Al, without ever having been published in English), he is one of those authors I believe will rapidly slip into obscurity.

I'd like to deliver one blow against the darkness for him before it finally descends.

This week is the birthday of Sharon Olds, one of the best mainstream poets writing in America today. Much of her work is intensely personal but, like all great authors, she manages to universalize the details so they resonant powerfully for her readers. Here is a poem that at once contains elements representative of her work and yet takes a somewhat different stylistic approach. Here the particular seems literally universal and there is a humor on display more overtly than is usually the case.




Topography

After we flew across the country we
got into bed, laid our bodies
delicately together, like maps laid
face to face, East to West, my
San Francisco against your New York, your
Fire Island against my Sonoma, my
New Orleans deep in your Texas, your Idaho
bright on my Great Lakes, my Kansas
burning against your Kansas your Kansas
burning against my Kansas, your Eastern
Standard Time pressing into my
Pacific Time, my Mountain Time
beating against your Central Time, your
sun rising swiftly from the right my
sun rising swiftly from the left your
moon rising slowly from the left my
moon rising slowly from the right until
all four bodies of the sky
burn above us, sealing us together,
all our cities twin cities,
all our states united, one
nation, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Sharon Olds

Cover Art by Harland Ristau

This week's issue from the Lilliput archives is #65, from February 1995. To put things in gentle perspective, on February 23rd, 1995, the Dow Jones average closed at 4003.33, the first time it ever closed over 4000. Poetry, at that time, may also have been a tad more innocent, though I'm not sure if you can tell from the following. Enjoy.



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Icarus

And I saw it through the barred
window, your hand with bits
of light in it. I licked them like a horse
and grew wings no sun can kill.

Ali Kress

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Dialectician

The
entire
leaf
he
shoulders
has
roots
elsewhere

Gregory Vincent S. Thomasino

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Paint Sadness

floating
down a
river

catching
on tree
roots

swirling.

Suzanne Bowers

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Elegy

He would have to tell this one to Dad.
He started to pick up the phone
and dial the number,
smiling all the while.

Then he remembered.
When everyone asked him
who he was going to call
he was afraid to answer.

Daniel J. McCaffrey

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Guardrail Graffiti (A Found Poem)

DICKNOSE
FUCK YOU
I LOVE DRUGS

Bart Solarcyzk

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Bird Haiku #14

Wings extended across the ground
a dead sparrow
flies into eternity.

David Rhine

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In memory of Suzanne Bowers and Harland Ristau.



best,
Don