James Wright: Milkweed

While doing research at the library on James Wright for a forthcoming poetry discussion, I've discovered many things. First and foremost, I've connected with some poems that I hadn't previously, such as "A Prayer to the Lord Ramakrishna." In addition, I've been reading lots of criticism, the Paris Review Interview, and pieces of memoir. In a chapter from his book, American Poetry: Wildness and Domesticity, Robert Bly talks about Wright and their relationship and how he sees his friend's work. The lens Bly uses is, as is often the case, a large and refractive one; his debt to Jung is obvious and, on my part at least, frankly welcome. On occasion, this approach does lead to some fantastically awry notions, yet he ventures into new territory with fresh eyes and always has something interesting, often profound, to say. More often misinterpreted than misinterpreting, Bly's only "problem" is he frequently spoke in metaphors that appalled the dull-minded literalists of this world.

I'll side step for the moment his in-depth "analysis" of the poetry and recount an incident he relates as it informs one of the strange and wonderful poems in The Branch Will Not Break. Here is the poem:

Milkweed

While I stood here, in the open, lost in myself,
I must have looked a long time
Down the corn rows, beyond grass,
The small house,
White walls, animals lumbering toward the barn.
I look down now. It is all changed.
Whatever it was I lost, whatever I wept for
Was a wild, gentle thing, the small dark eyes
Loving me in secret.
It is here. At a touch of my hand,
The air fills with delicate creatures
From the other world.

James Wright

There is such an air of mystery one forgets sometimes that what is happening is very real. The poem itself might serve to sum up the entire quest which is The Branch Will Not Break. Early on in the book, the poet is striving to find himself, is lost, trying to understand how this happened and what is his relation to the world. The event is chronicled beautifully in "Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy's Farm in Pine Island Minnesota." In turning to nature, the poet does find himself in the world relative to what surrounds him. And here in "Milkweed," this revelation is reprised with a stunning lyrical beauty.

I read this poem many times and, as a writer, kept thinking of the final 3 lines as an analog for the writing process itself and, of course, they are. But they are first and foremost a lyrical depiction of a very real event: the bursting of a milkweed pod by the poet. This poem has threads that lead back to other major poems in the volume. The images themselves, the surrounding fields, the lumbering animals, the small house may all be found in "Lying in ... ." The wild gentle thing, the small dark eyes, seem at once to recall the pony in "A Blessing" and the poet's cherished secret in "The Jewel." The 3 final lines echo the haiku-like succinctness of the final 3 lines of "A Blessing", and all 3 poems share variations of a powerful revelation in the final lines.

Bly jokes in his essay that Wright's bursting of the milkweed seed pod might not have been the best thing for the surrounding fields but, as he says, never mind that for the moment.

For the moment, indeed. For myself, lyrically speaking, the delicate seeds scattering on the wind all gather together as the poems in The Branch Will Not Break, one of the 20th century's finest volumes of poetry. It never ceases to shake me, to touch me, to move me as deeply as the written word ever has.

A second thing I've discovered while doing background work was James Wright's love of the poet Georg Trakl (this link is a pdf document for those who avoid such things). And he has passed it on. I'm hooked. But I'll save that for a future post.


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This week's featured issue is #155 of Lilliput Review from 2007. Here are 5 very brief poems that reach for it all. Enjoy.





April morning-------the crow too-------has a song

Stanford Forrester

snowy road
wind picking up
our footprints

Dorothy McLaughlin

digging
& squirrels
digging too

John Martone

---There was this moment
in the middle of my life -
--------roses in the skinny limbed tree

Ron Price

violet dusk
the old, slow
aching toward

Sean Perkins

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Saturday midnight is the deadline for the 2nd Annual Bashô Haiku Challenge entries so, procrastinators, start your engines.

While polishing up this post this morning, Curtis Dunlap i.m.ed me to let me know he was reprinting an Albert Huffstickler poem from a back issue of Lillie. Here is the link; check out the lovely photo of Huff. And in related Huff news, Felicia Mitchell has started a Huff page on Facebook on which lots of remarkable things are being shared.

now I watch
with careful attention...
autumn dusk

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

Talking, Writing, Teaching, Spewing, Loving: Another Week of Poetry

Cover art by Wayne Hogan

Though off from "work" this week, I've been busy with things Lilliput related, which include getting issues #'s 163 and 164 out in the mail to subscribers. Also on my plate, has been wrapping up an interview for Poet Hound, which covers a wide range of questions about the history of the mag, its focus, and how I go about doing what I do. Since Lillie will be celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2009, it was a good thing for me to sit, think about the journey, and what's ahead. The interview should be appearing at PH sometime around the end of the month. I'll keep you posted.

Dovetailing nicely with that project, I was also asked to write an article for Café Review, for their 20th anniversary issue, about how I select poems for Lillie. I'm working against a deadline, so that has kept me considerably occupied. The article is scheduled for January, but the deadline looms large. More on that in the future.

Two other fall projects that are gobbling up time like twin black holes are two sessions concerning poetry I'm working on. The first is an Osher lifelong learning one-shot class on poetry appreciation and this is the second year I've been asked to conduct it. The second is a new poetry discussion group I've put together with a fellow staffer at the library entitled "3 Poems By ... ." The idea is to have a poetry discussion group similar to typical book discussion groups, only focusing on 3 select poems by a given poet for an hour long session instead of an entire book of poems. The first session will be on Emily Dickinson, with future sessions on e. e. cummings, Sharon Olds, Mary Oliver, and others. We also will be doing one session entitled "3 Poems About," the subject being time, handled by 3 different poets. Both of these projects will be in the first two weeks of October and the clock is ticking.

When the Near Perfect Books of Poetry list hit the 100 milestone, Ron Silliman picked it up for his blog and this page got mighty busy, mighty fast.

As noted in previous posts, Acres of Books has lost its battle against closing (though gallantly championed by Ray Bradbury) to the Long Beach, CA, city fathers. Now, unbelievably, they have turned a jaundiced eye to the Long Beach Main Library and once again Mr. Bradbury has risen to the occasion. Maybe the mayor of Long Beach, the honorable Bob Foster, needs to hear from you.

Since I'm expelling angst, I might as well make a confession: I hate baseball poetry. Let me be clear: I love baseball, it's baseball poetry I hate. I've tried. I can't help it. It's just one of those things. But Jonathan Holden's poem, How To Play Night Baseball, from a recent posting at The Writer's Almanac, has put the lie to any type of definitive statement I was reaching for. This one's a beaut.

One final note before turning to this week's featured work from the Lillie archives; Jill Dybka at the Poetry Hut Blog has pointed to a nifty list, put together by Amy King, of Movies with Poetry. Check it out and if you can think of any that were missed, just add it in the comments section. I did.

Over the last couple of week's, I've been skipping around a bit in the archive and this week is no exception. The following selection is from issue #157, from August 2007, a year ago this month.

gentle,
the wish of not to wish

Sean Perkins

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just squeeze into
----hollow sycamore
---------& close my eyes

John Martone

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#374
Lying with my lover,
From the bed I see
Through the curtain
Across the Milky Way the parting
Of the Weaver and the Oxherder stars!

Yosano Akiko
translated by Dennis Maloney

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Be Still
This shall be the unspeakable:
Long after you've grown old
You will be the breath
Of a lion,
A basket of blue tears,
Landscape of dry reeds.
Your life shall float
Past the warm,
Slow river, skirting banks
Of black mud and straw

Jeffrey Gerhardstein

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"nowhere & nothing" from the tao of pooh

time
patience
drift

one
flower/poem
after
another

Marcia Arrieta

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Till next time,
Don

PS The Wayne Hogan cover above is supposed to be grey. Every now and then the scanner craps out. It is now.