Robert Bly: Old Man Rubbing His Eyes - Small Press Friday

Artwork by Allbert Richter

I feel as if, over the years, over the decades, my mind and spirit have grown with the words of Robert Bly. Sometimes, I didn't understand them, sometimes they infuriated me, sometimes there was transference.

What an odd, beautiful way reading is to find a friend.

Dating all the way back to 1974 (Unicorn Press), though my copy is a 1987 reprint (Ally Press), the words of Old Man Rubbing His Eyes speak to me as powerfully as any other Bly collection, perhaps most powerfully of all.

There is an obliqueness, a slight off-centered quality to Bly's magic, an almost constant worrying over details, juxtaposed, not always related, striving for something beyond reach, something not even, or perhaps ever, known.

Which explains his late in life attraction to the ghazel form.

But this work has something of an Old World flavor, distinctly Western, yet mysterious as Eastern European poetry, and as forcefully real. Let's listen, let's see:


Writing Again

Oval
faces crowding to the window!
I turn away,
disturbed—

When I write of moral things,
the clouds boil
blackly!
By day's end
a room of restless people,
lifting and putting down small things.

Well that is how I have spent this day.
And what good will it do me in the grave?


What good, indeed, in the grave; but it does do some good now, no?


A Cricket In The Wainscoting

The song of his is like a boat with black sails
Or a widow under a redwood tree, warning
passersby that the tree is about to fall.
Or a bell made of black tin in a Mexican village.
Or the hair in the ear of a hundred-year-old man.


We've all heard that cricket in the wainscoting with its many songs and their singular message; cricket in the wainscoting, cricket in the wainscoting. 

Old Man Rubbing His Eyes is one of those poetry books that it is as impossible to describe as it is to excerpt. What is the point really? It is a book, and that book has a message. If forced to put it into words I might say -

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. 

Pick it up and read it. Get it at the library (it's in 364, there must be one nearby you), buy it in an independent shop. It has something of the tincture of winter, the flavor of rich soil, the taste of ever-present death.

It is poetry.

Listen: there's an old man in the wainscoting.


-------------- 

 Photo by Matias Romero

in the stove,
a cricket singing,
singing

Issa
rendered by dw

best,
Don

   

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Kenneth Rexroth: Sky Sea Birds Trees Earth House Beasts Flowers

I ran across this beautiful little Kenneth Rexroth book, Sky Sea Birds Trees Earth House Beast Flowers, in a local Pittsburgh used and rare bookshop, Caliban. The book comes from Unicorn Press, which I've written about before previously in a review of Hyakunin Isshu: 100 Poems by 100 Poets, back in April of this year. You can find plenty of info on this, one of America's finest small presses, back in that post, so I'll skip the background here.

This particular volume was published in 1971, is 1 of 375 trade copies and contains 11 poems with 13 pieces of art, all done by Rexroth himself. The poems, as well as the brushwork, are all Eastern inflected.

Slowly the moon rises
Over the quiet sea.
Slowly the face of my beloved
Forms in my mind.

The parallel feel of the two sets of two lines has the sensibility of haiku, minus the denouement. The comparison of memory to nature is an interesting one; there seems also to be an implied parallel as to time duration of the two events. Any poem that brings the human into nature, either in contrast or, even better, in harmony, has my close attention, as does this one.

Spring puddles give way
To young grass.
In the garden,
Willow catkins
Change to singing birds.

This might be easily characterized as waka, though the form is more specifically reminiscent of tanka, without the overt romantic element. Whatever it is called is not particularly relevant, except perhaps for the scholar. Here we are completely immersed in nature, presented with examples of the myriad changes which happen right before our eyes and yet so often go unseen. What I most admire here is that Rexroth has captured the miraculous quality of these changes by making them feel almost magical.

Of course that is just what it is, a miracle, a bit of natural magic, right before our eyes, which is seen so many times without seeing that it has become "ordinary" enough to ignore

A dawn in a tree of birds.
Another,
And then another.

This may be my favorite poem of the collection. Is it a haiku? Seen from one angle, not really, from another most definitely. How so? If seen as a series of days, it is closer in spirit to the previous poem, which takes place over a long period of time, hence not a haiku (if capturing a single moment is part of your haiku requirement). Seen from the other side, however, this could be a series of immediate moments, contiguous, taking place in mere seconds, as the rising light first hits one bird, than another, than another.

In fact, it doesn't have to be light at all directly hitting the tree - it could be the light breaking on the horizon and each individual bird's response, one after the other after the other, in song.

Yes, I like this poem very much.

Past midnight,
In the dark,
Under the winter stars,
Tendrils of ice
Creep through the duckweed.

This is another special poem, tanka-esque in form, which thrusts a human right in the middle of natural things. This poem has a bit of an ominous quality; it is past midnight, dark without moonlight, and our sense of hearing allows us to hear something creeping through the duckweed. Though the hearer realizes it is ice creeping and not some predator, still the tone of "creep" feels foreboding. The beauty here is that, though not a sentient being in our usual sense of understanding, ice does creep, so Rexroth has not committed any anthropomorphic hocus-pocus, something which would immediately turn me off.

In addition, ice creeping may have a truly ominous quality for one exposed to the elements without proper clothing and food. It may be winter that is doing the creeping, which may be something properly feared.

The years pass.
The generations
Of birds pass too.
You must watch carefully.
The same towhees and jays
Seem to have been in the same
Places
To thousands of generations
Of men.

This fifth poem captures some of the aspects of the poems already noted, particularly the passage of time. Thousands of generations of men pass through this poem, yet the poet admonishes his readers to watch carefully in the moment to see all time pass before you, a perfect conflation of eternity and the now.

One might almost say eternity in a moment: satori.

Fine, fine, fine stuff. Copies of this amazing little hand-sewn chapbook can be had much cheaper than I paid for it ($15) or you can pay a lot more. It's only money and this is only poetry (and art).

I'm thinking either way it's a bargain.  I know I got off cheap.

One of 13 pieces of art

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This week's poem from the Lilliput archive comes from issue #102, January 1999.    Once again Alan Catlin's painterly eye is in evidence, a master at work.

The Poet's Room

  Frayed chairs, shadows
  curve from windows
  mirrors silent as footprints
  covered by dew.

                  Alan Catlin

looking younger than me
the scarecrow casts
his shadow

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,

Don

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Hyakunin Isshu: 100 Poems by 100 Poets (Unicorn Press)

The term of "print on demand" has radically changed in recent years (or should I say months) and the idea that it has revolutionized publishing has been proudly touted and summarily decried from cubicles and garrets all over the world.  Not surprisingly, what might be thought of as the original idea of print on demand has taken something of a backseat.

Looking back at that original idea might just be instructive for the future of publishing, particularly poetry publishing.

All of this is by way of an intro to a new translation of the Japanese classic waka anthology, Hyakunin Isshu: 100 Poems by 100 Poets, by Dennis Maloney and Hide Oshiro, published by Unicorn Press. In the introduction, Dennis mentions that through the years there have been a dozen or so English translations, most of them being woefully out of date.  He also notes that, along with this new translation, there are also two others of recent vintage to compare and enjoy.

The story of this truly classic anthology is well-known.  It was compiled by Fujiwara no Teika and consists of one hundred waka by one hundred different poets.  The poems are in a rough chronological order, from the 8th to the 12th century, and as such represent something of a snapshot of Japanese court poetry.  It is one of the most famous anthologies of poetry of all time and Maloney and Hideo Oshiro have brought their considerable skills to task in this slim volume.

As you may see from the illustrations above and below, each copy of this title is handmade, handmade as in the original print on demand handmade, and Dennis Maloney tells me that they are produced a few at a time and no two are exactly the same.  If you look closely at the back cover, you'll see the backing used in the "production" of this copy is the cover of an Amy's vegetarian meal.

Unicorn Press recycles.

In fact, Unicorn Press is famous in American small press history.  Longhouse  has a catalogue of many of their famed items for sale, some of them now quite pricey.  This is a catalogue of Unicorn titles through the years via a ISBN finder website.  The following is a brief interview with Alan Brilliant of Unicorn Press:

For a wonderful, in-depth interview with Brilliant, which will fill in some of the history of the small press in America, check out Farrago's Wainscot.

I have a serious bias when it comes to this book and I'll state it plainly: two of the volumes in the Modest Proposal Chapbook series are thematic selections that Dennis made from the manuscript before publishing the collection in its entirety with Unicorn: Unending Night: Japanese Love Poems & The Turning Year: Japanese Nature Poems.   

That being said, it was real pleasure to receive this wonderful little item in the mail and to sit down with all 100 poems in a new translation for the first time.  Here is a small selection of a few of my favorites .

The mountain pheasant's tail

trails long behind

- longer still

my loneliness 

in the endless night.

Kakinomoto no Hitomaro

Like the wild swirling patterns

dyed into cloth from the north, 

my love thoughts

are becoming tangled

because of you.

Kawara no Sadaijin

My heart is torn

since I've not seen you.

Like the tidemark in Osaka Bay

I measure my life

waiting to meet you again.

Prince Motoyoshi

The people of my native village

have changed after many years,

but at the gate

the fragrance

of plum blossoms remains.

Ki no Tsurayuki

My sleeves never dry,

like the rocks

beneath the sea

never seen,

even at low tide.

Lady Nijo

If you'd like to get a unique copy of your very own, here is the info you need.  The price is $12.50 (+ 2.50 shipping) to be mailed to: 

Unicorn Press, Inc.

1206 Grove Street

Greensboro, NC 27403-3410

The poetry is timeless and the craftsmanship unique.  I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

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This week's selection from the archives comes from Lilliput Review, #148 and is by the very fine poet of the short form Dorothy McLaughlin, whose work has graced the pages of Lillie many times over the years.  Here is one of her little beauties:

leaving home

leaving the shadow

of home

Dorothy McLaughlin

at your house
the sparrow, too
makes a home

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

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Hear 'em all at once on the the LitRock Jukebox

Subscribe to Lilliput Review