Remembering James Tate

I had the great privilege of hearing James Tate read twice in my life. The first time was approximately a decade ago in Seattle at Open Books. What I remember about that reading, in terms of the man, is that Tate seemed to be tipping prematurely into old age.

Fast-forward to just a couple years ago when I was able to attend his reading at USC. It was clear then that the gods of health had not been kind to Tate. I assumed he had a stroke at some point prior because he had all the telltale signs of neurological injury. This, I suppose, is unremarkable only in that there is no explanation for why some people are the lucky ones and some get the short shrift. On James Tate's behalf, I felt that life was unfair. That hasn't changed. Grace seems to anoint haphazardly. 

But if it was unremarkable that I was seeing Tate's body being destroyed by what I would call a too-rapid aging, what was remarkable is that, during that reading, I saw him carefully, with cane, make his way to the lectern, and I heard him push his poems out from a mouth that resisted working. On the one hand, it was difficult, in terms of empathy, to listen; on the other hand, it was profound that each poem hung in the air, fully assembled, as if Tate repeatedly gave up ghosts, which is what, in some respects, poems are. They live and interact with us even as the body has been taken away. I remember feeling, at the time, that he would not be with us for much longer, and that made me sad. Thus, I return again and again to the second half of "The Lost Pilot:"

...All I know   

is this: when I see you,   

as I have seen you at least

once every year of my life,   

spin across the wilds of the sky   

like a tiny, African god,

I feel dead. I feel as if I were   

the residue of a stranger’s life,   

that I should pursue you.

My head cocked toward the sky,   

I cannot get off the ground,   

and, you, passing over again,

fast, perfect, and unwilling   

to tell me that you are doing   

well, or that it was mistake

that placed you in that world,

and me in this; or that misfortune   

placed these worlds in us.

And all I can think is that Tate is, a lifetime later, finally able to pursue his father. That he has finally gotten off the ground, and that it was indeed misfortune that was placed inside Tate, which is why he was taken from us too early. But if I believed in any kind of grace, I hope he is a satellite now.

James Tate's poems manage to temper wonder with wit; moreover, he made the best of accessibility in that the poems are generous to readers even as they're absurd sometimes, and thought-provoking. Some of the greatest moments in the arts are when the most profound mysteries of the human condition are presented in the guise of humor. Tate did this. He will be sorely missed even if his voice still lingers on our bookshelves.

The Palinode of Amanda Bynes

My heart cut out by Nickelodeon

and boxed for their wicked queen.

I’d take them back, every last tweet.

I’m curdled and raw and obscene.

Perez and Courtney and Chrissy,

smell my heart sizzle on the third rail.

If I’ve ever tweeted you’re ugly,

it’s my mind that’s grown a spiked tail.

As the bong sailed from the window

I figured it had sprouted wings.

My heart is a tattered box kite.

When I’m high I do stupid things.

I meant that Drake should stake it

and not actually murder my vagina;

my isolation is finally complete,

my heart a cup of bone china.

Celebrity Stalking

The celebrities are at it again. They keep

stalking me for poetry. Just the other day

George Clooney tried to deliver my pizza

so I could sign his broadside, Meryl Streep

crouched in my back yard with a chapbook,

Julia Roberts broke into my bathroom

to ask about meter, and Charlie Sheen left

twenty-six messages asking for [sic] sexstinas

written in the colloquial language of porn,

but these movie stars think they know the real me

behind the poetry because they read tabloids

in line at the super market that detail

the lurid private lives of poets who take lovers,

get caught without make-up, carry small dogs,

enjoy gay trysts, drink absinthe and own

many-chambered homes with deep-pile

cream carpets, secret rooms, and libraries

the size of Luxembourg. They couldn’t know

that I’m allergic to even numbers and no longer

fluent in filthy words. I’m feeling dogged

with anxiety on this spring nocturnal 

in the City of Angels, a hundred watt moon 

on the rise and the song birds playing music 

well past prime time like neighbors 

with no children. What we sacrifice 

for our art. We didn’t ask for this.  

Vainglorious Opinion and How to Avoid It

One more great comic from Toothpaste for Dinner

I am addled with imperfections and riddled with flaws, dear reader, but sometimes I get cocksure about my intellect and wisdom. Luckily for me, though, someone takes me down a notch and reminds me that I, in fact, don't know everything. These humbling experiences make me think further and harder, and let us hope they keep me from becoming an opinionated gasbag...

A friend asked me to read his poetry manuscript and offer some feedback, and I said I would although anyone who has ever done so knows that parsing a manuscript can be laborious. However, this is an old friend whose work I have admired in the past, and here was an opportunity to get yet another opinion on my own belabored manuscript since he agreed to an exchange.

I began reading his manuscript, and I found the poetry difficult. The poems were ciphers in many cases, and I became impatient with their inaccessibility. Then I found myself getting exasperated as I pawed through the poems looking for scraps of narrative, which function for me like yellow brick roads through the difficult terrain of verse. Then I got crabby about my friend's poetry.

What followed was an e-mail exchange that I will paraphrase here in the interest of blog brevity. I wrote to him to say that I was not a good judge of experimental poetry because I'm a slave to the narrative. Then I said that experimental poetry is to blame for alienating the general reading public from poetry as a whole. (I know, right? What a dick.) Then I admitted to intellectual laziness, which did not prevent me from complaining about how I didn't get this or that in his manuscript. My e-mail was not very generous. It was kind of critical in a non-constructive way, in fact.

To paraphrase his reply, he said that he understood if it was not my type of poetry, but he was hoping for some insight into ordering the poems. He said don't worry if you're not moved, but that there is room for all types of poetry. Furthermore, he pointed out that the poems I was most critical of were the ones that were published in their current form, which confirms poetry's "rich diversity" to quote him. He finished by saying that he liked reading to be a process as much as writing and that interpretation was open for debate.

So there you have it, dear reader. I shot my friend down because I didn't get what he was trying to do with his poetry. And his response made me wish I could back-peddle when I'm generally one who will continue to support my opinion. In this case, however, my friend showed me rather quickly that my opinion had no merit. And here's why:

I did to his poetry what I accused his poetry of doing to the reading public, and how can I lament the intellectual laziness of the reading public when I was dismissive of his work because it was too challenging? How absurd and hypocritical. Bad, Sonia, bad.

If I've managed to keep your interest until now, perhaps you can imagine how this post about poetry can be extrapolated to apply to other matters of judgement and taste. Who am I, who is anyone, to judge what one likes and dislikes in matters of the arts? How different we all are, how different are the circumstances of our upbringing, how different is the arrangement of our neurons and synapses, how differently we think, how different are our intellects. Of course there is no accounting for what one appreciates. Furthermore, all sensory and aesthetic experiences are acquired tastes. And my friend is right; there are so many of us out here looking for truth and beauty that there must be room for all of it.

As for judgement, kind reader, we should be more sympathetic to what others love. This is not to say, of course, that all artistic pursuits merit respect. There will always be bad art, music, and poetry, but it's reasonable to say that if an artist, musician, or poet has garnered a following, a contract, a show, or a label, then we must acknowledge that people like it in ways that we will not understand. Therefore, instead of using negative language to disparage, say, contemporary country music or Thomas Kinkade, I will simply say that it's not for me because I'm not really drawn to it.  Moreover, what draws us to an aesthetic, sensory, or intellectual experience is something we're often hardwired with.

If you don't like something, you have the right to avoid it.

Let me disclaim a little bit here when I say that we should not let ourselves off the hook too easily when it comes to matters of intellect and leisurely pursuit. We should not always take the path of least resistance when it comes to how we spend our leisure time, or we risk squandering it. For example, how many episodes of Big Bang Theory can I watch before my eyes glaze over? A richer experience might be worth the extra tender. So, bright reader, go and read a poem. Whatever flavor of verse you prefer. I won't judge.  

As for me, now that I have shamed myself into open-mindedness, I must return to my friend's manuscript because I owe him further commentary. 







  

Poetic Interlude

Febrile

He seized on the interchange

as late sunlight glared off game-day traffic

and I just stopped, mid-lane,

and punched the hazards

as he bucked against the car seat.

But I wouldn't say I watched, couldn't say

I stared, won't say now I saw

when his mouth went slack

and his eyes rolled white

as if I could have recorded

those sights. And today his fever

lingers on his face the way

Vermeer's light loved milkmaids.

His brown eyes brimming like a heifer’s;

His beauty like a doomed

consumptive. He clings like August

clutches the Valley, and I sit

and let my own sweat rise.

How could I do otherwise?

In two days he’ll push away my arms,

so I hold this moment in my gaze

the way I spot heat mirages

wavering off the asphalt.

My Elitism Problem

I lost my cynicism a few years back. I even support the adolescent ardor for Justin Bieber, who seems to earn all manner of derision and ridicule from those people who forget what it is like to be young and evolving. I loved Shawn Cassidy and David Hasselhoff’s Knight Rider; go ahead and laugh at me.

How I’ve grown. Here is a list of shows I have never seen, except, say, when I’ve caught them over someone’s shoulder: American Idol, Survivor, Lost, The Bachelor, 2.5 Men, Desperate Housewives, Family Guy, and Sex and the City. And this is the short list. My personal time is limited, and I try and use it wisely. I read high-falutin’ magazines like The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and The Sun, or I read books and poetry. I also like to do the New York Times crossword puzzles, although I’m not smart enough for the Friday or Saturday puzzles. This is not to say that I don’t enjoy television, but I choose a show that I’d like to watch, like Glee—it’s campy, catchy and you can dance to it— and then I order it through Netflix. This prevents me from getting sucked into the brain-numbing black hole of popular programming.

However, before you label me as a cultural elitist, consider that one must disdain those who love easy entertainment to earn this moniker. On the contrary, aside from programs that reinforce gender stereotypes (such as Sex and the City), it is perfectly reasonable to watch any of the shows listed above. I support the urge to shut down one’s higher faculties and wallow in network muck. We all have to do it. However, all things in moderation, take the road less traveled, and whatever other aphorism expresses that if you let yourself off too easily, you’re going to end up with a flabby intellect. We do not begrudge the donut eater their one donut, but we’re appalled when the donut eater polishes off the entire dozen. Shouldn’t we be equally appalled when the viewer gorges constantly on the empty calories of pop culture and leaves no room for the fiber of brainier pursuits?

Often, the urge to label someone a nerd comes from the lurking suspicion that you’re not trying hard enough, and rather than change a personal behavior, it’s easier, and more self-affirming, to point the finger and say elitist, nerd, egghead, whatever. It’s the same drive that labels a slender woman as “anorexic” and a confident man as “cocky.” Because we’re unwilling to do the work to attain the same levels of commitment and success that the target of our disgust has worked for.

My interest in this whole topic is a personal one, and the point I’m trying to get to is this: It offends me that I have friends who couldn’t be bothered to pick up a book of poetry, because a rejection of poetry is a rejection of me. The labels that they might apply to poetry are “dated,” “flowery,” “boring,” “irrelevant” or some other derogatory term intended to let them off the hook since poetry often requires work. It can be difficult, not just because it’s cask-strength language, but it can also be emotionally vexing. So for some who resist poetry, it’s because they can’t be bothered to comprehend it, and for others, it’s because they can’t be bothered to feel difficult feelings. I can sympathize to a certain extent with those who resist for the second reason; I often avoid entertainment that pushes me to face despair. I still haven’t seen Schindler’s List. I never finished reading Sophie's Choice. However, blaming poetry for one’s intellectual laziness is a shame, and I wish more people would add it to their daily consumption of media.