Notes on John Ashbery’s “The Template”

was always there, its existence seldom
questioned or suspected. The poets of the future
would avoid it, as we had. An imaginary railing
disappeared into the forest. It was here that the old gang
used to gather and swap stories. It
was like the Amazon, but on a much smaller scale.

Afterwards, when some of us swept out into the world
and could make comparisons, the fuss seemed justified.
No two poets ever agreed on anything, and that amused us.
It seemed good, the clogged darkness that came every day.

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[ The Times Literary Supplement ]

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These are often “greeted” with derision, most interestingly I think by those in search of something new, something else. Ashbery’s closing here strikes the same set of notes as Rumi’s line, at least for me, both seem to embrace what we customarily fear: darkness, pain.

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In philosophy they ask, “What is the color of an orange in the dark?” In linguistics there was some curious play when Chomsky said “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously” but in physics, Schrödinger had us thinking of a cat inside the box with some trap or radioactive bit, then asked us if the cat was alive or dead. When it was asked, it was suddenly us who were “in the dark” (definitely not in the same darkness that the cat was, and I’m now considering the Reinhardt variants as proposed). Was the cat dead or alive? The answers yes and no come, but neither and both also become thinkable, and so this cat plus darkness plus our multiplying answers (also, inadequacies) result in a state called superposition.

I think that’s what we’re embracing here, what’s clotting: the multiplication of possibility that only happens when we engage (as opposed to flee, or fight—as in your encouraging regard of fear) the darkness. And the magic of it is, we do something like it all the time, when we read and think, when we speak to each other: forming opinions about things we don’t fully comprehend, answering half-baked questions, finishing each other’s sentences.

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His school seems to come alive in the amusement in the second stanza. Would love to see that explored. I remain partial to the clotting wound reading (nursing one at the moment, minor gardening mishap, and because of “The wound is the place where the Light enters you”), but your post remains a favorite spot on this thread. Light enters it.

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Based on your edit, are we looking at catharsis here? I’ve been wondering about the source, where’s the conflict that got us to the wound and to the clotting? Did trying to fit into the template harm us? No two poets agreeing, that sounds like a whole forest of debaters, so much agon and agony: are each of the issued arguments in fact wounding? (If so, then there might as well be a hint of desperation, and this is maybe why I’m drawn to your use of lifeline).

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Add to those, his pantoums.

Looking now at how he cut the first line at “its existence seldom” and it seems as if the these “templates and railings” flicker in and out of the world. As if they’re really only there when we question and suspect them, and maybe only as communities, conventions in the truest sense of the word.

“No two poets ever agreed” okay, but the amusement is shared. That’s the (new?) template begotten by the all the fuss over traditional forms and custom styles.

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This portion of the thread takes me to the root of template, a temple, as it is an open, consecrated place, associated with what is solemn, calm, in search of order and a force.

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That imaginary railing seems to come out of that tennis court without a net. That it leads to a forest, wow. It’s like the template preceded us, was ancient, or an ancient need. We’re in that discourse where the world is a jungle and the poem is something of a preserve or a garden, but if the form came before anything else, then it seems to me that poetry takes us to the wilds, is the closest thing we have to it, and that our everyday lives merely derive from this. Clot signals a wound, perhaps day is that wound. Or light, or reason, or civilization. It inverts Genesis where Yahweh also found that “it was good” but referred to what ensues after light.

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Now that you mentioned it, that sort of railing lines up right between questions and stories. I remember that thought experiment about a tree falling in the forest without anyone hearing it.

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What there might be some sort of template for is the “storytelling” in the clearing. Someone tells the story one way, say Petrarch. Then others follow suit, so it’s a Petrarchan series. Someone says it another way, keeping some of the oldspeak, putting in some novel spins and turns. Let’s call them Elizabethans. Soon others follow, after many nights of this, we have people like Dickinson and Williams and Stevens giving it a go, often refusing to tell it any way other than theirs, but they’re still taking a place among the others, in the wilds, dead of night.

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I would love to see how that that plays out. Will it be like milieu but on a cellular (bodies, antibodies, templates, anti-templates), evolutionary level?

I’ve been thinking about your sense of railing. That invisible railing as a structure seems like an internalized restraint, akin to the missing tennis court net. Railing as complaint or set of charges seem to me unrestrained, an spilling out of anger into outrage. Kept in only by the domain of speech, but almost always a mere breath away from physical violence.

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      There it was, word for word, 
      was always there, its existence seldom

      Would discover, at last, the view toward which they had edged, 
      would avoid it, as we had. An imaginary railing

      Shifted the rocks and picked his way among clouds, 
      used to gather and swap stories

      Where he would be complete in an unexplained completion: 
      was like the Amazon, but on a smaller scale

      Where he could lie and, gazing down at the sea, 
      and could make comparisons, the fuss seemed justified

      The exact rock where his inexactnesses 
      seemed good, the clotted darkness that came every day.

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Yes it is! And thank you for bringing this mountain here, it fits. Actually, it supplants, it overwhelms, it might yield if we ask nicely, but I do think that these two (as with all of us here) might be brought to speak to each other. Though Ashbery in this case would seem the more sociable guy, but I’m sure they would soon be lost in each other’s landscapes.

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On Bernadette Mayer’s “FIRST SHOW HOTLINE”

Out the somber window that shows
Hibernation trees, the water pump, the road
Nothing falling from the gray sky yet
The room I’m in’s too clean, the fire’s failed
I’m doing the French fries on the top of the stove
The mail’s failed to come, the turkey had no liver
But it may work to write this poem unless
It gets stuck like a car by the creek
The creeks are over the top, be wary 

Of them, of getting mail from a bank
And a flyer from the Family Dollar store
In which everything is more than a dollar
Except sardines, I don’t even have a bank
Account but I saw a rainbow in the woods once
          When the sun got low enough to shine
          Under the earth’s cloud cap, I thought
          That’s not a bad deal on dish detergent

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[ LITERARY HUB ]
[ EXQUISITE CORPSE ]

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Glad we’re warming up. And with such fine angles too. “First” has me stumped. “Show” kind of drives home the point that this is not a life (or a process) typically produced by TV and consumed by viewers. Szymborska once remarked that the poet-at-work is “hopelessly unphotogenic” as opposed to the lives and processes of others artists (painters dancers, thespians)—those were much more cinematic. With a poet, all we have before us is a person slumped over a screen or some odd pieces of paper. “Once in a while this person writes down seven lines only to cross out one of them fifteen minutes later,” Szymborska continues, “and then another hour passes, during which nothing happens... Who could stand to watch this kind of thing?”

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Would like to ride this tangent and add “soap opera” as a possible association of the titular “Show” and the last line’s “dish detergent”. This is a domestic scene, but one connected to the outside, represented and appropriated by the forces out there that try to shape our “in here”. I see poetry here as resistance. And I’m still unsure if Mayer embraces the frustrations or if she is hostile to them, sees them as unnecessary distractions, asks us to “be wary” of them as well. A cautionary note that could clue us in on what that “Hotline” is all about.

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Well if attending to poetry isn’t poetic, I don’t know what is. I can feel your anger all the way to my place, but this also sounds like you’re about to read “Show” metapoetically.

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Two views of these contractions. First is how it’s reflective of a poetics that refuses to sound all noble and wise (and maybe that amounts to its own wisdom). Next is how it tries to save breath, save time, save space in the household and consequently in the language itself—maybe the interior of the poet.

It’s really curious, and I think it’s fruitful how you pointed this out to us. Visually, it works so that all the punctuation marks are in-line while the ends are free from markings. Everything is perhaps swept “in”—which is a weird form of cleanliness.

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From this juncture, the thought of how the operating room is sometimes referred to as a theater.

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Here’s a link to an appearance in Exquisite Corpse on January 2015. However, this one has for us a certain “FIRST SNOW HOTLINE” by Bernadette Mayer. Either LitHub committed a typo error or it’s a newer (?) version. Then again, maybe it’s not a typo, as there are other differences. Family Dollar was “family dollar” in this one (as in the last line of “SARDINES”: “& shipped to the family dollar store for Bernadette”). In fact, aside from personal “I” and the “F” in French fries, there are no other capital letters (not even the words at the beginning of lines). This one uses an ampersand rather than “and” in line 11. The stanzas are also cut differently, “the creek” and “the creeks” going their separate ways, be wary placed more closely to “them”.

FIRST SNOW HOTLINE

out the somber window that shows
hibernating trees, the water pump, the road
nothing falling from the gray sky yet
the room I’m in’s too clean, the fire’s failed
I’m doing the French fries on top of the stove
the mail’s failed to come, the turkey had no liver
but it may work to write this poem unless
it gets stuck like a car by the creek

the creeks are over the top, be wary
of them, of getting mail from a bank
& a flyer from the family dollar store
in which everything is more than a dollar
except sardines, I don’t even have a bank
account but I saw a rainbow in the woods once
          when the sun got low enough to shine
          under the earth’s cloud caps, I thought
          that’s not a bad deal on dish detergent

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Following you, I also prefer “SHOW” over “SNOW” because I think the second significantly stunts the line “Nothing falling from the gray sky yet”. I felt cutting the stanza after “be wary” had more power (was more “wary,” formally speaking) and increased the threat of “them” over the household and the poet within. The lines are around ten syllables each, plus/minus a syllable or two so maybe it does suggest the sonnet. Or a sonnet that has yet (or refuses) to fall into place.

This thread reminds me of the WCW exercise: which poem does the better job? (Which is a rather uninspired and inaccurate way to recall our trademark second essay.) It’s not like correct ideas will wash away all your sins.

Cup, Koch in “Incidents of Travel in Poetry”

Need to attend to this a few more times, but what floated was Frank Lima’s depiction of Koch with a paper cup—

write poems about the notes in his life. Kenneth, on the other
hand, has a paper cup full of wonderful poems. He can write a
poem about a cathedral living in a paper cup. Kenneth travels
everywhere with his paper cup. At a certain time of day,
Kenneth finds room in his paper cup for perfect days and
perfect moments:

You could drink gallons (all your life) on the strength of just one cup—but a paper cup? I rather like the idea that Lima's poetry is a party arranged to contain Koch’s cup, a poetics that could itself contain a cathedral. It could also contain Koch himself, if we take the lines to mean: “He can write a poem about a cathedral [while] living in a paper cup”. What a nod to poetic compression, “a certain time of day” reduced further to just some space in a cup that magically contains choicest days and moments.

Paper was mentioned one other time, about a dozen lines before Koch. It was in connection with cummings—suspiciously spelled with the capital C—

Cummings’ poems appear unintentional on the surface, he did
not act like a drunken amputee at the dinner table and always
said pleasant things that came out of nowhere. His
conversation was experimental but logical and he investigated
words, mixing them on paper with a pencil.
etcetera after a few drinks. We move the sun to South

“Mixing” is a strange word to use, particularly in a passage that mentions drinking. Makes sense though, as Lima seems to be “mixing” (with) poets and people as cummings does with words, but this I-do-this-I-do-that-read-this-one-visit-that-other-one kind of note-taking employs patterns, overlapping motifs.

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Insight not only into Koch as a poet but also as a teacher. Precious stuff. Spiked by an intertext of the broken glass of “Between Walls”—very left field, but significant.

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We went to all those places where they restore sadness and joy
and call it art. We were piloted by Auden who became
Unbearably acrimonious when we dropped off Senghor into the

“We” might be Lima and a small band of poets (or Lima and one other “you”). Auden is a generation or two removed, Yeats about three or four. Auden’s the driver (though not a tour guide) and the path is Yeats. This sounds like a reading experience where a poet takes you to his or her influences (at least, to the figures he/she had to deal with on the way to something... what is this something? Auden’s still on the path, that seems notable).

steamy skies of his beloved West Africa. The termites and ants
were waiting for him to unearth the sun in Elissa. The clouds
were as cool as a dog’s nose pressed against our cheeks. I
notice your eggshell skin is as creamy as a lion’s armpit as we
cross the horizon on strands of Yeats’ silver hair. There is a

Or, hair not as path but as a sort of magic carpet. Loving how the poem’s enjambed, it’s not a smooth ride, but it’s a real trip. That dog’s nose metaphor must’ve been done before, but not to the point of cliché, and not with clouds (as far as I know) so close to the cheeks. The lion’s armpit, now that’s a surprise. Cream and peril all in a line.

Notes on “Between Walls” by William Carlos Williams

the back wings
of the

hospital where
nothing

will grow lie
cinders

in which shine
the broken

pieces of a green
bottle

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[ Poetry Foundation ]
[ PennSound ]

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I think it matters, esp if we take into account at the level of attention WCW gives his words. My own way is to take each instance of the poem separately, like the same play on different nights. So while we can string them into a narrative (on the first reading this was how it was, on the second) we can also read each by itself.

Perhaps I won't be any help to your question because this is also what I do with readings. Now that you mentioned two (or three!) different ways of taking those words "Between Walls" as separate title (like "Song of Myself" or "Danse Russe") or title/first line (like the way we use "The Brain, within its Groove"), I'm now open to reading it in either arrangement.

Reading it as one complete sentence (with the title in place) there are (at least) two possibilities if we include commas and a period:

1) Between walls, the back wings of the hospital where nothing will grow, lie cinders in which shine the broken pieces of a green bottle.

2) Between walls, the back wings of the hospital, where nothing will grow, lie cinders in which shine the broken pieces of a green bottle.

Maybe there are other possibilities (esp if we introduce other punctuations). From here we can discuss (a) why is there something missing (preposition or punctuation)? or (b) why is there that feeling of something missing?

Maybe other questions. Just goes to show that YES, it matters (at least for me) so thanks!

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If these words focus our vision, is the word walls still necessary? Aren't back wings sufficient? Maybe Williams dropped walls in to intensify the focus.

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Thanks for sharing. My sister also works in a hospital. Among her tasks: delivering babies. Perhaps the most fun a doctor's allowed to have inside those wings. Even then, I imagine the anxieties attending her weekly "chore".

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This said, I'd like to think the fact of brokenness luckily allows for (and lends special blessing to) the multiple ways of beginning the poem.

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A “Danse Russe” Thread, 2

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AN— i missed the internal rhyme, but yes, it's there. sleeping and sleeping and silken. it's the only proper noun there, and it's easy to think that it's got some weight
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AN— maybe his “average reader” and your “lonely scene” could put us on a slant as we decide what williams's “my household” is all about, what his mission in poetry involves, what his methods open up for us
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DE— This danse is no solo. The whole household participates. Even sleep is participation.
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DE— Getting a lot from this thread. What Kathleen means to me so far is that she's defining “household” as opposed to “family” which would be WCW, Flossie, the kids. That makes for totally different portraiture. It also makes the last lines quite resonant, seems to me the hour of “the happy genius” was only possible after everything's set up, everything's settled down, they're asleep, food will be served if they wake up, a man is free to dance as he wishes in his little yellow bubble as long as these conditions are preserved.
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AN— maybe putting the baby and kathleen together means he's putting her in its care?

Engineering, of all things

“Singing in hard wind / Ceaselessly;” “I don’t like you anymore,” she told her. Just because my man can trace your jaw doesn’t mean he can draw, but wow can he count the hairs on your other cheek, given time, your leave, and a staple wire stretched out. I will talk to this teacher because yes, granted, you can’t have rust in the refugee box, but tuna’s no reason to embarrass anyone in the morning assembly. Like your mother says, talking to them does nobody any good—Kathleen, least of all—for the gesture opens up your “narrow hands” to close encounters of the unrequited kind, unpaid loans, a heart. I’m still here, Ma’am, because that child called my youngest by name, then—having drawn her attention—shut the screen on her face. Not only do I like it, Mish, I can kiss this Elsa portrait! Not only is the scaffolding less imposing, it’s also less sad. The semi- / dignity. [6] Taking comfort in the last syllable of “dismantle” which folds in the dark, not rocking (that’s trite), just, you know, waiting by the door for the next knock, someone calling for lessons: “put this on top of that; must be some clanging right about now, right . . . here.” For who can close this with care.

Laban sa Labsong

Nitong a-25 ng Pebrero, sa halip na makiusyoso sa mga nagdidilawang liwasan, nag-FB kami ni Hani upang bisitahin ang tula ni Alexander Martin Remollino. Nakasama namin sa usapang ito sina Rogene, Tilde, at syempre, hindi pwedeng umabsent si Aris! Heto ang tula, at pagkatapos, ang naging palitan namin:

Sa Aking Panulat

Huwag sanang tulutan ng tadhana
na ako'y lisanin mo sa gitna ng digma.
Ikaw ang aking maso
sa pagpanday ng isang bayan
kung saan walang taong parang asong nakagapos
habang hinihimod ang paa ng kung sino,
kung saan ang mga tao
ay mga mulawing lahat at di mga kawayan.
Ngunit kung ang iuukit mo lamang sa papel
ay ang mga kahangalang iniluluwa ng mga bibig
ng mga nagpapapansin sa kanilang kasintahan o manliligaw,
mabuti pang ang mga kamay ko'y magkadurug-durog sa riles
o kaya'y tamaan ng isang libong lintik
upang ika'y di ko na mahawakan pa.

H— Interesting yung mga ganitong pagtula sa isang inanimate object (assuming lapis o bolpen o pluma) na parang may sarili itong pagpapasya. At ang lakas ng karakter pa nga nitong si panulat. Bukod sa desisyong mag-exist o lumisan, may tendency ding magsariling larga ("ngunit kung ang iuukit mo"). Pero interesting lalo na panimula yung "huwag sanang tulutan ng tadhana." Parang may nase-sense akong similar effect ng "so much depends upon" ni WCW na pagse-set ng parameters kung paano tatratuhin ang tula at pag-aatas ng bigat, this time, ang object ay panulat. Pero ang kaibahan dito, ang "tadhana" bilang powerful na pwersa ay hindi lang ina-acknowledge kundi may, for lack of a term, passive na pagtutol sa tonong prayer pa. Mas interesting, sa bandang huli ay may in-invoke ulit na pwersa pero opensiba/agresibo naman ang prayer, "tamaan ng isang libong lintik". Ang nakakalito, ito ba ay prayer sa iisang tadhana o ito ba ay pagbubuyo sa digmaan ng dalawang magkaiba at magkataliwas na pwersa?

R— Isa sa pinakapaborito kong tula ni Alexander Martin Remollino. Kung bakit nariyan lagi ang buhay na kontradiksyon ng mga mulat na makata - sa pagpapakalunod sa kagustuhang magsulat na lamang at hindi na makisangkot. 'Yung nagpapatuloy dapat na dialektikong relasyon ng craft at ng craftsmen, the former being the immortal piece of the literary world, and the latter being the mortal, vulnerable being of the material universe prone to the mundane existence of words without a greater purpose. The poem speaks volumes and volumes of how we decide each day to be this way. 'Nung una kong nabasa 'tong tulang 'to parang may deja vu effect sakin - 'yung "you get the feeling that you've known this feeling all along". Parang labsong na alam na alam mo na ang himig pero unang beses mo pa lang narinig. Lalo na 'yung "kahit mawalan na ko ng kamay" mode. Ang tindi 'nung imagery, 'nung struggle to be selfless. Parang titser na imbes na tenga ang piningot ay nangurot ng dibdib, nanguha ng stick ng ratan at namalo ng mga malilikot na daliri ng pagkabatang makata.

D— at! dahil nabanggit ang labsong (hehe), gusto kong tutukan yung act/consequence na ito: if foolish hearts ang tula then (a) railroad finger mash or (b) 1000 bolts of lightning! mas willful ang una, parang alam mong yung makata mismo ang maglalatag ng kamay sa riles. mas industriyal din ang hubog (locomotive), teknolohiya. yung ikalawa ay kalikasan, oo, pero may dalawang shades. una, yung 'tadhana'-type nga na nasabi, dahil hindi natural ang kilos ng lintik dito, lightning doesn't strike 2x pero dito, boom x 1000 sa iisang bahagi ng katawan. ikalawa, may hindi maiiwasang alusyon sa liyab ng 1000 sulo

H— Pinagsama-sama sa tula: artifacts ng industriya + kalikasan vs. tao at teknolohiya + sort of gore + romantic not romantic peg = ang steampunk ng imahe!

T— ang tulang ito, ka-tema ng isang kanta ng Datu's Tribe. yung, Hindi ko kayang kumanta ng *samting* na labsong at pangsyota." anyway, ang nasa top agad ng aking head, immediate after mabasa ang tula ay WILL. may will ang makata na gumow against nung tadhana, dahil nais niyang matanganan ang ideyal na maso---yong hindi labidabi shit. may will din ang makatang ipaubaya na lamang sa pwersang tulad ng lintik ang labidabi na maso, dahil siya, bilang makata, hindi niya kayang talikuran ang panulaan. iba, outside pwersa, ang dapat umutas, sakaling maging labidabi ang maso. naalala ko [sori personal, mapupunta sa akin], naisip ko noon, brain fart lang noong kid pa ako: pag nabaliw ako o naging reaksyunaryo, sana patayin na lang ako ng mga tao dahil yun ang nararapat.

A— Tagal na n'yan, a. 2001, lumabas sa v5.0 ng Tinig.com. Isa rin sa pinakaunang seryosong tulang sinulat n'ya. Pamagat din sana ng libro niya ng mga tula na mula 2005 hanggang taong kasalukuyan e naipit sa limbo sanhi ng iba't ibang hindi maipaliwanag na dahilan.

D— Tilde, pero dapat sa riles ng MRT ka dudurugin, sang-ayon sa tula. Kasama ng mga karerista't makasarili ang poetics! Sabi ni Aris (Hi Aris!), 2001 pa ito at kung gayo'y hindi naman pala patutsada sa pagkober ni Bamboo ("at di mga kawayan") ng "Tatsulok"

T— ang messy! pero oks lang, ang metal!

Or, Berrigan and the Whale

3 Pages
by Ted Berrigan
for Jack Collom

DE— Let me just say that my heart skipped a beat when Berrigan's list mentioned the Hunt for the Whale. I read Melville in my youth when no teacher required it of me, and it was one of my greatest reading experiences. In fact, when the line struck me, the whole poem was suddenly flooded by the novel's immense waters. Even the title reminded me of Ahab's own 3 "pages," Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask, petty officers and middlemen on this the grandest and most foolish of ventures.

AN— the first part of the novel is encyclopedic, a sort of melville's a dummies guide to whales, whaling, and the color white (that last part is my fave). formally, they're essays. if i remember right, there should be a good handful of lists in the pequod: what to do with blubber, what to do with whale parts (look up cassock!) and others, a lot of how-tos here and there. starbuck was the most practical of them, the least metaphysical, and he must be partial to these lists. of course ahab would dash them all and have it his way! he has his own list. and his methods of staking the ship to his own TO-DO, his theatrics, his mythic references, that sinister, inert doubloon!

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AN— schopenhauer sounds right in this case. perhaps not only in our reading of the poem but also in berrigan's writing of it.

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[A post was deleted]

DE— Ahab's mission, and this list of ten things to do. They're a whole universe apart in terms of grandeur and scope and yes time (and diction, as I think you're pointing out too). Though they're both America, that much is true. And maybe I'm forgetting (and you've reminded me) that the creation of this poem is itself the hunt for the whale.

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AN— it could be a key to this, i agree. one among many, i'm sure bec of the nature of the poem, but still, a welcome entrance!

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DE— The last lines after NO HELP WANTED doesn't seem like things you do every day. There's the heart attack, the medal of honor, the house in the country: these are things to aspire to, such that every day builds up to them. I guess in the back of the psyche there's something that gnaws, a less obvious, less acceptable desire, something more Quixotic (forgive the mixed references though I'm fairly certain Melville the sailor was likewise referencing Cervantes the sailor), therefore more grand than any desire. Still, there's that other thing. Ahab was all about revenge. Could this be the hidden motive (motif) of the poem? Berrigan's revenge on US conservatism (prosaic, sorry!), it's pretensions, how if it has any greatness in it, you'll find it solely in the shortcomings? For some deep yearning here is unanswered (WCW on the poem: for lack of which people die miserably every day). Which brings us back to the port of poem as whale as poem.

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AN— and maybe beyond the revenge of the poem is the vindictive life. like Berrigan was saying something like: I won't get with your program folks! my poker, my lunch poems these fly in the face of your congressional medal of honor!

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DE— Forgive the re-post here; I'd like the Mates in my ship as well. I tried to read Berrigan by using the 3 MATES of Ahab (as you suggested). There's something there, though not so clear-cut, but perhaps the others can make more of it.

Here it goes. Melville's Pequod is a ship of symbols (although it can be read as a driven narrative even without any eye for allegory, we thus have movies of it here and there) and as such is a very symmetrical construct. The 3 MATES can be read as the stages of the human brain: 1st mate STARBUCK is the voice of reason, the schooled one, a pragmatist at heart. 2nd mate STUBB is much less refined, but in moments of clarity he embodies a folk sort of wisdom. Nevertheless, he's more Gung-Ho and is thus more open to the seductions of Ahab. But 3rd mate Flask has practically sold his soul to Ahab even without him asking for it, and since it's clear we're moving down the brain here, Flask is more bile and vengeance; he really takes the whales personally.

Beer? Jack off? Curse? Probably Flask. hunker down, quite merrily, life goes by: We could probably get a whiff of Stubb's pipe here (though he seems to be smoking with Flask in the earlier parts too). Which means that the last, where happiness is not happiness but something negotiated with weather (sails?), that could be Starbuck there, the only dissenting voice when the ship went mad with Ahab's bloodlust. He's the one with his eye still on Mary, his wife, their "house in the country," their nameless son.

But all of their tempers and powers taken singly or together: NOT ENOUGH

—

DE— Others in the forum say that it's part of the incompleteness, the "NOT ENOUGH"

Poem says that it's a list of 10, but it doesn't always add up (though it depends on who's counting), almost always amounting to but nine items. In the anthology, it physically takes 2 pages, though it says three. So 3 pages follows that logic. (An aside, Calvino's "Six Memos" contains only five, suggesting we write the last one, perhaps that's the case here too? Add your page. Or add your thing-to-do?)

The others cut the poem into three, following the sectioning suggested by those phrases with purely capitalized letters. What do you think? Perhaps there's an important 3-page document somewhere in American history we should know about?

Anyway, I'm glad to have to think on it/ of it. Hope this helps.

—

DE— Hi! It's an idea I got from your 3 ages thread. I hope I didn't misquote you. But yes, put like that I see that it somehow not only "clusters" but "furthers" all the cutting that's already been done in/by the poem.

AN— a very good idea. the more you read it that way, the more the 3 "sets" or "pages" distinguish themselves from each other

—

DE— True and tragic, how the persona "can't even find that wholeness in the lifestyle of other Americans." He lists everything that everyone else is about but comes out empty-handed. Even with fame and security thrown in at the last breath.

AN— perhaps because fame and security was offered in the list? maybe that made it worse somehow?

—

DE— It's hard (for me) to put the whiteness of the whale out of the picture when inside North Am Lit, but because Berrigan does it in cuts he could evade full reference (as an epigram wouldn't, or a direct quote) and that sometimes makes for more richness, a more textured reading. Perhaps the "paging" I did with the mates was a stretch as well. But it was such fun doing it.

—

AN— the openness of a cropped line is interesting. that's probably why I loved not only following Tzara's instructions but reading the works of people who did. and now that Berrigan gives us a project like this, it's wonderful to welcome all associations in the tapestry of meaning

—

DE— Ishmael as the sailor behind (or grafted into) Berrigan's persona, that's promising. What a bummer to miss this, so: thanks! Ishmael's more laissez faire, a down and out man, going where the wind would take him. Melville must have been trying his damnedest to draw a blank of a character, someone who'd soak in the whole Pequod, all its men and methods then live to tell the tale. Ishmael is a survivor (the survivor) of the mad quest, and his presence could change the motif from revenge to just pure survival, openness, going at it one day at a time.

AN— she is on to something. Pip also is mad(dened) enough to deserve a second look as an intertext of this poem

—

AN— hegemonic parameters of quality? are you saying they are the gold standard of poets of the time? and that they are oppressive somehow as influence goes? if i hear from you, thanks

—

DE— I do love Berrigan too. He and Corman and Armantout, they're great "finds" for me, and only made possible by "This".

AN— perelman too now, and bernstein and hejinian

—

DE— I saw this a bit late, here's the summary of some hypotheses offered earlier:

1) NOT ENOUGH. 3 Pages makes you look for a page that isn't there (the poem takes up only two in a book), the texts and contexts from which these lines have been cut. It highlights the insufficiency of the list, perhaps also of listing, maybe of poetry.

2) 3 SECTIONS. Some believe that lines such as "BY THE WATERS OF MANHATTAN" cut the poem physically into three.

3) That the title refers to 3 PAGES known only to Berrigan (and other such "hidden" readings).

AN— or there are (at least) 3 ways of looking at everything here. maybe read/ lunch/ poems are three pages more than enough!

—

DE— Thanks!

Usapang Oppen

Nitong Enero lang, nagkaroon kami ni Hani Julien ng daldalang online tungkol sa tulang "If It All Went Up in Smoke" ni George Oppen. Nakakuha akong permiso upang ilabas ang kanyang bahagi ng balitaktakan. Simulan natin sa mismong tula:

that smoke
would remain

the forever
savage country poem's light borrowed

light of the landscape and one's footprints praise

from distance
in the close
crowd all

that is strange the sources

the wells the poem begins

neither in word
nor meaning but the small
selves haunting

us in the stones and is less

always than that help me I am
of that people the grass

blades touch

and touch in their small

distances the poem
begins

D— Oppen! Pwede ka nang bumuo ng sariling poetics (for life) based on these three lines alone: "neither in word / nor meaning but the small / selves haunting"

H— Lakas maka-meta nito ser. Kaaliw. Yung mga putol at pag-hold back, bits and pieces ng thoughts at imagery, at yan ngang, "small / selves haunting," brings to mind yung idea ng poetry as the subject of itself. Parang lutang lang at "we are infinite" ang peg sa kabuuan. Hehe

D— yung meta talaga nito, hindi maiiwasan. poetry does not merely represent experience, but is itself experience. kaso parang kalahati lang ng tula kung hindi matitingnan yung mga bahaging hindi naman (entirely) solipsistic. tulad nung from distance / in the close / crowd all. i suppose distance is subject position, tas yung "close" ay yung tula? pero, ayun nga: "crowd all" so either isinisiksik sa tula ang lahat o umaalagwa ang tula sa pangkalahatan. well, ang saya, tama ka, holding back. kaya ayun, ambivalence. so heto i'm looking at "distances the poem" in at least two ways bec of your "we are infinite"

H— Ka-inspire nga po yung comment ng tula sa proseso ng pagtula na ginagawa na niya mismo sa tula.

"the sources

the wells the poem begins
neither in word
nor meaning but the small
selves haunting"

Habang yung tula e mukhang nagho-holdback lang kaya nagpuputol, pwede ring kine-cleanse nya yung sarili nya, sini-sift o pina-pound, "us in the stones and is less" tas yung mga susunod na linya, ayan na, "blades touch / and touch in their small / distances the poem / begins," as if sinasabi na pag nasala na yung moments, at ang meron ka na lang ay view nung mga maliliit na pagitan between blades of grass touching in small distances--parang ito rin yung "crowd all" na nagsisiksikan and yet umaalagwa--sa ganyang kondisyon lumalabas yung poem na "infinite". Hehe. Tas ang reader, mare-realize na nga lang na parang buhay buhay lang din ito.

Stray observation: yung "of that people the grass / blades touch", reference din po kaya kay Whitman?

D— tiyak yun! people of the grass ang dating sa akin niyan, so poets esp of the whitmanian stripe. or pwede ring artists in general in the sense of grass = jutes, haha

digress lang, pero ang dating sa akin nung blades touch at saka nung siwang sa pagitan ng blades (small distances) ay parang yung unang image dito sa some trees ni ashbery, yung mga dahon ng puno, tsaka yung siwang sa pagitan nila na sabay at mutual ang konsepto ng distance at joining (at na sa mutuality na ito ibinabase ang tula, kung hindi pa nga mismo ang lahat ng talastasang posible)

Some Trees
by John Ashbery

These are amazing: each
Joining a neighbor, as though speech
Were a still performance.
Arranging by chance

To meet as far this morning
From the world as agreeing
With it, you and I
Are suddenly what the trees try

To tell us we are:
That their merely being there
Means something; that soon
We may touch, love, explain.

And glad not to have invented
Some comeliness, we are surrounded:
A silence already filled with noises,
A canvas on which emerges

A chorus of smiles, a winter morning.
Place in a puzzling light, and moving,
Our days put on such reticence
These accents seem their own defense.

H— "Merely being there" bilang communication. Communicating in silence/stillness, or more of, ang communication ay nangyayari with and within their context (the trees' distance and joining). Their being in a position where they are "far this morning / From the world as agreeing / With it, you and I" ay conversation and the conversation is communicating something.

Curious yung pagsulpot ng second person, "you and I". Pwedeng "poet and reader," or "poet and a specific person." Pero pwedeng character lang din naman ito tinuturing as in "agreeing / with it, you and I", and not necessarily the poet breaking the nth wall.

Pero ang pinakamabentang mensahe e yung pag-juxtapose sa emergence ng noise, happy noises, in fact, and yet the kind na hindi nagko-communicate the way the stillness--the joining and aloofness--of the trees does. Pasalamat pala tayo sa trees, poetry, art! Dahil without art, ang matitira na lang sa earth ay "eh". Haha

Sa kabilang dako, ang sakit sa bangs lang magbasa, parang kelangan naka-squint ka lagi na parang may sinisipat sa pagitan ng trees. Hehe

Re: Whitman at "grass people". Iba rin yata ang tama ng leaves kay Oppen kasi matahimik at naghoholdback unlike Whitman, at iba pang alagad, for example, Ginsberg.

D— objectivism daw ang diskarte ni Oppen. pag-aaralan ko pa lang ito at hindi ko pa lubusang maipapaliwanag, pero mukhang malaki ang utang nito sa imagism nina williams, pound, et al at ng modernism nina eliot, pound et al na parehong imposible kung wala si whitman. pero itong mga spare versification na andaming gaps, mukhang mga anak ni dickinson ang mga ganyan. nga lang, (pa)intimate masyado ang grass ni whit: what i assume you shall assume, na clearly hindi (lamang) ito ang stance na gusto ni Oppen (at baka rin ni ashbery, at least sa some trees) may distances daw dapat, may squinting of eyes effect (ika mo nga). at yun parang naghanap sila ng form na makukuha yung sense na yun ng distance plus communion . . . or better yet, (baka) distance plus recognition of distance (poetry?) equals communion. kaya heto ang mga gaps, masasayang enjambment. pero may mga tinanggal ding espasyo kay oppen dahil walang punctuation (of that people the grass)

or art mismo ang communion/solidarity, hence ... "Dahil without art, ang matitira na lang sa earth ay 'eh'."

H— Iba pa ba ito sa objectivism ni Ayn Rand? HAHA. Kasi I assume ibang-iba. LOL

Defensive yung Wikipedia entry: "Note that while the name is similar to Ayn Rand's school of philosophy, the two movements are not affiliated, and are, in fact, radically different." Haha *basa*

D— took me some time to find this, but oppen's ballad gives us what could be a very overt anti-academic stance ("The rocks outlived the classicists") that was to be a sort of objectivist seal

Ballad
by George Oppen

Astrolabes and lexicons
Once in the great houses—

A poor lobsterman

Met by chance
On Swan's Island

Where he was born
We saw the old farmhouse

Propped and leaning on its hilltop
On that island
Where the ferry runs

A poor lobsterman

His teeth were bad

He drove us over that island
In an old car

A well-spoken man

Hardly real
As he knew in those rough fields

Lobster pots and their gear
Smelling of salt

The rocks outlived the classicists,
The rocks and the lobstermen's huts

And the sights of the island
The ledges in the rough sea seen from the road

And the harbor
And the post office

Difficult to know what one means
—to be serious and to know what one means—

An island
Has a public quality

His wife in the front seat

In a soft dress
Such as poor women wear

She took it that we came—
I don't know how to say, she said—

Not for anything we did, she said,
Mildly, 'from God'. She said

What I like more than anything
Is to visit other islands...

H— May naaalala po ako dito na tula na nabuklat sa isang high school textbook sa Calamba (CEGP activity yon. Haha). Not sure kung Teo Antonio pero kilalang makata ito. Basta ang title nya ay parang "Ang Paaralan" o "Ang Aking Paaralan" tas ang nagsasalita ay mangingisda, kinekwento yung experience at mga aral nya sa laot, tipong, ang kanyang lapis ay [insert pamalakaya tool/terminology], ang kanyang papel ay [insert same same]. Traditional ballad sigurong maituturing yung pagkekwento though di ko na pinansin ang form. (Kinopya ko sa isang notebook yun, hanapin ko later for comparison. Hehe)

Ang curious ako ulit ay sa kumento nya sa proseso/experience ng pagsulat at pagbasa ng tula at sa panulaan mismo. Mas klaro at walang bitiw sa imagery ito sa kabuuan e, kumpara dun sa "If It All Went Up in Smoke" at "Some Trees." Tempting na sundan lang yung kwento/anecdote, at of course, talinghaga. But no. Can't be. Masangsang ang simoy sa isla.

So I had to Wiki and relearn ballad at i-explore pa yung historical context. Haha. Obviously, hindi pormang ballad yung tula pero yung subject matter, bilang anecdote nga ng rural life, ay pam-ballad. Then na-realize ko na mas hindi pa nga yun ang fishy e. Mas yung public character ng ballad versus canon/classics, at yung irony na ang ballad naman bilang porma ay galing din sa lab ng academe tas na-popularize (not sure about this but if it's the other way around, ang klaro e yung porma pa rin ay isang tradition/convention at hindi natural na paraan ng pag-objectify sa mundo).

So ang anti-academic stance ay yung dunong mula sa islang ito, sa mga batuhang ito, na hindi maitatanggi ng poor lobsterman who "knew in those rough fields / Lobster pots and their gear / Smelling of salt", na "The rocks outlived the classicists," etcetera. Narito ang mga salita, ang mga panukat... na kahit yung poet ay mahihirapang gagapin kung hindi danas (very Whitmanian, I think).

Kaya dun sa part na nagsalita na yung wife, alam na natin kung paano kinaaadikan at dyino-dyos ang public quality ng isla pero at the same time, gusto ring takasan/layasan ito. (LSS! Argh.)

"She took it that we came—
I don't know how to say, she said—

Not for anything we did, she said,
Mildly, 'from God'. She said

What I like more than anything
Is to visit other islands..."

At ang pagtakas/paglayas, kahit pansamantala, ay kita na rin sa kung paano ito ginawa ng tula sa sarili nya. (mga dash, napuputol na train of thought, lumilipad na isip, etc.)

I guess yun din yung objectivist seal? Gawing guinea pig ang mismong tula ng stance/poetics/politics? Tulad ng "Our days put on such reticence / These accents seem their own defense." ni Ashbery kung saan ang "still performance"/siwang at joining (these accents) ng trees, which I assume, ang tula, and being that this whole canvas is in itself an object, is also its own defense?

Whew. Parang gusto ko muna pradyekin yung mga imagist. Hindi ko pa nabasa si Ezra Pound, mas Williams lang pero hindi ganito kadugo. Haha

D— madugo rin si williams, pero so far mas gusto ko ang "dugo" ni oppen. maganda yung pagbasa mo sa ballad at sa pag-angkin ng piyesang ito sa pormang iyon. gusto ko talaga na biglang nagsalita yung wife, pagkatapos ng pa-astrolabe effect ni poet, ng pagpokus sa lobsterman at sa isla, biglang nagsalita na yung wife na kung tutuusin bukod sa gustong umalis ay gusto ring maranasan naman ang maging turista, ang maging perceiver i suppose as opposed to just perceived (by tourist, classicist, and even the oppen persona . . . baka nga pati ng lobsterman hubby nya)

H— Bukod sa gustong umalis ay maranasan ang maging turista. Hehe. Oo nga. Ayos. Hindi ko pa naman nabasa si Williams nang masinsinan bilang imagist, more of leisurely lang in comparison kay Whitman, which was such a relief. Haha. Nahatak lang talaga ako nung Oppen poem. Intense.

THE FOURTH PANE: Observations on "Young Woman at a Window"

I have posted previous discussions of William Carlos Williams, one regarding "Danse Russe" and another on "Smell". I have also translated three of his pieces into Filipino ("Marriage", "XXII", and "Between Walls"), perhaps only one of which may be considered a success. Today, I wish to post a paper I once submitted comparing two versions of his one poem:

 

Williams's second version of this poem provides a solid example of imagism, of poetry aspiring to the impact and clarity of sculpture. It is "more imagist" than the first: a better cadence has been fleshed out, a superior condensation of sounds presented. Common words have been arranged in 1 to 3-syllable lines and paired into 4 to 5-syllable couplets. We observe no punctuation marks and find only "She", the first word, capitalized (more tangible than the "While" of version 1). The poem sounds like one sentence, but it's been cut near-evenly into five successive aspects of a single scene, a still of two people.

This truncated, unpunctuated arrangement departs from traditional forms such as sonnets and ballads. It maintains a lack of embellishment, adjectival description, sentimentality, even narrative and characterization, or at least the old manner of telling stories through lyric. In lieu of all these, we receive fresh cadence, meaningful enjambment, a view of five panes, a new logic of lineation. From these givens, we can derive the image.

The first couplet sets the scene and also establishes a presence (the capital S "She") as well as an absence after "with". Later, we learn that a child is with her, but this dangling "with" suspends his presence with a blank space. Come the next line, "tears" take over, again, with an absence of cause after "on". The second couplet is a pair of cheeks, perhaps the woman's. The couplet shows her being doubled by the child or the reflection on the window (this window crystallizes less effectively in version #1).

Like the second, the third couplet is composed of two halves of different, adjacent clauses (like a face halved by the pane and within that pane, joined to another half). The reader's eye moving from cheek to hand. Also, the hand "becomes" the child, or perhaps his claims on the "hand" of the woman, his provider and protector. Likewise, this juxtaposition could mean the child as a physical and psychic extension of the mother.

The pairing in the fourth couplet is interesting, how "her lap" engages "his nose", how "his nose" could be blocking "her lap" from other possibilities, or how this unity gives the woman her singular consolation (I find "in her lap/his nose" a more definite, concrete alternative to "his theft" in version #1). The fifth couplet closes the scene: the woman cries, the child looks out the window. The window offers the child a view of other scenes, things, possibilities, but it blocks "his nose". It locks him in with her, both "pressed/to the glass" for our observation, for Williams's composition.

Exactly like the poem, the transparent, semi-reflective surface of the window shows spliced, superimposed images and reflections, multiplying the scene with a great thrift of images (She, tears, cheeks, hand, child, nose, glass). Through this, we are free to read hopes, causes, relationships, and pain from the generous blank spaces that are also of the poem.

On "Smell"

Read or listen to "Smell" by William Carlos Williams.

—

DE— Not to undermine your point—and I will try to think it through using your terms later—but after reading "Danse Russe" and hearing about WCW's domestic situation, I believe "souring rose" might also mean not the women as individuals but the nature of his relations with them: covert and illegitimate relations, unacceptable things to smell (and love)? But yes, it's interesting, thinking of it in your terms, that the nose smelling "souring flowers" (was it an essay by Benjamin Franklin that also encouraged relations with elder women, wiser women?) turned off the younger "girls".

—

—

DE— Maybe the multiplicity of meanings is necessary here (as in Dickinson) because of the explicit aim of possessing everything (as in the number of windows in the house of Possibility) within a very short compass. Whitman had 52 cantos to make his case for him, but Williams here has only a handful of words. I found refreshing the points that led to the post-coital reading as well as the girls veering away from man and nose out of association.

—

—

—

—

—

GE— Your points are well taken. They're also discussing the misogyny of 'Smell'.

—

—

—

DE— Perhaps moreso the ones with experience! Moreso other noses (female counterparts) that desire everything as well

—

GE— Didn't think it was possible for anyone alive to pull that off!

—

—

—

DE— This info on poplar flowers lends the poem better to the imagination.

—

—

A "Danse Russe" Thread

Here's the poem discussed below.

DE— What do we get from this grotesque dance? Who is the persona (or Williams himself dancing to? He (or in his imagination) is dancing in front of the mirror, the shades drawn. The Danse Russe is locked away from view, yes, yet he publishes the scene (or the imagination of the scene) into a poem where the public sees the silken mists and, to a certain extent, his flanks and arms. Also, he is asking an open question about the very scene which he closed off from anyone else. It seems to me that by writing this poem, he dutifully and conscientiously performs a performative contradiction. Does this provide a meaningful angle for reading this poem?

—

DE— That's a koan, I think. No one was around to hear the tree fall, but we're around to hear someone talking about the tree falling (and no one hearing), and so in a way, it does make a sound. In this poem, he becomes an exhibitionist (and we voyeurs) but several times removed from the act of exhibition.

AN— several?

DE— Many times removed, yes. First, as pointed out by the vid discussion, it probably did not happen. Just a hypothetical situation in the mind of the persona (that it's a persona is also an additional remove). Even if it did happen, we're shut off from it like his own sleeping family. Even if he published the poem, it's only so he can tell us that we're thus removed from this. He's fully aware of the strength of his image and how far he can tease before he gives out his open question (who-shall-say...).

—

AN— that's right. by default, one dances "with" somebody, though people also dance to audiences and for the sake of queens, etc. what if the reading that the Danse Russe is a metaphor for poetry (that this poet, like most poets, writes when nobody's looking, an act of undressing and maybe joy, but distanced from partners and audience, therefore not entirely joyful?) led to the phrasing of this question as "dancing to," like "writing to" . . ?

—

—

DE— Thank you. Your word "witness" reminds me of another genius who danced grotesquely. King David danced naked in the streets. His wife called on God to witness the debasement before the Ark. A string of misfortunes would befall the House of David after this. I have to revisit these verses to make sure I summarized them correctly.

AN— you think that intertext was intended by the author?

DE— I believe so, yes.

AN— there should be some thread or other devoted to that intertext alone. anyway, thanks for sharing it

—

DE— Stravinsky's sprawling score! "Spring" sounds about right (and there's the WCW fixation on that particular season). Your reading accounts for why the image is so indelible now. It plays along quite well, in my view, of the professor's definition of the word "genius" as originator, creator. It plays somehow with the Eden parting scene too, I guess, Adam stripping off the clothes with which he was covered by God.

—

—

DE— This discussion of the actual danse russe and its effects make for a richer reading.

—

AN— scandal is a nice word to contemplate in the suburbs. it's why those curtains are down! it has to be part of what this 'genius' is dancing against

GE— When I first read the title I thought it was a very clever play on words and how both meanings of the tittle can fit the poem so well. I think of how in a suburbia you are supposed to be living a tranquil normal life but all in all it's just a facade.

—

—

—

AN— what's a chastushka, btw? i mean, as a poem. see, you're saying that william's poem that incorporates a dance actually used a dance that incorporates a poem!

—

GE— What will make it a bit more interesting is that some of the Danse Russe samples also has poetry in them as well. So it's really a pas de deux between poetry and danse at this point.

—

—

DE— Agree! Esp. with your #2. With being in denial though, it becomes more complicated because he seems ultra-aware of being in denial. Awareness somehow doubles the negation. Maybe that's another function of the mirror in the scene.

—

DE— Or, his inner child?

—

DE— This seems one of the central questions of the poem, but only if he does see writing-to-be-heard as a contradiction to writing-to-unload. Other poets (confessional poets usually) see them as quite compatible. Misery loves an audience. I guess WCW feels these two modes grating against each other.

—

GE— That's sad. That part where he answers his own question.

BENEVOLENT ASSIMILATION: Mga gupit at saling-Google mula sa ilang napapanahong makata

CRANE 1871—1900
Oo, mayroon akong isang libong wika,
Kahit na ako ay nagsusumikap upang gamitin ang isa,
Ngunit patay sa aking bibig.


McKINLEY 1843—1901
Ang pagkawasak ng Spanish fleet sa daungan ng Manila sa pamamagitan ng
Panghuli, dapat ito ang maalab wish
Islands sa ilalim ng libreng bandila ng Estados Unidos.


LOWELL 1874—1925
Pininturahan ko ang isang larawan ng isang ghost
Ang mga tao ay magyumukyok
Swimming sa mga ulap.


FREYTAG-LORINGHOVEN 1874—1927
Walang spinsterlollypop para sa akin - oo - mayroon kami
Ito ay sa France - ang hangin sa linya -
Isang dosenang cocktail - mangyaring -- -- -- --


ROBINSON 1869—1935
Tuwing Richard Cory ay nagpunta down na bayan,
Upang gumawa ng sa amin nais na kami sa kanyang lugar.
Nagpunta tahanan at maglagay ng bullet sa pamamagitan ng kanyang ulo.


STEIN 1874—1946
Ano ang kasalukuyang na gumagawa ng makinarya, na ginagawang kaluskos ito,
Ano ang kasalukuyang.
Line A Tinutukoy lamang ito.


STEVENS 1879—1946
Ang mga bahay ay pinagmumultuhan
Upang managinip ng mga baboons at periwinkles.
Sa pulang panahon.


DOOLITTLE 1886—1961
Rose, malupit rosas,
sa malulutong na buhangin
hardened sa isang dahon?


FROST 1874—1963
Isang bagay na may na hindi ibigin ng pader,
Mayroon kaming gumamit ng spell upang gawing balanse:

Sabi niya muli, "Magandang fences gumawa ng magandang kapitbahay."

WILLIAMS 1883—1963
sa likod pakpak
ay lalaki kasinungalingan
bote


ELIOT 1888—1965
I
Abril ang cruellest na buwan, dumarami
Ang ginang ng bansa ng mga sitwasyon.
Sa iyo! mapagpaimbabaw lecteur!-Lun semblable,-Lun Frere! "

II
Ang upuan siya nakaupo sa, tulad ng burnished trono,
Makikita niya gusto mong malaman kung ano ang iyong na pera na ibinigay niya sa iyo
Magandang gabi, mga kababaihan, magandang gabi, matamis ladies, magandang gabi, magandang gabi.

III
Tent ang ilog ay nasira: ang huling daliri ng dahon
Saan fishmen Lounge sa tanghali: kung saan ang mga pader
nasusunog

IV
Phlebas ang Phoenician, isang labing-apat na araw patay,
At profit at pagkawala.
Isaalang-alang ang Phlebas, na ay sabay-sabay na guwapo at matangkad habang ikaw.

V
Matapos ang tanglaw-liwanag na pula sa pawisan mukha
O sa mga alaala na draped sa pamamagitan ng spider ang mabait
     
              Shantih     shantih     shantih


POUND 1885—1972
O henerasyon ng lubusan hambog
                                  Nakita ko ang kanilang mga smiles puno ng ngipin
                 at hindi kahit sariling damit.


MOORE 1887—1972
Ako, masyadong, hindi gusto ito: may mga bagay na mahalaga higit pa sa lahat ng
o magtangi laban ng 'Mga dokumento sa negosyo at
tunay, ikaw ay interesado sa tula.


RANSOM 1888—1974
Kaya kinuha niya sa kanya bilang anoint
Masarap na amoy, tikman, Heats at treasons:
At recited, "ay magaling."

XXII

ni William Carlos Williams
aking salin

napakaraming nakasalalay
sa

pulang
karetilyang

pinakintab ng tubig
ulan

katabi ng mga puting
manok.

Kasal

ni William Carlos Williams
aking salin

Lubhang magkaiba, itong lalake
At itong babae:
Batis na dumadaloy
Sa parang.

Pagitan ng mga Dingding

ni William Carlos Williams
aking salin

sa mga pakpak
sa likuran ng

ospital kung saan
walang

uusbong nakalapag
ang mga baga

kung saan kumikinang
ang mga basag

na piraso ng luntiang
bote