[New-Poetry] On realism

[David Graham]

Coupla poems with the same title, from very different slants, that  
are relevant to pondering poetry, imagery, & experience.  I wonder if  
Milosz & Clark ever had much to do with each other out there in  
Berkeley. . . .

Realism

The smashed weirdness of the raving cadenzas of God
Takes over all of a sudden
In our time. It speaks through the voices of talk show moderators.

It tells us in a ringing anthem, like heavenly hosts uplifted,
That the rhapsody of the pastoral is out to lunch.
We can take it from there.

We can take it to Easy Street.
But when things get tough on Easy Street
What then? Is it time for realism?

And who are these guys on the bus
Who glide in golden hats past us
On their way to Kansas City?

--Tom Clark.  Light and Shade: New and Selected Poems. Coffee House  
Press, 2006.
===========

Realism

We are not so badly off, if we can
Admire Dutch painting.  For that means
We shrug off what we have been told
For a hundred, two hundred years.  Though we lost
Much of our previous confidence.  Now we agree
That those trees outside the window, which probably exist,
Only pretend to greenness and treeness
And that the language loses when it tries to cope
With clusters of molecules.  And yet, this here:
A jar, a tin plate, a half-peeled lemon,
Walnuts, a loaf of bread, last--and so strongly
It is hard not to believe in their lastingness.
And thus abstract art is brought to shame,
Even if we do not deserve any other.
Therefore I enter those landscapes
Under a cloudy sky from which a ray
Shoots out, and in the middle of dark plains
A spot of brightness glows.  Or the shore
With huts, boats, and on yellowish ice
Tiny figures skating.  All this
Is here eternally, just because once it was.
Splendor (certainly incomprehensible)
Touches a cracked wall, a refuse heap,
The floor of an inn, jerkins of the rustics,
A broom, and two fish bleeding on a board.
Rejoice!  Give thanks!  I raised my voice
To join them in their choral singing,
Amid their ruffles, collets, and silk skirts,
One of them already, who vanished long ago.
And our song soared up like smoke from a censer.

--Czeslaw Milosz.  Facing the River.  Trans. Milosz and Robert Hass.   
Manchester: Carcanet, 1995: 30.





========================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu

Home Page:
http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/About%20Me.html

Poetry Library:
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==========================================



On Jun 18, 2007, at 11:18 AM, David Graham wrote:

> Relevant article here, from American Poetry Review:
>
> http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3692/is_199507/ai_n8728185/ 
> pg_1
>
>
>
>
> ========================================
> David Graham
> grahamd at ripon.edu
>
> Home Page:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/About%20Me.html
>
> Poetry Library:
> http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
> ==========================================
>
>
>
> On Jun 18, 2007, at 10:43 AM, Linda Sue Grimes wrote:
>
>> I don't think the issue is at all tangled:  poetry does render  
>> experience; it does not create it.  If Hart Crane says poetry  
>> creates experience instead of rendering it, he is wrong.
>>
>> lsg
>
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