contemporary american poetry - gbv · contemporary american poetry sixth edition edited by a....

21
CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN POETRY SIXTH EDITION Edited by A. Poulin, Jr. State University of New York, College at Brockport HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY BOSTON TORONTO Geneva, Illinois Palo Alto Princeton, New Jersey

Upload: others

Post on 01-May-2020

10 views

Category:

Documents


0 download

TRANSCRIPT

CONTEMPORARYAMERICAN POETRY

SIXTH EDITION

Edited by A. Poulin, Jr.

State University of New York,

College at Brockport

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY BOSTON TORONTOGeneva, Illinois Palo Alto Princeton, New Jersey

Contents

Contemporary American Poetry: A Chronology xxixPreface xxxi

A. R. AMMONSApologia Pro Vita Sua 3He Held Radical Light 3Working with Tools 4The Unifying Principle 5Cut the Grass 6The City Limits 6The Eternal City 7White Dwarf 8Distraction • 8Breaking Out 9Extrication 9Volitions x 10Chiseled Clouds 10Loft 11

JOHN ASHBERYOur Youth 13"They Dream Only of America" 14Leaving the Atocha Station 15As You. Came from the Holy Land 17Street Musicians 18Paradoxes and Oxymorons 19Posture of Unease 19My Philosophy of Life 20

MARVIN BELLThey 23White Clover 23The Extermination of the Jews 24from The Escape into You

Homage to the Runner 25To Dorothy 25The Last Thing I Say .̂ 26Drawn by' Stones, by Earth, by Things That Have Been in the

Fire ( ' 26Long Island 27How He Grew Up 28

ix

CONTENTS

Ending with a Line from Lear 29from The Book of the Dead Man

(#1)1 . About the Dead Man 30(#50) 1. About the Dead Man and the Cardboard Box 30

JOHN BERRYMANThe Song of the Tortured Girl 33from The Dream Songs

1 [Huffy Henry]4 [Filling her compact & delicious body]8 [The weather was fine]9 [Deprived of his enemy]

13 [God bless Henry]„ 14 [Life, friends, is boring]

29 [There sat down, once]45 [He stared at ruin]46 [I am, outside]55 [Peter's not friendly]

230 [There are voices]384 [The marker slants]

from Eleven Addresses to the Lord1 [Master of Beauty]

Henry's Understanding

ELIZABETH BISHOPThe Man-MothTheFishThe ArmadilloNorth HavenIn the Waiting RoomOne Art

ROBERT BLYSurprised by EveningWaking from SleepPoem in Three PartsDriving to Town Late to Mail a LetterWatering the HorseCounting Small-Boned BodiesLooking into a FaceThe HermitLooking into a Tide PoolOpening the Door of a Barn I Thought Was Empty on New

Year's Eve

333434353536373738383939

4041

434446474851

535354545455

555556

56

XI

CONTENTS

Insect Heads- 57Passing an Orchard by Train . 57Driving My Parents Horne at Christmas 57For My Son Noah, Ter? Years Old 58At Midocean 58In Rainy September 58Gratitude to Old Teachers 58Poem for James Wright 59Sitting Down to Dinner 60The Beehive 60Warning to the Reader 61

GWENDOLYN BROOKSfrom A Street in Bronzeville

the mother 63a song in the front yard 64of De Witt Williams on his way to Lincoln Cemetery 64

The Lovers of the Poor 65We Real Cool 67An Aspect of Love, Alive in the Ice and Fire 68To Don at Salaam 69Telephone Conversations 69To the Young Who Want to Die 70To Black Women 70

LUCILLE CLIFTONadmonitions • 73miss rosie 73[if i stand in my window] 74the lost baby poem 74god's mood 75[come home from the movies] 76to a dark moses 76cutting greens 76[at last we killed the roaches] , 77homage to my hips 77[there is a girl inside] - 78forgiving my father . 78[here is another bone to pick with you] 79the lost women x 79from tree ofiife 80

adam thinkingeve thinking 80lucifer understanding at last 80

• XII

CONTENTS

wishes for sons 81poem to my uterus , 82lumpectomy eve 82telling our stories 83leaving fox 83

ROBERT CREELEYThe Business 85I Know a Man 85A Form of Women 86A Wicker Basket 87The Flower 88The Rain 88The Memory 89The Rescue 89The Language 90The Window 91On Vacation 92Mother's Voice 92First Love 93

JAMES DICKEYThe Heaven of Animals 95The Performance 96The Hospital Window 97In. the Mountain Tent 99Sled Burial, Dream Ceremony 100The Sheep Child 101Adultery , ~ 103Deer Among Cattle 104False Youth: Autumn: Clothes of the Age 104

RITA DOVENexus 107"Teach Us to Number Our Days" 107Adolescence — III - 108Then Came Flowers, 108In the Bulrush 109A Father Out Walking on the Lawn 109'from Thomas and Beulah

Variation on Pain 110Compendium 111Daystar 111Sunday Greens 112

Mississippi 113

X1U

CONTENTS

Silos N " 114The Breathing, the Endless News 114After Reading Mickey in the Night Kitchen for the Third Time

Before Bed "~~ " " 114The Island Women of Paris 115

ALAN DUGANLove Song: I and Thou 117Tribute to Kafka for Someone Taken 118General Prothalamion for Wartimes 118To a Red-Headed1 Do-Good Waitress . 119For Masturbation 120Fabrication of Ancestors 120Poem [What's the Balm] 121Elegy for a Puritan Conscience 122Prayer (God I need a job) 122On Leaving Town 123On Finding the Tree of Life 123Last Statement for a Last Oracle 124Closing Time at the Second Avenue Deli 124

ROBERT DUNCANPoetry, A Natural Thing 127Ingmar Bergman's Seventh Seal 128Such Is the Sickness of Many a Good Thing 129My Mother Would Be a Falconress 130The Torso Passages 18 ' 132from Dante Etudes 134

The Work 134

LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI[Constantly risking absurdity] 137[Sometime during eternity] 138[The pennycandystore beyond the El] 139Monet's Lilies Shuddering 140Making Love in Poetry 141Ascending over Ohio- 141from The Canticle of feck Kerouac

2 [There is a garden in the memory of America] 1426 [And then Ti-Jehn with Joual tongue] 143

Uses of Poetry ""'--, 144

ISABELLA GARDNERSummers Ago 147Lines to a Seagreen Lover 147

XIV

CONTENTS

In the MuseumThe Widow's Yard _The MilkmanLetter from Slough PondPart of the DarknessOn Looking in the Looking GlassThe AccomplicesThat Was ThenThis Neighborhood

ALLEN GINSBERGHowlAmericaLove Poem on Theme by WhitmanPsalm IIIWales VisitationOn Neal's AshesFourth Floor, Dawn, Up All Night Writing LettersOde to Failure

LOUISE GLUCKCottonmouth CountryLove PoemMessengersThanksgivingThe Drowned ChildrenThe MirrorMock OrangeHyacinthCelestial MusicThe Untrustworthy SpeakerThe Red PoppyThe White Lilies

DONALD HALLChristmas Eve in WhitneyvilleMaple SyrupKicking the LeavesOx Cart Manfrom The Day I Was Older

The PondThe DayThe Cup

148148149150150152153153155

157164166167168170170171

173173173174174175175176178179180180

183184186189

190191191

XV

CONTENTS

When the Young HusbandElbows

MICHAEL S. HARPERNew SeasonBlack StudyHere Where Coltrane IsThe Borning RoomSong: / Want a WitnessNightmare Begins ResponsibilityGrandfatherHealing SongMotel RoomThe Ghost of Soul-making

ROBERT HASSLetterBookbuying in the TenderloinMeditation at LagunitasThe Pure OnesPicking Blackberries with a Friend Who Has Been Reading

Jacques LacanLate SpringA Story About the BodyPrivilege of Beingfrom Dragonflies Mating

5 [This morning in the early sun]HappinessOur Lady of the Snows

ROBERT HAYDENFrederick Douglass '"From the Corpse Woodpiles, from the Ashes"Those Winter SundaysNight, Death, MississippiMonet's "Waterlilies"SoledadThe Night-Blooming CereusThe Prisoners >The Tattooed Man

LINDA HOGANRed ClayThe Truth' IsHeartland

191192

195. 195

196197197198199200201202

205206207207

208209210210

211212213

215215216216218218219221222

225225227

XVI

CONTENTS

To LightPotatoesOur HousesThe Young BoysTwo of HeartsSkin DreamingTwoGreat Measures

RICHARD HUGODeath of the Kapowsin TavernG.I. Graves in TuscanyDegrees of Gray in PhilipsburgMontgomery HollowMontana Ranch AbandonedThe House on 15th S.W.Farmer, DyingThe HilltopHere, but Unable to AnswerDistances

DAVID IGNATOWCommunionSunday at the State HospitalMy PlaceEpitaphThe BagelRescue the DeadAgainst the EvidenceFirst Coffin PoemWaiting Insidefrom Shadowingjhe Ground

1 [The world is so difficult to give up]7 [This is the solution: to be happy with slaughter]9 [Old men spend their days farting]

25 [Here I am] '33 [White-haired, tl walk in on my parents]38 [I would be buried beside my parents]42 [We were an aging couple] \43 [I' don't know which to mourn] •-5 5 [How lonely it is to live]59 [I just know I am growing near to death]66 [Ignatow is dying]67 [I live with my contradictions]

227228229229230231232233

235235236238238239240241242243

245245246247247248248249250

251251251251252252252253253253254254

xvu

CONTENTS

It's a Sick Life 254Wherever 255Myself _ 255

RANDALL JARRELLThe Black Swan 257To the New World 25790 North 259The Snow-Leopard 260The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner 261Eighth Air Force 261A Camp in the Prussian Forest 262The Woman at the Washington Zoo 263The Player Piano 264Women on a Bus 265

DONALD JUSTICELandscape with Little Figures 267Counting the Mad 267Variations for Two Pianos 268Bus Stop 268Men at Forty 269The Missing Person 270Hands 271Poem [This poem is not addressed to you] 272Variations on a Text by Vallejo 273Sonatina in Yellow 274Presences 275Children Walking Home from School Through Good

Neighborhood 275Dance Lessons"bf the Thirties 276Pantoum of the Great Depression 276

GALWAY KINNELLFirst Song 279:On Frozen Fields 279Vapor Trail Reflected in the Frog Pond 280The Bear ' 281from The Book of Nightmares

Under the Maud Moon 284Last Songs 288Saint Francis and the Sow 289from When One Has Lived a Long Time Alone

4 [. . .' one holds the snake] 29010 . . . and the hermit thrush calls] 290

XV11I

CONTENTS

from "The Striped Snake and the Goldfinch"3 [How much do I have left] 290

CAROLYN KIZERfrom Pro Femina

Three [I will speak about women of letters] 293The Ungrateful Garden 294A Widow in Wintertime 295The Copulating Gods 296from The Blessing

I [Daughter-my-mother] 297III [Daughter, you lived through] 298

Bitch 299Afternoon Happiness . 299On a Line from Valery 301

YUSEF KOMUNYAKAAThe Tongue Is 303The Nazi Doll 303Back Then 304Villon/Leadbelly • 305The Music That Hurts 305"You and I Are Disappearing" 306Thanks 306Birds on a Powerline 307Boys in Dresses 308Banking Potatoes 309Homo Erectus 310Epithalamium 311

MAXINE KUMINMorning Swim 313Woodchucks 314How It Is 314The Longing to Be Saved 315The Excrement Poem 316The Grace of Geldings in Ripe Pastures 317In the Pea Patch * • 318Family Reunion 318In the Park X 319Nurture • 320Cross-Cpuntry Skiing 320Spring Training j 321

CONTENTS

STANLEY KUNITZSingle Vision 323Father and Son 324End of Summer 325The War Against the Trees 325Transformations 326Robin Redbreast 327The Artist 328The Portrait 328The Unquiet Ones 329The Wellfleet Whale 329The Abduction 333My Mother's Pears 334

LI-YOUNG LEEThe Gift , 337Eating Alone 338Eating Together 338I Ask My Mother to Sing 339My Indigo 339This Hour and What Is Dead 340The City in Which I Love You 341A Story 346You Must Sing 347

DENISE LEVERTOVThe Jacob's Ladder 349Hypocrite Women 349A Psalm Praising the Hair of Man's Body 350The Wings _ - 351The Altars in the Street 352The Poem Unwritten 353Ways of Conquest 353Wedding-Ring 354The Well 355Stele (I—II c. B.C.) 355Where Is the Angel? - 356The Past III , 357

PHILIP LEVINEAnimals Are Passirig from Our Lives 359To a Child Trapped in a Barber Shop 359Coming Home 360

XX

CONTENTS

StarlightYou Can Have ItThe House ^What Work IsAmong ChildrenThe Simple Truth

JOHN LOGANThree MovesSpring of the ThiefSuzanneLove Poemfrom Poem in Progress

Second Prelude. Reality in Albuquerque: The SonPoem for My BrotherAvocadoHappening on AeginaBelieve It

ROBERT LOWELLColloquy in Black RockChristmas Eve Under Hooker's StatueMemories of West Street and LepkeMan and Wife"To Speak of Woe That Is in Marriage"Skunk HourEye and ToothHistoryHomecomingEpilogue

WILLIAM MATTHEWSThe Search PartyBlues for John Coltrane, Dead at 41Swimming Off Cape HatterasGood NightPissing Off the Back of the Boat into the Nivernais CanalMasterfulPubertyBlue NptesSmoke Gets in Your EyesOnionsMen at My Father's FuneralPractice, Practice, Practice

361362363364365366

369370373374

375376377378378

* 381381382384384385386387388389

391392392393393394395396396397398399

XXI

CONTENTS

JAMES MERRILLAngel 401After Greece __ 401Laboratory Poem 403Charles on Fire 403from Up and Down

The Emerald 404The Victor Dog 406Waterspout 407A Downward Look 408An Upward Look 409

W. S. MERWINThe Drunk in the Furnace 411Dead Hand 411Air 412We Continue 412Some Last Questions 413December Night 414For the Anniversary of My Death 414Tergvinder's Stone 414Do Not Die 416Animula 416A Door 416A Family 417Son 417After the Alphabets . 418Chord 418Witness 419In the Doorway 419White Morning 420Vixen 420

NAOMI SHIHAB NYEThe World in Translation 423Advice 423Streets - 423Spruce Street, Berkeley 424Defining White 425Arabic Coffee . 425The Traveling Onion 426From Here to There 427Arabic ' 427How Palestinians Keep Warm 428

xxuCONTENTS

Texas, the First TimeMy Grandmother in the StarsDarling

FRANK O'HARAAutobiographia LiterariaPoem [All the mirrors]To My Dead FatherMeditations in an EmergencyLebanonBalladThe Day Lady DiedStepsYesterday Down at the CanalPoem [Lana Turner has collapsed]Song

CHARLES OLSONMaximus, to HimselfI, Maximus of Gloucester, to YouThe LibrarianMaximus to Gloucester, Letter 27 [Withheld]A Later Note on Letter #15Moonset, Gloucester, December 1, 1957, 1:58 AM

MARGE PIERCYA Work of ArtificeThe Skyscrapers of the Financial District Dance with GasmanThe Friend .Barbie Doll'To Be of UseYou Ask Why Sometimes I Say StopDigging InTouch Tonesfrom My Mother's Body

3 [What is the mask of skin we wear . . .]Bite into the OnionImaging >

SYLVIA PLATHThe Colossus ,Daddy,Mary's SongNick and the Candlestick

429430430

433433434435436437438439440441441

443444448450452453

455455456456457458459460

461462463

,465466468469

XXI11

CONTENTS

Lady LazarusCutWitch BurningBrasilia

ADRIENNE RICHAunt Jennifer's TigersPlanetariumDiving into the WreckSplittingsfrom Twenty-One Love Poems

II [I wake up in your bed]XII [Sleeping, turning in turn like planets]

XXI [The dark lintels, the blue and foreign stones]IntegrityFor a Friend in TravailReversionAmendsfrom An Atlas of the Difficult World

XIII (Dedications)

THEODORE ROETHKEThe PremonitionCuttingsForcing HouseWeed PullerMy Papa's WaltzElegy for JaneThe Waking "I Knew a WomanMeditation at Oyster RiverIn a Dark TimeIn Evening Air

470473474475

477477479481

483483484484486487488

489

491491491492492493494494495497498

ANNE SEXTONHer Kind ,. 501With Mercy for the Greedy 501To a Friend Whose Work Has Come.to Triumph 502The Abortion - 503Man and, Wife 504In Celebration of My Uterus 505Us . 507

XXIV

CONTENTS

The Fury of Cocks 507Two Hands 508

CHARLES SIMJCPoem 511Dismantling the Silence 511Watermelons 512Toy Factory 512Classic Ballroom Dances 513Northern Exposure 513My Weariness of Epic Proportions 514A Letter 514The Big Machine 515The Big War 516Heights of Folly 516Paradise 517Crazy About Her Shrimp 518Love Flea 518Children of the Storm 519

LOUIS SIMPSONTo the Western World 521In the Suburbs 521Walt Whitman at Bear Mountain 521American Poetry 523After Midnight 523Luminous Night 524The Silent Piano 524from Sacred Objects

1. [I am taking part . . .] 5252. [The light that shines . . .] 525

The People Next Door 526Riverside Drive 528Her Weekend in the Country 528

W. D. SNODGRASSApril Inventory l 531from Heart's Needle

9 [I'get numb and go in] •. 532"After Experience Taught Me . . . " 535from The Fuehrer Bunker

Magda Goebbels (1 May, 1945) 536Dr. Joseph Goebbels (1 May, 1945) 538

XXV

CONTENTS

from Snow Songs

i [one. now another.]iii [White out; white out]

viii [Leaving the snow]A Presence

GARY SNYDERRiprapMilton by FirelightVapor TrailsSong of the TasteI Went into the Maverick BarThe BathAs for PoetsAxe Handles

GARY SOTOfrom The Elements of San Joaquin

FieldRain

SummerHistory .Catalina Trevino Is Really from HeavenTV in Black and WhiteMexicans Begin JoggingEnvying the Children of San FranciscoWho Will Know Us?Old House in My Fortieth Year

WILLIAM STAFFORDAt the Bomb Testing SiteTraveling Through the DarkVocationMy Father: October 1942Across KansasA Family TurnAn Introduction to Some PoemsReport from a Far PlaceThe Stick in the ForestTemporary FactsAssuranceOde to GarlicAnswerers'Things That Happen Where There Aren't Any People

538539540540

543543544545546546549550

553553554554556557558558560561

563563564564565565566567567567568568569569

XXVI

CONTENTS

The Early Ones ! 570Notice What This Poem Is Not Doing 571

GERALD STERNLord, Forgive a Spirit 573AtBickford's 573The Cemetery of Orange Trees in Crete 574The War Against the Jews 575The Shirt Poem 575Weeping and Wailing . 578Romance 578Three Hearts 579Diary 579One Gift 581

MARK STRANDSleeping with One Eye Open 583Old People on the Nursing Home Porch 584Keeping Things Whole 584The Mailman 585Eating Poetry 586The One Song 586Shooting Whales 587Always 589The End 590from Two De Chiricos

2. The Disquieting Muses 590from The Next Time

1. [Nobody sees it happening] 591

LUCIEN STRYKAwakening 593The Cannery 595Summer 596Letter to Jean-Paul Baudot, at Christmas 596Farmer - 597Cherries , 598Exterminator 598Watching War Movies , 599Juggler 600Visiting My Father 600

RICHARD WILBURAdvice to a Prophet 603Love Calls Us to the Things of This World 604

XXVI1

CONTENTS

On the Eyes of an SS OfficerYear's End 'A Baroque Wall-Fountain in the Villa SciarraPotatoA Dubious NightPraise in SummerCottage Street, 1953The WriterTransitHamlen Brook

C. K. WILLIAMSIt Is This Way with MenThen the Brother of the WindThey Warned Him Then They Threw Him AwayFrom My WindowThe CriticThe LadderWarThe ModernDominion: DepressionVillanelle of the Suicide's MotherMy Book, My Book

CHARLES WRIGHTThe New PoemBlackwater MountainSnowEquationReunionAprilDriving Through Tennesseefrom Three Poems for the New Year

2 [How strange it is to awake]3 [All day at the window seat]

Night JournalChickamauga ,Blaise Pascal Lip-Syncs the VoidThe Silent GenerationWinter-Worship

JAMES WRIGHTSaint JudasGondbve to the Poetrv of Calcium

605605606608609610610611612613

615615616616618619619620620621622

625625626626627627627628628628629631631632632

635635

XXV111CONTENTS

As I Step over a Puddle at the End of Winter, I Think of anAncient Chinese Governor 636

Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio 636Lying in a Hammock at William Dufify's Farm in Pine Island,

Minnesota 637The Jewel 637Fear Is What Quickens Me 638A Blessing 638In Response to a Rumor That the Oldest Whorehouse in

Wheeling, West Virginia, Has Been Condemned 639A Poem of Towers 640Beautiful Ohio 640Saying Dante Aloud 641A Small Grove in Torri del Benaco 641The Journey 641Ohioan Pastoral 642Lightning Bugs Asleep in the Afternoon 643

Contemporary American Poetry: The Radical Tradition (Essay) 645Notes on the Poets 667Criticism: A Selected Bibliography 737A Note on the Editor 741Acknowledgments 743