One thing the world never needs and which we all love nonetheless is illegitimate exaltation. In other words, lists in which we claim we know what's best. While I don't personally condone this sort of posturing, I'm not going to act like I don't love to see who says what and then argue about it.
Now I wonder. What do you think was the best poem written in the last decade? I exclude, in my question, poems published in the last decade, because well, someone is always publishing something that contains Lycidas, and I can't say I know of a single better poem than that one. This is, of course, also excluding what I would call "works": your Infernos, your Dark Lady sonnets, your Odysseys.
It seems only fair that I also disqualify "works" that appeared in the last ten years. I would say Anne Carson's Autobiography of Red or any of Frank Bidart's "Hour of the Night" poems are peerless in that regard.
What follows are two poems. The first I will call the best poem written in the last ten years, the second I will call my favorite poem written in the last ten years. I encourage you, any and every one of you, to list your best and favorites of the past decade. Nothing is wrong if it made you want to throw a rock.
The Orchard
I saw the dog in a dream. Huge white
Boney creature. Big as a horse. At first
I thought it was a horse. It was feeding
On apples. As a horse might. Though not
With a horse's patience. For it was starving.
Its hipbones were empty bowls. The horse
Wolfed down the apples. Without breathing.
Without looking up. The way a dog wolfs
Down meat. And then it growled. And I saw
That the horse was a dog. But the apples
Were still apples. Windfall from the orchard
Above the lake. Pitiful place. The few trees
There grow black and yellow. And the thin grasses
Stagger down to the abandoned north field,
Which floods in winter and then freezes&mdash
Blue ground, marbled with red and white,
Like a slab of meat &mdash and when the far deer
Cross over it, and the birds cross over it,
It is as if the memories held within
The meat were rising from it. Or it is like
Flies crawling....I saw the dog in a dream.
And then, days later, just before dawn,
I climbed to the orchard. And there he was.
The same dog. Chewing on a dead doe.
And it was troubling. I thought I might
Still be dreaming &mdash as was the case
When for many months I could not sleep
And I lost the power to tell the figures
In my dreams from those we call real.
I thought the scene might have been staged
For me. By my mind. Or by someone
Who could read my mind. Someone
Who was having a good laugh
At my expense. Or testing me
In some way I could not understand.
Beneath the black and yellow trees,
The dog's skin was abnormally white.
And the blood on his broad muzzle shone
Like wet paint. I closed my eyes. Not because
The ghostly creature was now biting
At the neck of the doe, the way
Those dark creatures who drink blood
And live forever do &mdash since the river
Of blood flows forever, the streams
Of an eternal city, forever running,
Forever carrying their musky loads
Of blooming and expiring words
And figures, a thousand thousand
Yellow lights forever flickering off
And on in the black liquid, gold,
Sweet liquid, fallen &mdash I closed my eyes.
Not out of distaste. But to see if the dog
Would disappear, the way the mist
Had thinned and vanished as I climbed
The hill. But the dog was still there
When I opened them. Staring straight at me.
He lifted his large paw. Placed it
On the doe's chest, and started to rip
At her belly. There was the sound
Of cloth tearing. And what did I do?
I picked up an apple. I wanted to see
If the dog &mdash when the apple struck his side
And he fell &mdash would rise in a second form,
And then a third. As dream figures do.
Dog. To horse. To man. Or I wanted to see
If the apple would pass through the dog
As through a ghost. And if the dog
Like the best of ghosts would turn
And instruct me in my confusion.
Or I wanted to bring the scene down
To size. The way the bright lights
That clank on at the end of the play
Show the mad king to be nothing
But a skinny man holding a costume
Of cloth and paste. I wanted the dog
To be just a stray, gnawing on a bone.
Or maybe I wanted none of these things.
Maybe I wanted what the hunter
Wanted when he struck the doe. Maybe
I wanted a piece of the dog's feasting,
The way the hunter wanted a piece
Of the doe's improbable swiftness.
The gun fires. The smell of burnt powder
Sprays up. A knotted string of birds
Unspools across the white sky. And deep
In running blood the hunter thrusts his hands.
I wanted something. But I did not throw
The apple. It was a small fruit. The size
Of a child's hand. Black and yellow. Riddled
With worms and misshapen. I put my teeth
To it. I took a bite. Chill flesh. Rank.
The dog kept feeding. I was not bothered
By the blood. The last of the red leaves
Scudded about me. And a few drops fell
From the dark sky. There is blood
Everywhere. The trees shed it. The sky.
There is no end. And isn't it pretty?
We say. Isn't it pretty? Amn't I?
Isn't the starving dog? Isn't the doe,
Even half-eaten? She gave her body
To the dog. The fallen body looked
So heavy. It looked as if it weighed
Ten thousand pounds. More than the lake
Or the frozen field. The doe dreamed
Of her death and it came to pass.
She courted the hunter and he shot her.
And she fell. And then the man stood
Over her. A white shadow. Laughing.
And then the dog stood over her. A black
shadow. Laughing. And the dog came close.
The way a lover might. Had the doe
Been human. And he put his mouth to her.
As a lover might. Had he been human.
And her chastened flesh was a chalice.
And she was peaceful. And there was bliss
In this. And some horror. Around her
The thorns shone black and yellow.
And the fallen fruit lay black and yellow.
And black and yellow are the colors
Of the orchard's hive when it masses
And the queen in a fiery constellation
Is carried to new quarters. The wind
Stirred in the orchard. The dog bit
Into the doe's chest. And the apple
In my hand, against my lips, small,
Misshapen, the size of a child's fist,
Full of worms, turned suddenly warm
And soft. And it was as if, on that hill,
While the dog fed and the lake lay
Frozen, I was holding in my hand,
Against my lips, not a piece of fruit,
Not a piece of bitter, half-eaten fruit,
But the still warm and almost beating
Heart of some holy being &mdash just lifted
From the dead body. And the heart
Was heavy. And wet. And it smelled
As it would smell forever. Of myrrh.
And burning blood. And gold.
-Brigit Pegeen Kelly
Quarry
This is the time of year the missing ones
come back to us &mdash no longer weighted down
by debris, curled into fetal positions,
rising naked through the murky water&mdash
as if they can hear our yelling shouts
as we dive from the ledges above,
pretending they are not there.
Life piles onto life. "Come," says
the onyx water, "come into my deep,"
and I run across the grass into the fizzy air&mdash
insane, undignified &mdash but even there,
falling through the lavender haze, I extend
my arms to you, my secret comrade,
who made me love you.
-Henri Cole
Five Favorite Readings of the Last Ten Few Years:
1) Frank Bidart at La Poisson Rouge - 2009
2) Anne Carson with Jonah Bokaer at NYU - 2009
3) Charles Bernstein at Bowery Poetry Club - 2009
4) Robert Hass at Dodge Poetry Festival - 2007
5) Brigit Pegeen Kelly at Poet's Forum - 2008
This last year was good.
1 comment:
I don't usually go for this kind of poem, but found that it lodged pretty close to my heart. Yeah, yeah. Maybe this means I'm getting older.
O my pa-pa
by Bob Hicok
Our fathers have formed a poetry workshop.
They sit in a circle of disappointment over our fastballs
and wives. We thought they didn't read our stuff,
whole anthologies of poems that begin, My father never,
or those that end, and he was silent as a carp,
or those with middles which, if you think
of the right side as a sketch, look like a paunch
of beer and worry, but secretly, with flashlights
in the woods, they've read every word and noticed
that our nine happy poems have balloons and sex
and giraffes inside, but not one dad waving hello
from the top of a hill at dusk. Theirs
is the revenge school of poetry, with titles like
"My Yellow Sheet Lad" and "Given Your Mother's Taste
for Vodka, I'm Pretty Sure You're Not Mine."
They're not trying to make the poems better
so much as sharper or louder, more like a fishhook
or electrocution, as a group
they overcome their individual senilities,
their complete distaste for language, how cloying
it is, how like tears it can be, and remember
every mention of their long hours at the office
or how tired they were when they came home,
when they were dragged through the door
by their shadows. I don't know why it's so hard
to write a simple and kind poem to my father, who worked,
not like a dog, dogs sleep most of the day in a ball
of wanting to chase something, but like a man, a man
with seven kids and a house to feed, whose absence
was his presence, his present, the Cheerios,
the PF Flyers, who taught me things about trees,
that they're the most intricate version of standing up,
who built a grandfather clock with me so I would know
that time is a constructed thing, a passing, ticking fancy.
A bomb. A bomb that'll go off soon for him, for me,
and I notice in our fathers' poems a reciprocal dwelling
on absence, that they wonder why we disappeared
as soon as we got our licenses, why we wanted
the rocket cars, as if running away from them
to kiss girls who looked like mirrors of our mothers
wasn't fast enough, and it turns out they did
start to say something, to form the words hey
or stay, but we'd turned into a door full of sun,
into the burning leave, and were gone
before it came to them that it was all right
to shout, that they should have knocked us down
with a hand on our shoulders, that they too are mystified
by the distance men need in their love.
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