Writing Time

Photo by Mary Clark

Headlights’ warmth chases
winter’s chill, erases shadows
fleeting night blazes

• The Bench Poems, by Mary Clark

Hello, fellow bloggers and readers. I’ve been busy on two books for a few months (or many). Some of you know, as you have read at least one of them. Thank you! Every writer needs readers that will tell them when they’re on track and when they’ve sped off into the wilderness.

The first project was a revisit to Community, a memoir released last year. The revised version will be available soon. In it I venture to “wax poetic” now and then just to brighten the tone of the story. I like sunsets, but the rosy dawn is also beautiful.

The second project is the book I was working on last year: Passages. It’s been through several reincarnations. Hopefully, it will be ready for prime time in the near future – though I harbor hope for a publisher, and so time will tell.

Reading has taken a lot of my time as well. Among the books I enjoyed and – or would recommend:

Horse, by Geraldine Brooks.

She shows the way thoroughbred racing is intertwined with American history, specifically, with racism. The use of black grooms and trainers, many enslaved, to care for these horses, and their depictions in paintings of the pre-Civil War era, is told so well I felt I knew the men and the artists. Our current history appears in a parallel story. She is deft at describing the changes in thought and language that accompany the honest examination of racism in the U.S. And when stereotypes can surprise us, whether white or black. The horses are characters with personalities, too. The central horse, Lexington, is gifted and used to enrich his owners, while also rising above them to become a legend.

Angel Landing, by Alice Hoffman.

When I was reading this, I asked myself, when is this? No one had cell phones. People were collecting change for the bus. It’s old times, but I realized, within my lifetime. I can remember (dimly) those days. The book was published in 1980. That doesn’t mean it’s not relevant. Because it is, very. The story takes place in a small village on Long Island, once a hopping seaside town and now forgotten as people moved to the trendier places. Another reason it’s not a big draw is the large nuclear power plant, Angel Landing, clearly visible on a point of land nearby. A young woman, Natalie, returns to her aunt Minnie’s (Minnie is a live wire) boarding house (now empty) in the town, with her activist upper-crust boyfriend bunking in an office where he can work on his anti-nuclear cause nonstop. As she sits in her aunt’s house she notices the sky turning color. Later, an explosion. There’s been an accident at the plant. I won’t say more, but this story is an oddly surreal, moody, wandering journey to self-realization. While it’s set in the “old times,” it’s modern in many ways. Now I find it lingers in my memory.

Our Missing Hearts, by Celeste Ng.

As we face potential conflict with China, this book takes on the issues of nationalism, fear-mongering, “patriot laws,” family separation, and the ease with which a democratic republic can become a dystopian society. A pandemic followed by economic hardship and riots is blamed on China, and all Chinese people in the U.S. are suspect. Books are banned, protests quashed, laws are passed limiting Chinese-American freedoms (education, employment, travel), and ultimately, the government reaches into family life, taking children from parents who might taint them with un-American ideas. A mixed couple find themselves caught up in the hysteria. This book raises vital questions about the direction of our country, and any country that still calls itself a democarcy.

Mary Clark on Mastodon Social

February: The “Love” Month

February means Valentine’s Day, the season of the heart, so I’ve collected some love poems for you. Of course, there are famous ones, such as Elizabeth Barret Browning’s “How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count The Ways,” and W. H. Auden’s “The More Loving One.”

These poems are by contemporary poets as well as those who were writing long ago.

And poetry can come in other forms. In Australia, voters are preparing for a referendum on the “Uluru Statement from the Heart” giving a voice to the original inhabitants, the Aboriginal people.

History Is Calling, the Uluru Statement from the Heart, video

A medley of poems and songs begin with one of my favorites, “The Reclining Gardener,” by fellow poet and blogger, David Selzer.

THE RECLINING GARDENER

“The Reclining Gardener” by David Selzer

Camomile Tea

by Katherine Mansfield

Outside the sky is light with stars;
There’s a hollow roaring from the sea.
And, alas! for the little almond flowers,
The wind is shaking the almond tree.

How little I thought, a year ago,
In the horrible cottage upon the Lee
That he and I should be sitting so
And sipping a cup of camomile tea.

Light as feathers the witches fly,
The horn of the moon is plain to see;
By a firefly under a jonquil flower
A goblin toasts a bumble-bee.

We might be fifty, we might be five,
So snug, so compact, so wise are we!
Under the kitchen-table leg
My knee is pressing against his knee.

Our shutters are shut, the fire is low,
The tap is dripping peacefully;
The saucepan shadows on the wall
Are black and round and plain to see.

Another writer and blogger, Diane M. Denton, has completed a novel about the poet Christina Rosetti. You can view Diane Denton’s blog here.

Christina Rosetti’s poem, “A Birthday” is a marvelous love poem.

The Look
Sara Teasdale

Strephon kissed me in the spring,
      Robin in the fall,
But Colin only looked at me
      And never kissed at all.

Strephon's kiss was lost in jest,
      Robin's lost in play,
But the kiss in Colin's eyes
      Haunts me night and day.

_____________

Serenade
Djuna Barnes

Three paces down the shore, low sounds the lute,
The better that my longing you may know;
I’m not asking you to come,
But—can’t you go?

Three words, “I love you,” and the whole is said—
The greatness of it throbs from sun to sun;
I’m not asking you to walk,
But—can’t you run?

Three paces in the moonlight’s glow I stand,
And here within the twilight beats my heart.
I’m not asking you to finish,
But—to start.

_____________

Wild Nights - Wild Nights!
Emily Dickinson

Wild Nights – Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile – the winds –
To a heart in port –
Done with the compass –
Done with the chart!

Rowing in Eden –
Ah, the sea!
Might I moor – Tonight –
In thee!

____________

Here’s one to make of what you will: Hymn from a Watermelon Pavilion by Wallace Stevens

And The Beatles sing, “When I’m 64.”

The Past Glows, The New is Fire

Going from the old year to the new, we pause for reflection and try to envision the future. The present moment fills us at the passing of the old, and we believe in that moment the future has endless opportunities and perspectives as it stretches out before us, beckoning. What is the truth of our position in time? Fleeting or part of an eternal process? Both, I suspect. Whatever you believe the poets have communicated the transitory moment, our death, our loved ones’ deaths, changes that upheave our lives. They have celebrated birth, new life, continuity, and the bonds of love that defy even death.

Which brings us to Shakespeare and one of the greatest poems about the waning of life and human resiliency.

Sonnet 73

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish’d by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

Recently, watching YouTube videos of poets reading their work, Garrison Keillor said W.S. Merwin said that poetry always begins and ends with listening. I wish I had learned that years ago! Here is Merwin reading, “Yesterday.”

W. S. Merwin reading his poem, “Yesterday,” on YouTube

Another way is talking to the reader (as if to yourself), which many current editors will tell you not to do (ignore them).

Lines For Winter
by Mark Strand
 
Tell yourself
as it gets cold and gray falls from the air
that you will go on
walking, hearing
the same tune no matter where
you find yourself—
inside the dome of dark
or under the cracking white
of the moon’s gaze in a valley of snow.
Tonight as it gets cold
tell yourself
what you know which is nothing
but the tune your bones play
as you keep going. And you will be able
for once to lie down under the small fire
of winter stars.
And if it happens that you cannot
go on or turn back
and you find yourself
where you will be at the end,
tell yourself
in that final flowing of cold through your limbs
that you love what you are.

Another version of listening and talking is what I will title, “Generous.”

Sabbaths, 1993, I
by Wendell Berry
 
No, no, there is no going back.
Less and less you are
that possibility you were.
More and more you have become
those lives and deaths

that have belonged to you.
You have become a sort of grave
containing much that was
and is no more in time, beloved
then, now, and always.
And so you have become a sort of tree
standing over a grave.
Now more than ever you can be
generous toward each day
that comes, young, to disappear
forever, and yet remain
unaging in the mind.
Every day you have less reason
not to give yourself away.

And the new season begins.

Wind Rising in the Alleys

by Lola Ridge

Wind, rising in the alleys,
My spirit lifts in you like a banner
   streaming free of hot walls.
You are full of unshaped dreams. . . .
You are laden with beginnings. . . .
There is hope in you. . . not sweet. . .
   acrid as blood in the mouth.
Come into my tossing dust
Scattering the peace of old deaths,
Wind rising out of the alleys,
Carrying stuff of flame.

Song at the Year’s Turning

by R. S. Thomas

Shelley dreamed it. Now the dream decays.
The props crumble; the familiar ways
Are stale with tears trodden underfoot.
The heart’s flower withers at the root.
Bury it then, in history’s sterile dust.
The slow years shall tame your tawny lust.

Love deceived him; what is there to say
The mind brought you by a better way
To this despair? Lost in the world’s wood
You cannot stanch the bright menstrual blood.
The earth sickens; under naked boughs
The frost comes to barb your broken vows.

Is there blessing? Light’s peculiar grace
In cold splendour robes this tortured place
For strange marriage. Voices in the wind
Weave a garland where a mortal sinned.
Winter rots you; who is there to blame?
The new grass shall purge you in its flame.

Also, for poets especially, poets talking over a beer: https://www.poeticous.com/r-s-thomas/poetry-for-supper

And “Instructions on Not Giving Up,” by Ada Limon. Again the last line! That’s the other thing I’ve learned, and I hope the poets who read this blog will also pick up on this.

Most of all, love others and love what you are.

Basho haiku

“Of no account”
think not this of thy self,
Festival of Souls

Now, for a lyric video, “Earthlings,” with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

Harvest Poems

This time of year as fall turns to winter I have a feeling of contemplation and a sense of endings after a hectic year. The “Harvest poems” I found online reflected that feeling and sense. I’ve chosen one that is celebratory of harvest, and several that are reflective about the meaning of our endeavors. Each is filled with a deep appreciation of the force of life. Here are a few of them, along with Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon” and the Native Song, “Ly O Lay Ale Loya” (Circle Dance).

Oh, ’tis sweet, when fields are ringing
With the merry cricket’s singing,
Oft to mark with curious eye
If the vine-tree’s time be nigh:
Here is now the fruit whose birth
Cost a throe to Mother Earth.
Sweet it is, too, to be telling,
How the luscious figs are swelling;
Then to riot without measure
In the rich, nectareous treasure,
While our grateful voices chime,–
Happy season! blessed time.

— Aristophanes

Under the Harvest Moon

Under the harvest moon,

When the soft silver

Drips shimmering

Over the garden nights,

Death, the gray mocker,

Comes and whispers to you

As a beautiful friend

Who remembers.

  

Under the summer roses

When the flagrant crimson

Lurks in the dusk

Of the wild red leaves,

Love, with little hands,

Comes and touches you

With a thousand memories,

And asks you

Beautiful, unanswerable questions.

— Carl Sandburg

The Way In

Sometimes the way to milk and honey is through the body.

Sometimes the way in is a song.

But there are three ways in the world: dangerous, wounding,

and beauty.

To enter stone, be water.

To rise through hard earth, be plant

desiring sunlight, believing in water.

To enter fire, be dry.

To enter life, be food.

— Linda Hogan

Source: Rounding the Human Corners (Coffee House Press, 2008)

Harvest

I walk among bands of wheat fields gold and red on a low road where clouds sweep overhead. I walk among mountains steep and high where golden rods of wheat strike the sky. I reach to catch the spear-stalks as they fly. As day yields to clouds gold and red, I grasp fleet arrows of wheat and watch each seed as it falls through my hand’s reaping beat.

I walk through streams of grass yellow and red where stone pillars mark the dead. I walk among hills azure and green by the sea where white birds sing, an echo coming back from eternity. I grasp the feathers and rise above the waves. As day turns to dreams, my spirit fishes for ways to be – bring the seeds, ride the waves, be the echo, this is the harvest of every day, of my heart, my soul, my body, my life.

Mary Clark

I recommend W. S. Merwin’s “Thanks” / Poetry Foundation and the Native Song, Ly O Lay Ale Loya (Circle Dance)

Passages

It’s been a month since my last post. A new project and health problems kept me from working on the blog. I know my blog isn’t the usual kind of personal observations, original poems, photographs, or serial editions of novels. My blog does focus on poetry, excerpts from my writing, and book reviews. I thought, I’ve been doing this for a decade, it is time for a change. Recently, I looked into Kindle Vella. Unfortunately, much of what I read there is of low quality. The blogosphere contains much better work. I will give Kindle Vella a try, though, and publish some or all of the new work on this blog, beginning with serial posts of Passages, my latest work in progress. I’ll continue with the poetry theme as well.

Cover in progress

Passages is a story of finding one’s place in the world in terms of sexuality, work, and social action. It involves gender fluidity, childhood physical abuse, sexual awakening and love. The time is the “anything goes” 1970s. This may not be for every one of my readers, I understand that. The writing is not graphic, but some passages may be considered erotic and others may trigger traumatic memories.

I’ve split the story between two people, male and female. Martin and Maryanne are twenty-somethings who have basically the same story. They are evolving into adult sexuality as they dream, fantasize, and explore real life relationships. They become involved first with a rising film star (Simone/Ethan) and later with a hard-working immigrant (Rafaela/Rafael) in the bustle and hustle of Broadway and Times Square, New York. All the while they try to untangle their experiences of domestic violence and mental instability. As they work through these complex relationships, they pursue their dreams of being poets and useful, creative people.

Will Maryanne’s and Martin’s gender influence readers’ reactions to the same situations? Will the words and actions of the male characters be viewed differently than the females? Passages is an experiment. Some parts of the narrative are repeated word for word (which may try readers’ patience!) In these, however, often a few important sentences differ. Other passages appear in one narrative but not in the other (and these contain clues or additional information to illuminate the other narrative, a suggestion by a friend ). I hope my readers will enjoy the literature, art and music mentioned, discussed, and/or quoted by the characters. At the end of each chapter, I’ll post author notes.

I welcome any suggestions and comments.

Florida Poems

Orlando

Marco Island

Tarpon Springs

I grew up in Florida and know the state has many layers. It’s a complex place with a long history, going back to ancient indigenous civilizations and early Spanish explorers in search of treasure and the Fountain of Youth.

Florida gets a bad rap in the media and recent events haven’t helped dispel the reputation of the state as a place where people do crazy things. When I was 12, I began to write about it. What evolved was a long poem, “The Sailor Circus,” named for the Sarasota high school afterschool circus program (which still exists). In my 20s, an agent encouraged me to write a novel based on the poem, but she later decided not to take it on. For many years both the poem and novel languished among my papers and computer files. A few years ago I used much of it in a novella, Covenant: Growing up in Florida’s Lost Paradise. These past few weeks I added in more of the original words, adapting them when needed to fit the narrative. And then, I took parts of it and made this poem. I’m offering it to give people a different perspective on the great state, the elusive and always transforming, place called Florida.

Florida

Visions of Atlantis.
The trading ships of the world come into harbor,
bringing their gift, their legacy.
Sailing, circling, orbiting, we ride the tides,
before we merge with the fold and mantle of sea and sky, 
will we circle around to the other side,
     will we come back alive?

The resort town lies weblike on Florida’s Gulf Coast,
banyan roots in backland glades,
points of anchorage, where gravity takes hold,
rolls the city up each night like a window-shade.
Each morning beneath a peg-leg, pirate's sun,
the land unfurls, surfaces beneath the surface of the sky.
Mirages and miracles: buildings, beaches, marinas, 
     alligator farms, the circus. 

White pelicans mirror the clouds, 
moonflowers glow, passion vine 
and coral bells flourish, herons nest,
and a mockingbird sings of paradise. 
Ghost towns in morning glory and dust, 
carnivals and suburban malls in the marshes.
On the southern Gulf Coast, burial grounds
     of forgotten civilizations.

Echoes of Atlantis. 
Lost worlds, new worlds spiral, drop,
      rise and soar in a divine glare.

Gulf Coast’s angels’ wings and rare Juno shells,
a sea of dreams, with all things sailing
we navigate by the sun and moon,
flowing into ports of call, 
sailing with grief and ecstasy,
     the circuitous circus.

The trading ships of the world come into harbor,
bringing their gift, their legacy—
the heavy vessels of the past empty their holds
and are refilled, flowing to the future with a purpose—
we carry precious cargo: hope, love.
Swinging across the globe, in tumult and calm,
we circle with the joy of fulfillment in time,
creating designs so potent
     they shape eternity.

Copyright 1974-revised 2022 by Mary Clark

The song, “A Salty Piece of Land,” by Jimmy Buffet, who pioneered Caribbean Rock’n’Roll in Key West, Florida, communicates the allure of a place, the sense of freedom, on the boundless sea.

Mary Clark’s fiction and poetry, all set in Florida:

Children of Light, poetry novel, Ten Penny Players/Bard Press

Covenant, Growing Up in Florida’s Lost Paradise (kindle only)

The Horizon Seekers, Amazon/Kindle

Racing The Sun, The Horizon Seekers Series Volume 2, Amazon/Kindle and Smashwords

Sappho’s Poetry

_{Wikimedia Commons: Red-figure vase (hydria, or kalpis) by the Group of Polygnotos, ca. 440–430 BC. Seated, Sappho is reading one of her poems to a group of three student-friends. National Archaeological Museum in Athens, 1260.}

Sappho’s poetry exists only in fragments, except for one poem and about four others with missing pieces that are long enough to attempt reconstruction. Her work once filled at least four volumes and was disseminated around the ancient Mediterranean world. Homer, her predecessor, wrote epic poems of war in a poetic style (dactylic hexameter) that suited historical episodes, lists, and long speeches, while she wrote in her own style (Sapphic stanza) of the battles and triumphs of love.

Her poems were meant to be accompanied by a lyre, thus lyrical poetry, the words either spoken or sung. Each line contained syllables that were at different pitches. Today, modern stresses give each word a greater or lesser emphasis but do not indicate pitch. 

Sappho wrote at a time when heroic poems were being replaced by more personal ones. She included direct conversations in her poems. At times, she turned Homeric phrases around: rosy-fingered dawn became rosy-fingered sunset, and “black earth” created by armies was juxtaposed with fields of flowers.

Some say a cavalry corps,
some infantry, some, again,
will maintain that the swift oars

of our fleet are the finest
sight on dark earth; but I say
that whatever one loves, is.

This translation is by Mary Bernard, who didn’t keep to the four lines and meter but often communicated the poetic intent (IMHO).

42.

I have not heard one word from her
Frankly, I wish I were dead.

When she left, she wept
a great deal; she said to
me, "This parting must be
endured, Sappho. I go unwillingly."

I said, "Go, and be happy
but remember (you know
well) whom you leave shackled by love.

Translation by William Harris, showing what is missing in the fragment:

I just really want to die.
She, crying many tears, left me
And said to me:
"Oh, how terribly we have suffered, we two,
Sappho, really I don't want to go away."
And I said to her this:
Go and be happy, remembering me,
For you know how we cared for you.
And if you don’t I want to remind you
.............and the lovely things we felt
with many wreathes of violets
and ro(ses and cro)cuses
and.............. and you sat next to me
and threw around your delicate neck
garlands fashioned of many woven flowers
and with much...............costly myrrh
..............and you anointed yourself with royal.....
and on soft couches.......(your) tender.......
fulfilled your longing..........

Wouldn’t be great to have this poem in its entirety? It’s about someone who has to go away, and how terribly (amazingly, wonderfully, deeply) we have felt, but we won’t forget each other. Memories are what we have, and hope.

Harris shows her alliteration in this stanza. It’s a wonder of the internet that we can see the Greek.

kai gar ai pheugei, taxeos dioxei
ai de dora me deket', alla dosei
ai de me philei, tacheos philesei
kouk etheloisa.

Translated:

And if she flees, soon will she follow,
And if she does not take gifts, she will give,
If she does not love, she will love
Despite herself"

Harris says about this stanza:

… each line shows a remarkable balance of structure, with a compelling progression toward Unity. First “pheugei/flee” is balanced by “dioxei/follow” where the Greek words have nothing in common phonetically. The next line speaks of Getting as opposed to Giving (in Greek deket’ and dosei) with clear initial alliteration of “-d-” (In English -g- ). But the third line uses the same actual verb stem: (philei/philesei meaning “love/will love”, bringing together the words as symbol for the bringing together of the two lovers. Very subtle and most effective because it doesn’t show right away, a sly effect suiting Sappho as the arch “weaver of wiles.”

Harris – Here is another delicate fragment with a celestial figure set against a very human backdrop:

hespere, panta pheron osa phainolis eskedas' auos
phereis oin, phereis aiga, phereis materi paida

Evening-star, bringing all things that morning dawn scattered
You bring back the sheep, you bring the goat,
you bring the child to its mother.

The Greek words especially in the last line are compact, repeated rhyme, so precise, it’s sublime.

_{Wikimedia Commons: Sappho holding a barbitos, from a Six technique kalpis c.510 BC by the Sappho painter. The vase is the earliest surviving depiction of Sappho. Now in the collection of National Museum of Warsaw. Drawing from D.M. Robinson’s Sappho and Her Influence, 1924.}

whiter than virgin snow in the sun
gentler than water stirring to the gentlest breeze
a voice that pleases as no lyre can
bearing grander than a proud mare’s
skin so fair no rose has petals more delicate
softer than the thickest fur
far more precious than the most precious metals

               This loving has burst into my head
as mountain wind falls into the crowns of oaks.

_{Copyright 1981 by Ulf Goebel translated with Dimitrios Moschopoulos}

I hope you’ve enjoyed this visit to the work of one of Western society’s oldest known poets.

References:

William Harris, Middlebury College: http://wayback.archive-it.org/6670/20161201174348/http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/Translations/Sappho.html

Finding Sappho: https://stanforddaily.com/2017/10/29/finding-sappho-four-translations-in-conversation/

Poetry 2022

I’m going to do poetry posts for a while. I think we’ll need it in 2022! Next up, I’ll name some of my favorite poets, including some of their poems.

Basho

In praise of Matsuo Basho, the famous Japanese haiku poet:

Frog, jump in the pond,

when the ripples are no more,

are you in the pond?

---

The original Basho haiku:

古池や　蛙飛び込む　水の音

Furuike ya/ Kawazu tobikomu/ Mizu no oto

The old pond

A frog leaps in.

Sound of the water.

Into The Fire, A Poetry Memoir

Into The Fire: A Poet’s Journey through Hell’s Kitchen

Monica Brinkman of Writing Chats & Friends wrote this wonderful review of my book on Amazon.

I truly didn’t know what to expect when I began reading Into the Fire. Simply thought it was a tale of poetry and prose. I am so pleased to say it was much, much more! She shares her own experiences, yet within a story of strength, determination and dedication to the arts.

Mary Clark takes us behind the scenes of the many individuals, be they celebrities, poets, artists, or actors and how this group of dedicated people changed an area of New York from undesirable to one of the most sought after places to showcase talent. Not only does Clark provide actual photos but also bits of prose, poetry and works of the people involved . . . This is truth and the reality of what it took to bring the name Hell’s Kitchen to a positive vein, rather than negative.

You will meet celebrities; many not so famous back in the day and you will find great works and such talent.

Could not put this book down and will be one I read again and again. Just loved it.

This is a book worth reading as it not only entertains but gives the reader an inside look of what it took and takes to keep arts alive. Bravo Mary Clark. You show the greatness as well as the sadness of the era.

Thank you, Monica. That last sentence means a lot to me. The attunement to the fragility and strength of human beings is expressed not only in your review, but in your own work. You are not afraid to take chances, to push the boundaries of literature and love, and the poets of the 1970s and early 1980s weren’t either.

Into The Fire: A Poet’s Journey through Hell’s Kitchen – a great holiday gift for the poet in your family or among your friends

A young, aspiring writer comes to St. Clement’s Church on West 46th Street in New York City looking for a job in the church’s theater. Soon she is helping with the New York Poetry Festival at St. Clement’s, which features many well-known poets of the 1970s and 80s as well as up-and-coming and marginalized poets. The memoir takes place in the rough-and-tumble Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood on Manhattan’s West Side, a neighborhood that reflects the passion of the times. By 1980, both the arts scene and New York neighborhoods are on the verge of change. The author’s life in the arts weaves in and out of the neighborhood’s narratives, and she must make a choice between two possible lives.

Poets of Our Time

And now for another excerpt from my book, Into The Fire: A Poet’s Journey through Hell’s Kitchen

St. Clement’s Episcopal Church, restored window

St. Clement’s. Beauty under the grime. Muted mosaics flaring in sunlight. Chanting poets.

Rich wanted to ask Allen Ginsberg to read a section of The Odyssey at an anti-nuclear event he was planning for a Sunday at St. Clement’s on August 6th, “Hiroshima day.”

He asked me to go with him to Allen Ginsberg’s reading at a nuclear disarmament rally. He read most probably from “Plutonian Ode.”

Poets we knew and became connected to moved forward, a gentle tide, rocked by the new thing, our ability to create oblivion, and to answer with our voices evoking the voices of consciousness to carol our spirits inside the death-rendering, until there we were, the Poets of Our Time right up in front of the crowd, serious, dolorous, Kerouac cool, smiling antennas up and on the tips of our toes. Ginsberg threw himself into the poetry, sparked our responses: nodding heads, nodding bodies. Handclaps, psalming our way beyond. We were in love.

I was in love. With Allen Ginsberg!

In the excitement Richard and I were swept away. Rich had no chance to ask Ginsberg to read at the St. Clement’s anti-nuclear event. We rode over the East River to a party at Maurice Kenny’s Brooklyn apartment, and after that, unwilling to give up the day, although it was midnight, we walked to the Esplanade to feel and hear the breath-song of New York harbor.