grapez gallery #2: Acadia Transcendent

Paradise in New England is located on an island off the coast of Maine where pink granite mountaintops look out upon an endless sea, where waterfalls and rushing brooks border carriage roads of broken stone, where bays of pine-fringed islands and beaches of colorful cobblestones sit beneath a dark blue northern sky, where hidden ponds reflect that dazzling transcendence: Acadia National Park.

There’s nothing spectacular in this photo I know. It’s a cloudy day and the slopes of Pemetic and Cadillac are reflected in the quiet waters of Bubble Pond. There’s a stillness I wanted to capture here before I began hiking up the slope of one of those mountains, I forget which one now. There is also a symmetry that I wished to depict, an almost classical grace that the park’s natural features often encapsulate.

But the one thing that I come back to now in this photo is the vein of light that glows in the center of the image. It’s a point in the pond that because of its distance and my position doesn’t reflect the mountainsides but instead the sky of clouds. I’m sure I noticed it then, but I don’t think it was central in my thoughts.

But now, as mentioned in my over-glowing introductory sentence, I feel that it reflects that transcendence of the park, captures the soul of the island. For me. That’s a gift I need when faced with the long dark nights of winter. And one I look forward to reclaiming next month when Daylight Savings Time returns and again I can look upon that long-lasting light of Acadia.

grapez wicked good wine #1: Monte Antico

Monte Antico is a Tuscany I’ve tipped for some time. I love its fruity taste, like the chiantis I enjoy, but with a little more body. It's a nice wine for the coming spring when you begin to budget your money for long weekends and an upcoming vacation and still would like to taste something other than a wine cooler of God forbid a Bud. It's a good left-handed pitcher to call in for the first game of spring-training.

I've done a little research on-line and found that the Wine Spectator gives it an 88 saying:
"Lovely plum and berry character, with loads of ripe fruit. Full-bodied, with velvety tannins and a long finish. Delicious. Best ever under this label. A super Tuscan value."

I also found this review. It's on the 2000, but the 2001 is as good, if not better.

To temperance . . . in moderation.
— Lem Motlow

Design and Content and the Tasteful Art of Compromise

George Wallace of a fool in the forest fame mentioned my blog on Tuesday (thank you George.) a fool in the forest is never foolish and always appealing in both design and content.

Speaking of design, I received an email from a reader who courteously complained of the italics in my posts. I have to agree with her; they are unattractive and very difficult to read. I’ve figured out the template formatting scheme but I’m still searching the post formatting possibilities (if anyone can help please drop me a note or comment.)

As for content, George in his welcome note said “Greg doesn't have much to say about grapes or wines as such, but he has structured his site around a viticultural metaphor -- and a properly wine-dark color scheme -- and that's good enough for me.” And that’s true enough that I haven’t said anything about wine, although I intend to.

But I am not a wine aficionado, just a fan of good inexpensive wines. It is my belief that anyone can produce a quality item for high cost, but it’s truly remarkable when someone produces a quality item for low cost. Like great politics, the art is in the compromises made. So in my discussions of wine you will very seldom read of any bottle costing more than $15. In my next post I will mention one of these wines.

Spring Comes to the Merrimack

The first sign of spring arrived today. Every year here, like the swallows to Capistrano, there's one thing that always announces spring's arrival. For the ten tears I’ve lived by this river, its appearance is the one true indication that winter’s hold has been broken. Not ice-out. In fact there have been two or three winters in that span when the river didn’t even ice up at all. And mild winters are still winters.

It’s the trill of the red-winged blackbirds. It’s an unmistakable sound. Their song consists of two verses. The first is a clicking noise like the sound a chipmunk makes (“tch”), a chiding timbre scolding the cold weather for its recent cruelty. The second is a thick trill, an almost throaty sound, a luxuriant resonance reveling in the rising warmth (no spelling can describe it.)

Today I saw several red-wings in the tall brown grass along the river. They’re early this year. Usually they arrive sometime late in the second week of March, maybe the third if it’s been a long cold winter. Here, January was bitter but February turned warmer quickly, and the last week or so has been downright springlike. The groundhog was mistaken. But the red-wings never lead you in the wrong direction.

I wish I was keeping a weblog these past years, or at least an old-fashioned journal. Then I would know the dates of every year the red-wings arrived. I could graph it on Excel. Or better yet, I should have written an ode each year to their majesty. Well, last year I wrote a little ditty about them, so I know the date in 2003.


The First Wave 3.14.03

Reconnaissance arriving from the sun,
the red-winged blackbirds carry on their wings
insignia—crimson epaulets—homespun.
Their trill along the river heralds spring’s
return. The morning bursts with southern sound
as they prepare these northern borderlands
for occupation. Light will seed the ground
for growth and heat unshackle deadlocked sands.
Next week the equinox will land unseen;
its armaments will burn the country green.

Fool, Starbuck, Dickey

George Wallace chimed in on op-ed poetry the other day in his usual valuable manner, offering some lines from a George Starbuck poem. I’m not quite sure what he meant by this comment though: “As certain presidential candidates seem regularly to suggest, everything was better during the War in Vietnam.” But the four stanzas he offered make me want to find the poem.

I always thought one of the most powerful Viet Nam poems was one written not about that war, but about World War II instead: James Dickey’s “The Firebombing” published in Buckdancer’s Choice in 1966. It speaks of a suburbanite who has never come to terms with his role in a firebombing over Japan

I can’t find the entire poem on-line but I have found the following lines from James Dickey: An Appreciation by Chris Lott:


Fire hangs not yet fire
In the air above Beppu
For I am fulfilling

An "anti-morale" raid upon it.
All leashes of dogs
Break under the first bomb, around those
In bed, or late in the public baths: around those
Who inch forward on their hands
Into medicinal waters.
Their heads come up with a roar
Of Chicago fire:
Come up with the carp pond showing
The bathhouse upside down,
Standing stiller to show it more
As I sail artistically over
The resort town followed by farms,
Singing and twisting
All the handles in heaven kicking
The small cattle off their feet
In a red costly blast
Flinging jelly over the walls
As in a chemical war-
fare field demonstration.
With fire of mine like a cat

Holding onto another man's walls,
My hat should crawl on my head
In streetcars, thinking of it,
The fat on my body should pale.

Calvin and Hobbes 24/7/365

Calvin and Hobbes at Martijn's is proud to present the Calvin and Hobbes Extensive Strip Search...all 3150 Calvin and Hobbes strips published. Now that's multimedia poetics.

That memory may their deed redeem

Beverly and I went for a walk on the North Bridge Saturday. For those a little rusty on their American History that’s the bridge in Concord Mass. where the “shot heard ‘round the world” was fired, beginning the hostilities known as the American Revolutionary War. Although, technically, it’s not the same bridge.

That one was torn down sometime in the 1790’s when the local road plan was altered. But it’s a replica of that “rude bridge”, built in 1875 for the centennial of that historic day, April 19 1775. Emerson paid homage to it in his poem Concord Hymn, a dedication to the monument erected for that same centennial:

Concord Hymn

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled.
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

Spirit, that made those heros dare
To die and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.


Embattled farmers were soon met again in Springfield MA in 1787 and Washington PA in 1794 by the newly re-constituted government. History knows these insurrections as Shay’s Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion. Alexander Hamilton, his monied interests, and the Federalist Party were only sealing the deal in what should be called the American Counter-revolution. The bridge of 1775 had indeed come down.

My forefathers and foremothers came to this country in the 19th century, lured by the jobs created after the Civil War and resultant Reconstruction had constructed its monument to wealth. But when that plutocratic structure came crashing down in 1929, a new bridge to democracy was built, the New Deal, a rude way maybe, but one responsible for the wealth and freedoms enjoyed by an enormous working middle class that it had helped create, the one into which I was born.

Yet a silent rebellion has occurred the past 20 years and “embattled farmers” are losing again. This one is a psychological war fought with various marketing strategies. It’s more insidious than past ones. This time they’re turning the guns of heros against themselves with lies of lawyers, guns, and money.

I wonder what country our sons and daughters will live in when we are gone, what freedoms will be lost if this counter-revolution is won and that bridge to the 21st century has been washed away. What tyranny will they need face when that raw deal has gone down? O Spirit, may time and nature gently spare that shaft.

Poem chaos question mark rent a DVD

Ron Silliman writes about Sunday Morning Anthology, a chapbook-size collection of works by nine Somerville Mass. poets. He writes "The only thing I see at all problematic about this anthology is that I don’t think it will be seen/read by nearly enough people." Here's an excerpt he includes written by Tim Peterson:

Lawn chairs yawn mouth awning

hair on neck in prayer hands

bandaged ample breast pairs in flown

deck bench stepping stone declension

tensed on step in step represent shipwreck

calling parts dungarees under hands

knees face side of a skin rib filial

injury dingy basement implement tool

swinger pen penis to write and under plans

wrinkled table in full bloom hardy

or wry mouth damaged lock shorn then

There's a reason why regular folks don't buy poetry anymore. It's called incomprehension.

*line-spacing change to excerpt per Ron's request (see comments.)
**italics removed from excerpt per Tim's request (see comments.)

Daisy; Billed Platypus; Gossage

Duck Duck Goose

from McSweeney's

Close Encounter with the Primitive (verse version)

.
A Close Encounter with the Primitive
Maudslay State Park; 2-29-04

I reached the limits of that park;
a sign nailed on an evergreen
read “No Trespassing” but something slipped
within its branches. This hurried scene:
an eagle stirred its wings and flew
from cover; it soared above that blue
free will of river. Moving fast,
I slid upon some unseen ice
--my feet flew out from under me--
and arms extending, sensed the vise
of gravity become a thing
no longer holding with its cling
my being. Up I reeled to meet
that eagle in an atmosphere
unknown to me before that day.
Soon everything was quick and near--
the river, wind, and cloudless sky.
An eagle rose. I fell on high.


This is still a work in progress, a third revision. As of late I've been reaching towards 20 or beyond. Not that it's been any help. Ask the editors at The Formalist from whom I received another rejection slip tonight.

But this has been an interesting project, something that blogging I'm sure will encourage. I wrote the prose version before the verse. And it's been helpful in keeping the poem true to the original inspiration. For example, the last line was written "The eagle left. I fell from high." But upon reflection, that was not saying what I wanted to say. In that context, it sounds as if there was a declension in spirit after the eagle flew away. But that was not the case. If there was a fall, it was from an ordinary state to something higher.

But as I was saying, this is just a draft, and I'm sure will undergo more changes. Yet, that said, tonight I'm encouraged by its direction. But I find that writing is a manic-depressive act for me. Come tomorrow morning, I'm sure I'll regret posting this poem, and wonder why I even try my hand at these vanities. Ah, life.

Yvor Winters 301

Overall there’s something that doesn’t move me in most Yvor Winters poems; they’re over-rational. The ones that do move me usually touch on nature in some manner (although I think I may be on the other side of Winters' fence.) These particular poems like “By the Road to the Air-Base” and “Elegy on a Young Airedale Bitch Lost Some Years Since in the Salt-Marsh” touch upon a world not ordered. Even if the poet will insist it is.

It might be a problem I have with much formal poetry. I sometimes think that meter for many is more than a means with which to paint the world. It becomes a metaphor as well. Robert Frost called poetry a “momentary stay against confusion”. But it is one thing to use our reason to try to make order in the world; it is entirely another to insist that order is anything but man-made.

John Day, Frontiersman

Among the first and farthest! Elk and deer
Fell as your rifle rang in rocky caves;
There your lean shadow swept the still frontier,
Your eyes regarded the Columbia’s waves.

Amid the stony winter, gray with care,
Haunted by savages from sleep to sleep
--Those patriots of darkness and despair!—
You climbed in solitude what rigid steep!

Broken at last by very force of frame,
By wintry hunger like a warrior’s brand,
You died a madman. And now bears your name
A gentle river in a fertile land.

The eminence is gone that met your eye;
The winding savage, too, has sunk away.
Now, like a summer myth, the meadows lie,
Deep in the calm of sylvan slow decay.


The first thing to notice in this wonderfully-written poem is its take on Indians: “patriots of darkness and despair.” Interesting choice of description. Wendell Berry has theorized that there’s always a new Indian to take the place of the old. I won’t venture too far into politics here and mention that the American middle class working-man is now one (while unions are marginalized, jobs move off shores, and the tax burden is shifted upon them) but this poem ends with a new one. Nature is always the enemy. No wonder he detested Emerson.

Close Encounter with the Primitive (prose version)

Fifty-five degrees in February deserves our close attention so yesterday I went hiking in the woods. Maudslay State Park stretches for some miles along the southern banks of the Merrimack River in Newburyport and on a day like yesterday is full of folks walking their dogs or simply strolling along on a Sunday. But I like to hike in its further limits where few people go.

The paths I walk lead to quiet meadows, unknown woods; run along still-frozen swamps, up the ruins of once landscaped hills; and finally follow the river for an extended stretch until you reach the limits of the park itself. And there I stopped to read an orange sign posted on a tree informing the few who reach that point the land beyond is a tree farm: there is absolutely no trespassing.

I didn’t have time to think about that though because in that same tree twenty feet above me there was a sudden rustling noise. Looking up I saw a bird --an eagle!-- depart its perch (probably bothered by my disturbance below) and wing its way over the river. Awestruck, I watched him fly.

And wanting to get a better view, I quickly moved down a small slope towards the edge of the river bank. But the ground was still frozen beneath pine needles and I slipped. My feet flew into air and I fell, then slid down the slope and off the bank onto the thick ice that still remains on the river shore.

My left hand between thumb and index finger had been punctured and was bleeding. My right hand had twisted when I tried to catch my fall. It felt sprained. My backside hurt from both falls and I was drenched from the melting ice. But still I watched the eagle circle low above the river, turn and fly just over the trees above me.

That’s one version of the story. If I were a "primitive” man raised in a different culture, there would be another. In that one, I would tell of my encounter with an eagle and how it’s power lifted me from the earth. I would describe my ecstasy of circling over waters with my eagle brother, my arms spread out in mystical flight. And I would end with the eagle flying over the trees, its power receding from the river bank, and my returning back to earth. Stunned but delighted.

My hands hurt as I type this. My left hand bears a small bandage and my right hand appears slightly swollen at the wrist. My back is still a little sore. But my spirit still thrills with that memory of a time in flight soaring with the primitive.

Yvor Winters 202

from A YEAR with YVOR WINTERS 365 Selections from the Writings of Yvor Winters with Commentary by Ben Kilpela:

3/1 - On Metrical Ambiguities in Free Verse

from the essay "THE INFLUENCE OF METER ON POETIC CONVENTION, SECTION III: THE SCANSION OF FREE VERSE" from "PRIMITIVISM AND DECADENCE" (1937), republished in "IN DEFENSE OF REASON"

In the poem last quoted [Winter's own imagist poem "The Bitter Moon", written early in his career in free verse], much of the metrical ambiguity arises from the use of an unusually long foot, which allows quantity an opportunity somewhat greater than usual to obscure the accent. In the "at its word? I have believed," "word" receives the primary accent, but "believed", which receives a secondary accent, is longer, and may seem more heavily accented to the unwary. In the line "flesh; the eye is a shadow", the heavy accent goes to "eye", but "flesh", because of its position at the beginning of the line and before the semi-colon, receives more length than it would receive in most places, and may seem for the moment to receive the main accent. In most cases the reader will find that the ambiguity is one of alternatives; that is, he will naturally place a heavy accent on one word or on the other, so that the pattern will not be damaged. Ambiguities of this sort, and within the limits just mentioned, may be a source of value; they are, as I have said, one of the principle beauties of Milton's versification. If the ambiguity, in free verse, however, ceases to be a hesitation between alternatives, and becomes more general, the metrical norm is destroyed.


The Bitter Moon

Dry snow runs burning
on the ground like fire--
the quick of Heell spin on
the wind. Should I believe
in this your body, take it
at its word? I have believed
in nothing. Earth burns with a
shadow that has held my
flesh; the eye is a shadow
that consumes the mind
Scream into air. The voices
of the dead still vibrate--
they will find them, threading
all the past with twinging
wires alive like hair in cold.
These are the nerves
of deat. I am its brain

You are the way, the oath
I take. I hold to this--
I, bent and thwarted by a will
to live among the living dead
instead of the dead living; I,
become a voice to sound for.
Can you feel through Space,
imagine beyond Time?

                      The
snow alive with moonlight
licks about my ankles.
an you find this end?


Michael, here's another one whose lines ends with articles. Wise move on his part turning formal.

Yvor Winters 201

from The seriousness of Yvor Winters by David Yezzi in The New Criterion:

Winters’s view of poetry, “the art of saying something about something in verse,” can be condensed to one often-quoted statement: “The poem is a statement in words about a human experience.” Even this simple aphorism, he realizes, draws a distinct line in the sand when “most of the philosophers of this century have been nominalists of one kind or another; they have written extensively to prove that nothing can be said in words, because words are conceptual and do not correspond to reality.” Winters points out, however, that if reality or “the realm that our ancestors took to be real” is an illusion, it nonetheless follows certain set laws that we violate at our peril. It is in this realm that “we pass our daily lives, including our moral lives. . . . this illusion is our reality. I will hereafter refer to it as reality.”

For Winters, poetry—and, in its concision, lyric, especially—is the highest linguistic expression because, in addition to the denotative aspects of words emphasized in other forms of writing, poetry makes particular use of the connotative ones, the two together composing the “total content” of language. For Winters, the purpose of poetry is to describe experience as precisely as possible. Connotation in poetry, then, acquires a “moral” dimension—to preserve clarity, connotation or “feeling” must be carefully controlled :



by Yvor Winters:

By the Road to the Air-Base

The calloused grass lies hard
Against the cracking plain:
Life is a grayish stain;
The salt marsh hems my yard.

Dry dikes rise hill on hill:
In sloughs of tidal slime
Shell-fish deposit lime,
Wild sea-fowl creep at will.

The highway, like a beach,
Turns whiter, shadowy, dry:
Loud, pale against the sky,
The bombing planes hold speech.

Yet fruit grows on the trees;
Here scholars pause to speak;
Through gardens bare and Greek,
I hear my neighbor's bees.