Each Sunday, I post a brief introduction to a collection of poetry I've been loving. I include one poem that I think really sings. No review. No need. If it's here, you'll know I recommend it. If you have one to recommend (yours or someone else's), send it along. I'll do my best to be here every Sunday.
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I've been reading A. R. Ammons since December 6th. That's the date in 1963 when he began typing a long poem on a roll of adding-machine tape. It was experimental and somewhat odd, but the effect -- Tape for the Turn of the Year -- is a book-length poem full of quotidian observations and unexpected insights.
Here's an example:
acquiescence, acceptance:
the silent passage into
the stream, going along,
not holding back:
I try to transfigure these
days
so you'll want to keep
them:
come back to them: from
where?
from the running honey
of reality & life?
come back:
I hold these days aloft,
empty boxes
you can exist in: but
when you live in them
you hurry out of your own
life:
if my meaning is
to befriend you
must I turn you
away?
January 10 was the day the tape ran out and Ammons finished his poem. I've been reading along, each day's entry read on the day it was written, so I, too, finished today. Fitting that it be on a Sunday.
Though it was originally posted back in November, I saw this tweet today, and while I don't begrudge those who find other versions of Sunday more compelling, I think we would all do well to make a little more room for this option.
Just before I started the Ammons poem, I decided to embark on my own experimental and odd venture, an digital-age homage to his great effort. Mine took place on twitter, a few tweets each day, limited in scope and structure just as Ammons was. I haven't yet revised or edited the errors, but here are a few excerpts:
from 23 Dec:
what does it look like
to choose the side of
possibility?
to glance over the shoulder
of God:
to want endlessly
and without warning:
I choose today
the solemnity of milk,
the stern apology
of a cat’s tongue,
the sleek head of an
unexpected
otter
& her warning whisper:
from 5 Jan:
language is my proving
ground, that stage on which
I strut & fret:
but what to do
when the idea
outstrips the word?
what name for a group of
angry footfalls?
what to call
a nest built of
berry &
starshine?
the soliloquy grows
threadbare, outrageous:
the slings & daggers
of survival arise:
skyhoney words
in mellifluous sin:
tattoo-parlor love
on the back
church pew:
shots fired & ballots
mailed:
story is accounting,
a gathering of neighbors:
despite all my misgivings,
all evidence to the
contrary: still
I hope:
and the final stanzas from today:
somewhere
nearby
a mockingbird is making
his Sunday offering,
the plate
passed
sermon
preached
and now a hymn
of rebuke
& forgiveness
blistered
with sunlight
blinking,
we emerge
from life
to life:
I can't remember the last time
I took communion,
the last time
I sat in
congregated
wealth
and
white
privilege:
I can't remember what
drew me there
or why now I turn away:
I once was a child
raised up
in the light:
the Sabbath
remains a sacred
space, even as
I recognize
the anagrammed
reality:
scared:
how much of my faith
has grown of my fear?
how much now can come
from turning:
the year has been
born again
& we each resolve
afresh
even in our failure:
for me:
the soil
the page
the tables:
abolition over absolution
submission to the
wisdom of elder
oaks, switchgrasses,
& jays:
infinitude of beauty:
vacancy of worth:
I've given
you my
emptiness:
how does one come
home:
I include these meager efforts because this silly exercise reminded me of something that Marilynne Robinson asserted in Home:
People have always made poetry, she told them. Trust that it will matter to you.
Those who observe the Sabbath see it as a setting apart. It is an act of trust that returning again and again to a practice sets it apart from the ordinariness of everyday. And in so trusting, we are reminded that it matters.
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