Filling Station

Oh, but it is dirty!
—this little filling station,
oil-soaked, oil-permeated
to a disturbing, over-all
black translucency.
Be careful with that match!

Father wears a dirty,
oil-soaked monkey suit
that cuts him under the arms,
and several quick and saucy
and greasy sons assist him
(it’s a family filling station),
all quite thoroughly dirty.

Do they live in the station?
It has a cement porch
behind the pumps, and on it
a set of crushed and grease-
impregnated wickerwork;
on the wicker sofa
a dirty dog, quite comfy.

Some comic books provide
the only note of color—
of certain color. They lie
upon a big dim doily
draping a taboret
(part of the set), beside
a big hirsute begonia.

Why the extraneous plant?
Why the taboret?
Why, oh why, the doily?
(Embroidered in daisy stitch
with marguerites, I think,
and heavy with gray crochet.)

Somebody embroidered the doily.
Somebody waters the plant,
or oils it, maybe. Somebody
arranges the rows of cans
so that they softly say:
ESSO—SO—SO—SO
to high-strung automobiles.
Somebody loves us all.


--Elizabeth Bishop

From Bucolics

O boss of ashes boss of dust
you bother with what floats above
my chimney what settles to the ground
you wake the motes from sleep you make
them curtsey in a ray of sun
they hold their tiny breath as if
they're waiting for the little name
of the dance that's coming next then they
will take their places Boss if I
were smaller I would join them O
I'd cut a rug or two I'd slap
my hand against my shoe if that's
the kind of fuss you're raising Boss
you know I never know for sure
I only know you bother me
from time to time you've caught my breath
a time or two you've stirred me up
before which makes me want to tell
you Boss I wouldn't mind it if
you bothered me a little more


--Maurice Manning

I'm sensing a theme

Here's the deal: IRL I'm editing this anthology thing, which has to be delivered to the publisher early summer. So I figured, why not just mine that hard anthology for this nonce one? That might be, if only for the expediency of time's sake, the method behind this April's madness.



New Coll. Oxford MS 88 (14th century)

Louerd, þou clepedest me
And ich nagt ne ansuarede þe
Bute wordes scloe and sclepie:
‘þole yet! þole a litel!’
Bute ‘yiet’ and ‘yiet’ was endelis
And ‘þole a litel’ a long wey is.


[Modernized version]
Lord, thou called me
And I naught answered thee
But words slow and sleepy:
‘Wait yet! Wait a little!’
But ‘yet’ and ‘yet’ was endless
And ‘wait a little’ a long way is.

Another. In the same vein.

The Pursuit

LORD ! what a busy, restless thing
Hast Thou made man !
Each day and hour he is on wing,
Rests not a span ;
Then having lost the sun and light,
By clouds surpris’d,
He keeps a commerce in the night
With air disguis’d.
Hadst Thou given to this active dust
A state untir’d,
The lost son had not left the husk,
Nor home desir’d.
That was Thy secret, and it is
Thy mercy too ;
For when all fails to bring to bliss,
Then this must do.
Ah, Lord ! and what a purchase will that be,
To take us sick, that sound would not take Thee !


--Henry Vaughan

Cue the fanfare

It's time for RG's annual Poetry Month Spontaneous Anthology. My time is a bit constrained these days, but I'm hoping to post a poem a day for your enjoyment and edification. Happy reading, y'all.

IESU.

IESU is in my heart, his sacred name
Is deeply carved there: but th’other week
A great affliction broke the little frame,
Ev’n all to pieces: which I went to seek:
And first I found the corner, where was J,
After, where ES, and next where U was graved,
When I had got these parcels, instantly
I sat me down to spell them, and perceived
That to my broken heart he was I ease you,
And to the whole is I E S U.



--George Herbert

Readers' reports

Well, my manuscript has been, since fall, and so very unexpectedly, with that very cool big UP. Finally today, both readers' reports were available.

The first reader could not enthuse enough about the project, saying various complimentary things, and indeed offering only one or two small and very do-able suggestions for enriching the book. I'm tempted to use the word "gushy," so relative-superlative-filled was this reader's response (stuff like "best X in my 30 years of working in the field," etc.) All very heady and gratifying, to be sure.

The second reader reported that s/he had stopped reading somewhere in chapter 2, unable to continue because I clearly have no idea how Equine Studies actually works, and said that there may be a good book somewhere in the project, but it will have to be substantially revised/ rethought in order to reveal that good book.

Ten years ago, that second report would have devastated me. Today, not so much, in part because I'm getting more and more to see that responses to academic writing are as subjective as responses to creative writing--and in part because I'm grateful to know what points I need to clarify and what terms I need to work through more carefully in order to ensure that my book is more persuasive and more solidly built. Seriously: I'd rather keep working and produce a stronger book.

The cool editor impressed me by hir equanimity about the whole thing: s/he asked me to think over the negative report, and to respond to its points, considering honestly whether the reader had misunderstood me or whether I ought to put some revision time in before s/he sends it out to a third reader. S/he said that s/he was inclined to put more weight on the positive review, in part because it was thorough (including having, you know, read the whole manuscript), but that I ought nevertheless to reflect on the critiques of the negative one. To be frank, the fact that this editor still wants to continue the conversation, and to send the manuscript to a third reader, is completely beyond my expectation. You may recall that I never thought this particular press would be interested in my book, because it doesn't necessarily announce itself as a Big Theoretical Book. So this is all gravy as far as I'm concerned.

Tomorrow, I'll print the negative report, and I'll start to look critically at my opening chapter to see how I can address/ clarify the points that seem problematic. I am nothing but the beneficiary here, no matter what happens: it's pretty cool that two scholars in my field have devoted serious scrutiny to my book. I'm feeling grateful. Not yet jazzed or motivated or all eye-of-the-tiger (too near the flagging end of the term for such frivolities), but grateful.

2 RBOC

1. Just 24 hours before I take the Things to RSA, I wrote my paper. This seems to me to be an improvement over my recent "strategy," which is to write the paper on the plane or in the hotel room the night before the panel. But that course of action will prove, I suspect, more difficult with two Things to entertain.

2. For reasons that escape me, I just opened to an essay in the flagship creative writing program "journal"--a term I use loosely because that rag contains so little of practical or critical value that it really more resembles a bitchy tabloid than a serious publication. In any case, the essay was about sentences, in praise of sentences really, and how sentences can transport us. The essay's first sentence reads: "I cannot begin with essay without admitting that: I am an English teacher, and yet the one thing I loathe perhaps even more than algebra is grammar." And yes, that first sentence displays the fruits of the author's loathing. And yes, the whole freaking essay is rife with grammatical errors. The author claims that s/he's only recently come to appreciate that grammar (which s/he mystifyingly equates with "syntax") produces the rhapsodic effects s/he seeks in good literature. S/he might ponder that point a bit further....

Brought tears to my eyes.

The world is a beautiful place. I may be oversentimentalizing that sentence because I'm sick, but I stand by the principle.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bluQ4eOeBwo

Blog-pimping

Read this, fellow academics:

http://www.hightouchmegastore.net/2012/02/ten-commandments-of-grading.html

The Churn.

I spend most of my time balancing a cheerful focus on my many good fortunes against my achievement gland. I'm finding that balance is getting unbalanced this term, and the gland is acting up.

In part this is because (good fortune!:) I've finished my new book of poems, and now I need to begin considering what I want to happen with it, which makes me more aware of the Po Biz than I characteristically care to be. In part it's because friends, in some cases grad school buddies, of mine keep showing up on Fresh Air or on the NBA list or getting MacArthurs or some such laud--news that I register not with bitterness or even jealousy but with a consciousness of how I, you know, need to get my ass in gear.

And in part it's because I am increasingly forced to realize that I am one person. Just one. Which means that, in a 24-hour day, I actually CAN'T grade all the papers I need to return AND prepare for class AND spend two hours at the doctor's office AND build a new fence. Moreover, I CAN'T replace my burnt-out taillights, AND work on the anthology I'm editing with a quick-approaching deadline, AND write my RSA paper before I hit parent-teacher conference at noon. And, to my surprise, I CAN'T read the thesis my grad student is defending tomorrow morning AND arrange to have my dead tree cut down and carted away AND figure out why my car is leaking oil AND spend most of tomorrow doing something Awesome & Special because the Things have no school.

How can I get my ass in gear on scholarly obligations when my I may need to surrender my car to the shop? How can I turn in the anthology on deadline when there's a giant dog that keeps lurking into my unfenced yard to shit his monuments to trespass everywhere? How can I publish a manuscript when I have three theses to defend this week?

I'd like to think that many of these responsibilities are delegatable, but they're not--there's no one to delegate to. And I'd like to think that all of us who were stupid enough to go into this gig can commiserate, maybe form a kind of academic support group, but at times it just seems very isolating.