On Watertown

April 22, 2013 / Carolyn O / Leave a comment

On Thursday night, I was up late. As I finished brushing my teeth, I heard a boom, and then another. I texted my neighbors to be sure I wasn’t hearing things, and then, when I heard the third explosion, I woke up my husband: “I think something bad is happening.”

Almost immediately, we heard rapid gunfire. We raced to check that the doors and windows were locked, and my husband smelled something burning as he re-shut the front door.

Over the next few hours, we took turns watching the side windows and comforting our son (not quite two) as the search helicopters flew low over our neighborhood. By 2:00am, state police had cruisers parked across the street, which was a great relief to us.

Still, we knew that even with all the official resources directed at our town, the police couldn’t be on every side street, and so, in the…

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“Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind”

April 10, 2013April 17, 2013 / Carolyn O / 1 Comment

I don’t have anything new or insightful to say about death.

In the last five years, I’ve dealt with death by reading poetry. First I read poems to choose the ones other people would read at the funeral. Then I kept reading. I’ve read elegies and sonnets. I’ve read poems about the dead who died too young, about dead poets, about dead lovers, dead friends. And I’ve read poems that aren’t, ostensibly, about death, but that speak to me about the dead anyway.

Sometimes it helps, sometimes not. Two poems that have meant something particular to me are “To an Athlete Dying Young” by A. E. Housman, and “Lycidas,” by Milton, of course (despite his egotism, the last twenty lines are amazing). I’ll be re-reading them tomorrow.

And I read “Dirge Without Words” by Edna St. Vincent Millay last week. I love Millay’s work, but I’d never read this poem before, and in its rage and futility and acknowledgment of all the customary tropes, it’s perfect.

“wylde for to hold”

February 12, 2013February 21, 2013 / Carolyn O / Leave a comment

Who so list to hount, I knowe where is an hynde,
But as for me, helas, I may no more:
The vayne travaill hath weried so sore
I ame of theim that farthest commeth behinde.
Yet may I by no meanes my weried mynde
Drawe from the Diere: but as she fleeth afore,
Faynting I folowe. I leve of therefore,
Sins in a nett I seke to hold the wynde.
Who list her hount, I put him owte of dowbte,
As well as I may spend his tyme in vain;
And, graven with Diamonds, in letters plain
There is written her faier neck rounde abowte:
Noli me tangere, for Caesars I ame;
And wylde for to hold, though I seme tame.

I first read Thomas Wyatt’s poetry in college, and had the singular, wonderful experience of listening to the mellifluous voice of my English-born Renaissance literature professor read this sonnet, a translation from Petrarch. Wyatt (1503-1542) was rumored to be Anne Boleyn’s lover, though he managed to escape execution for the supposed offense, and often this poem is read as a wistful forgoing of her companionship.

The poem’s form never interferes with its meaning, and, I think, makes this one of the most pleasing sonnets to read aloud. I’ve reproduced it here with something close to its original spelling, and I’ve tried to make the punctuation as unobtrusive as possible (you’ll find different punctuation in almost every published version of the sonnet).

Something I noticed on this reading: At line 11, the speaker’s note that the “hynde” wears a diamond collar indicating Caesar’s ownership begins with “And” — it’s almost an afterthought. The exhausting chase makes the hunt impossible, not Caesar’s prior claim.

On Unattributed Jacket Copy

February 9, 2013February 5, 2013 / Carolyn O / 1 Comment

To my mind, a book’s jacket copy should include a description of the book’s contents, a brief biography of the author, and perhaps a few words of (illuminating) praise from a respectable critic.

Blurbs sell books, and so several reviewers’ laudatory words are often to be found on the covers of books both excellent and ordinary. At least we may read the book and decide for ourselves if we will trust the reviewers’ recommendations again. But unattributed jacket copy is a different beast. Here is an example of praise beyond fulsome:

In [the book] she stares down her own death, and, in so doing, forces endless superimpositions of the possible on the impossible–an act that simultaneously defies and embraces the inevitable, and is, finally, mimetic. Over and over, at each wild leap or transformation, flames shoot up the reader’s spine.

So reads the end of the jacket blurb on Louise Gluck’s The Seven Ages. I cannot think that the word “mimetic” draws in potential readers; perhaps the writer felt confident enough that Gluck’s much deserved renown as Poet Laureate and eight previously published volumes of poetry would be quite enough to ensure sales.

Such writing, however, makes me want to take cover under my desk and hope that copies of Auerbach do not find me there, and that my friends and relatives don’t believe that this is the kind of drivel that too much graduate school forces one to produce.

I liked Gluck’s collection very much, especially “Youth,” “Grace,” and “Mitosis.” I appreciated the poems about the speaker’s sister, especially after reading Tell the Wolves I’m Home, with its focus on the relationship between the two sisters. However, at no point during my reading did I feel sparks in the vicinity of my spine, let alone flames.

A modest proposal: signed jacket copy.

“a thread of her devising”

February 5, 2013February 6, 2013 / Carolyn O / Leave a comment

Charlotte’s Web may be the book I’m most looking forward to reading with my small son. I remember my mother reading it to me, and in particular the calm, gracious way she delivered Charlotte’s classic “Salutations.”

[Actually, in many ways, my mother reminds me of Charlotte: inventive and resourceful, especially when protecting the people she loves; ready to sacrifice for her children; and possessed of a remarkable facility with language.]

E.B. White, who wrote Charlotte’s Web, and Stuart Little, and The Trumpet of the Swan, is also the White in Strunk & White, whose Elements of Style is a perennial classic, the pronouncements of which I fear my writing never lives up to.

It should come as no surprise, then, that White is gifted writer in many genres. “Once More to the Lake” is a particular favorite of mine, an essay that neatly encapsulates the tension between childhood and adulthood, memory and the present. His letters are kind and witty (read a wonderful example at Letters of Note), and I’d like to find a volume of them the next time I’m haunting a used bookstore.

A used bookstore is where I found a paperback edition (1983, I believe) of Poems and Sketches of E.B. White. Someone wrote a lovely inscription on the title page that refers to White’s death in 1985:

To dear B–,

In memory of the era that ended during our ’85 visit. How sad- but he will live in our memories & his words will continue to entertain and bind us!

With much love, K, [unclear name here] & S*

It’s a delightful book; open to any page and there’s something to amuse or interest. This week I’l be memorizing the poem “Natural History,” addressed to White’s wife, Katharine. It’s a short, delicate poem in which the speaker compares himself to a spider, attached to the point of his leaving (his wife) by a silken strand, to aid in his returning. If I were to teach the poem, it would make a lovely pairing with Donne’s “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning.”

*I’ve redacted the names of the recipient and the gift-givers to protect their privacy, whomever they may be.