Donald Justice, from his introduction to The Last Nostalgia by Joe Bolton

The early death of a writer tempts us to imagine what unfulfilled promise the future would have seen realized. We perhaps discover signs, real or illusory, of the maturing of some early brilliance. But in this poet's work I would find it hard to make a case for this kind of progress. The charm of the poems--and ultimately their worth--depends on a certain blazing youthful freshness allied with the doomed romantic spirit which haunts and drives them. The work may change over time but it does not change very much. Of his own poems Bolton said, "The scene is twilit, the mood existential, the outlook tragic." And this did not change, except perhaps to darken and grow weary. But there is all along a tangle of wonder and despair, a tangle which strikes me as indeed a mark of youth, but not rare either and certainly very sympathetic. Bolton in the end came to embody and give voice to a certain mixed attitude toward life--his attitude was, amidst all the deep despairs and despondencies, still the most intensely responsive, the most keenly appreciative imaginable.


Joe Bolton, from "The Seasons: A Quartet"

The best days of summer are the days of summer gone:
Something cooking, a wash of light on the water. . . .
The music dies, and what I hold is the world.
One leaf falling would break the spell. It falls.

Driving Lesson

Dawn Potter

Neither son nor father slept that night.

Tangled in sheets, the wide-eyed boy

stared into the chamber’s pearly dark.

He twitched his hands on the pillows,

guiding the heads of invisible horses.

From the apex of heaven, he saluted

his awestruck mother as her neighbors

sank to their knees in tardy admiration.

His father made no pretense of dreaming.

Late into the night, he sat in his throne room

watching the stars wander the heavens—

braggart Orion cinching his belt, the clumsy Bull

pawing at a black meadow. But toward morning,

before Dawn could arise from her bed in the east,

the god was in the stable, running practiced hands

over wheels and axle, checking hooves for stones.

When Phaeton appeared, crumpled and shining,

the Sun was leading his winged horses from their stalls.

Rested, well-fed, they tugged against their halters,

and at each breath, fire flared from their nostrils.

Through the stable gate, the god and his son glimpsed

Dawn unfolding her rosy sash on the horizon.

The Moon’s curl had vanished, and far below the palace,

Earth’s blue outline trembled under coils of mist.

As the Sun harnessed the stamping horses,

backing them four abreast, snorting and dancing,

into the chariot’s jeweled yoke, he advised Phaeton

on how best to manage the unruly team.

Though his voice was steady, his gestures calm,

his heart was heavy with foreboding.

After each caution, the boy nodded.

His eyes glowed. Perhaps he was listening.

“Leave the whip alone,” said the god.

“Keep your weight on the reins.

Holding back is your hardest task.

Earth and sky need equal magnitudes of heat.

Follow the middle road; my wheel tracks are clear.

And there is still time, plenty of time, to change your mind.

Give me the reins; go, eat something,

and we will sit together under the Moon tonight.”

But the boy had already climbed into the chariot.

There he stood, tense as a hare, clutching the reins—

joyful, oblivious, smiling up at his father.

Where was the terror that yesterday

had burdened him like a barrow of slag?

The horses snorted, snapped their gilded wings,

rang their hooves against the bronze bars of the gate.

The chariot trembled on its gleaming wheels.

Leaning into the car, the Sun kissed his child.

Then he lifted the fiery crown from his head,

tightened it, and slipped it over Phaeton’s curls.

“You see, it doesn’t burn me!” cried the boy,

proudly tossing his cumbered hair. “Father,

watch me at noon! Watch me wave to you!”

But the time for talk was gone. Dawn’s gaudy robe

blanketed the sky, and the Sun heaved open the gate.

[forthcoming in Same Old Story (CavanKerry Press, 2014)]

Yesterday, by odd coincidence, I received two reviews of A Poet's Sourcebook, one by an anonymous Amazon reader, the other posted on Poets' Quarterly, an online review journal. Both reviewers seemed to like the book, and neither one is an acquaintance, so I'm pleased.

This morning I'm undergoing an interview for a forthcoming CavanKerry Press podcast, and then I will turn my thoughts to lawn mowing. My yard and garden, like the rest of the yards and gardens of northern New England, are slug-draped and unruly. I will never regain control of the weeds. Ah, well. On the bright side, my raspberry bushes are loaded with green berries, the tiger lilies are waving bravely from the roadside ditches, the delphiniums are as blue as eyes, and Terry at the garage finally solved the brake problem in my car. Also, last night, at band practice, we played like angels . . . which isn't to claim that we sounded like angels, only that we heard each other in an intense and rapid and delicate way. Playing in an ensemble can feel like magic; it really can.

Today's Poem Discovery

I found this beautiful poem this morning as I was creating some writing activities related to vowel sounds in poetry. Emily Pauline Johnson grew up on the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario and was a student of both English literature and Mohawk history and culture.

Marshlands

Emily Pauline Johnson (1861–1913)

A thin wet sky, that yellows at the rim,

And meets with sun-lost lip the marsh’s brim.

The pools low lying, dank with moss and mould,

Glint through their mildews like large cups of gold.

Among the wild rice in the still lagoon,

In monotone the lizard shrills his tune.

The wild goose, homing, seeks a sheltering,

Where rushes grow, and oozing lichens cling.

Late cranes with heavy wing, and lazy flight,

Sail up the silence with the nearing night.

And like a spirit, swathed in some soft veil,

Steals twilight and its shadows o’er the swale.

Hushed lie the sedges, and the vapours creep,
Thick, grey and humid, while the marshes sleep.

Harmony Annotations

I wondered if you might enjoy a few recent snapshots of household activities. I'll begin with cooking because pride goeth before a fall.

This khaki-colored mystery is really a platter of stuffed grape leaves that took all of one hot afternoon to make. First, I cut sheaves of grapevine. Then I stripped the leaves from the vine and fed the leftovers to the goat. Then I washed, scalded, and cooled the leaves. Then I picked a bundle of mint, dill, and green onions. Then I washed and chopped the greens and lightly heated them in olive oil. Then I mixed the herbs into leftover basmati rice and some soaked and drained bulgur wheat. Then I added lemon juice and salt and pepper. Then I made Paul come out of his room and help me fill the leaves. And voila. As accompaniment, I mixed up some yogurt with a tablespoon of tahini. There were no leftovers.

This is a strawberry-rhubarb pie with a walnut-crumb topping. I invented this recipe as a way to circumvent the irritating juiciness of rhubarb without turning the filling texture into paste. The result was beautiful but ineffective. The pie was as annoyingly juicy as ever. However, the crispy walnuts were good.

This not very well composed photograph demonstrates my compact herb-drying facilities: a string, some clothespins, and a narrow wall. The short stuff is thyme. The long stuff is peppermint.

And here is Horrible, disguised as Good Little Ben, sitting sweetly on Paul's lap.

And here is Horrible showing his true colors. As you can see, after wantonly confiscating my chair, he decided to eat me. However, at this time he is still too small to swallow me in one gulp, and I tend to notice when he starts trying to gnaw the flesh from my bones. So I am still alive.

On today's schedule: a quick visit to the seashore for lunch with a Frost Place friend and then back to the forestlands to drive a kid to a soccer game. I've been working hard on the next chapter in The Conversation, which deals with sound elements in Joe Bolton's "In Memory of the Boys of Dexter, Kentucky." I feel as if I've made some sort of enormous discovery about the way in which sound, sight, and sense accrue in the course of a sonnet, but I expect there are a thousand scholars slavering in the corner, ready to burst my balloon. (O, mixed metaphor, how I love thee.) In the meantime, Paul and I are inventing a fairy tale that stars our household animals (Once upon a time there were three little children, and their names were Princess Lulu, Princess Anna, and Horrible . . . ), and I have been working out the details of a two-day writing workshop I plan to lead this fall at the Barred Owl Retreat in Leicester, Massachusetts. I'm calling it “'Fitted to the Matter': Turning to Verse, Turning to Prose." Suggested readings are Richard III and My Antonia. Doesn't that sound like a delightful combination? I am so excited.

Also, String Field Theory is playing on Saturday evening at the annual Strawberry Festival at Stutzmans' Farm. Come hang out with the mosquitoes and me.

Dream

I was dreaming of a dusky room and my aunt, and a looming event--now I remember; it was a poetry reading, and I had forgotten all of my books and had chosen all of the wrong poems, but I was calm, even resigned, though I had parked my car in front of a pair of tiny gateposts and would never be able to get out of the space, but I wasn't worried about that now, what I was thinking was "Yes, this is the exact word that sums up all of the poems," and I was so confident of the supremacy of this word that even when I said to myself, "Wake up now and write it down," I told myself, "How silly. Who could forget such a basic fact?" but of course I did forget it, and now all I can recall is that the word began with t and I'm thinking that it was either twitch or tether, probably tether, because I've talked myself into imagining that I can remember two syllables, and now the problem is: how do I reconcile all of the poems with twitch or tether, and don't ask me, "What exactly do you mean by 'all of the poems'?" because I was hoping you'd be able to help me out with that since my dream never gave me any clue, and all I remember is that I was practice-reading a poem for my aunt and she told me I should choose a better one which was a surprise because as far as I know she's never had any sort of opinion about any poem at all and would be embarrassed to be in the same room with an orated poem unless she was at a funeral, when poets leap out of the woodwork and everyone is kind to them and no one suggests that they should choose a better poem (and I thought of putting a period here and ending this sentence but I still haven't gotten anywhere with tether and twitch): for I can see how one might draw tedious connotative squiggles around tether but the idea that twitch could sum up all of the poems is startling, as if the messenger's "Anglo-Saxon attitudes" had come to life in prosody (see quotation from Alice below), and, damn it, if only twitch had two syllables! because I am positive that the dream-word had two syllables, and do you think I could have dreamt twitching?

All this was lost on Alice, who was still looking intently along the road, shading her eyes with one hand. "I see somebody now!" she exclaimed at last. "But he's coming very slowly--and what curious attitudes he goes into!" (For the messenger kept skipping up and down, and wriggling like an eel, as he came along, with his great hands spread out like fans on each side.)

"Not at all," said the King. "He's an Anglo-Saxon Messenger-- and those are Anglo-Saxon attitudes. He only does them when he's happy. His name is Haigha." (He pronounced it so as to rhyme with "mayor.")