Bob Dylan and the Nobel Prize

Yesterday, in Portland, the first thing my husband said when he saw me was "Bob Dylan! Did you hear about Bob?"

Tom is not the sort of man who gets excited about Nobel prizes, but he was clearly tickled about this one. So was I, but lots of people--including writers, maybe especially writers--were not so pleased. I'd say my Facebook writers' feed was split about 50-50, half of them joyous, the other half appalled.

Among the appalled, a certain number just didn't like Bob Dylan's voice or his canon. Some were irritated that one more old white guy was winning a big prize. (And by the way: where are the women on the Nobel list? Not a single woman won a prize this year.) Some were convinced that the Nobel deciders were unfairly conflating song lyrics with poetry. Some saw looming chasms in the future administration of literature prizes. For instance, here's what the executive director of the Academy of American Poets wrote:

While some poems can be songs and poems can be read, spoken, chanted, recited, or sung, the Nobel Committee for Literature presented Bob Dylan with their 2016 award for "creating new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition." Although it seems clear from this official citation that the committee is recognizing Dylan as a songwriter, it's fair for working poets to wonder whether this is in fact the case, as one member of the committee describes Dylan as a "great poet in the English tradition . . . a great sound poet. . . . " 

Few would argue with the notion that Dylan is an icon who has made a lasting impression on the many readers of his lyrics and other writing, and his listeners—perhaps especially on the generation that grew up with his music. But not all poets and critics view Dylan's primary cultural contribution to be one to American poetry. That shouldn't be controversial considering Dylan himself once said, "Anything I can sing, I call a song. Anything I can’t sing, I call a poem. Anything I can't sing or anything that's too long to be a poem, I call a novel.” He troubled the waters between genres, but he clearly understood the difference between them, and that his work spanned several. 

Why celebrate the "American song tradition" now? Is songwriting literature? Is Dylan a poet as well as musician? 

In some senses, today's announcement by the Nobel committee is about more than Dylan. If the committee, which has awarded prizes since 1901, is expanding how it defines literature and poetry, that has possible cultural implications and/or consequences. The decisions leading institutions in a field make can influence other institutions and organizations, formal and informal. To the positive, perhaps the committee's decision might signal a greater appreciation for literature's oral tradition, and even inspire a similar embrace of spoken word, slam, and hip hop, which have too long been marginalized by literary institutions. To the possibly challenging, perhaps it could inspire other grantmaking organizations that have historically assisted individuals who focus on a particular literary genre to focus on artists who work across multiple disciplines. 

This is to say, it's understandable that poets might have strong feelings about there being even fewer opportunities for poets than there are already. And, more, it's always legitimate for poets to ask questions about institutional actions that might impact the community of working poets, and how the public views and understands poetry.

I read her statement as an acknowledgment of the insecurities of the literary world: "If a songwriter can take the pot, then there's less treasure for the rest of us." And I do feel the sadness of so many of my dear friends in the art. One has ruefully compared our labors to scrimshaw . . . outdated, outmoded, a vanishing practice. The Nobel Prize in Literature has symbolized the public value of our craft. It's been a comfort, even for those of us who know full well we'll never make the short list.

But as I wrote on my Facebook feed yesterday, literature is a big canvas, and song lyrics are certainly an art of language. I'm happy that Bob Dylan's work was honored. I look forward to the day that hip-hop, stand-up, throat singing, and so many ancient and new forms receive international honors. I say this as someone who's a fairly old-fashioned poet. I know that the world of words is bigger than I am. As it should be.

I got new glasses yesterday, and finally this morning I am beginning to figure out how to focus again. It's funny how long eyes take to get used to something they really want.

The forecast calls for rain, and I hope that also means mushrooms. So far this fall, I have found a few honey mushrooms and cadillacs, despite the annoying deer who keeps decimating the patches overnight. But "few" is the key word; there has been no wonderful overflow. Last weekend, on Sears Island, we found our first ever hen-of-the-woods, but I don't expect to find any more of those. They only grow on oaks, which I don't have, and prefer a more temperate climate than my woods can offer them.

I'm trying to think hopefully about the mushrooms I'll be able to find on walks in southern Maine, but it does make me so sad to forsake the forage secrets of my northern forest.

Later today I'll be driving to Portland to meet the boy, who is coming home for fall break. We are very much looking forward to sitting on the couch and watching a Cubs game together. When I asked him what food he'd like me to make, he had a one-word answer: "Vegetables!" This is classic Paul. When he went to canoe camp in middle school, he used to get into the car after a wilderness trip screeching, "Fruit! Fruit! I need fruit!" Once he ate an entire watermelon on the ride home.

I will definitely remember to load up the car with the fresh Macoun apples I bought yesterday. Maybe I should also bring a few pounds of carrots.

The sky is saturated with gold. The brilliance is unsettling, a frame for the pulsing glories of leaves and grass. Autumn is a strange lurid beauty.

I woke early with a headache, so perhaps that is skewing my easy pleasure in the colors outside the windows. This morning they seem almost violent.

Here's a rather horrible thought about autumn--from Shakespeare, naturally:

The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burthen of the prime,
Like widow'd wombs after their lords' decease.

--from Sonnet 97

I have been thinking about Shakespeare lately, mostly because my son is taking a course on his history plays and likes to call me up and chatter about his feelings and reactions. I will say that there is hardly anything sweeter than getting these phone calls: "Mom! Let me tell you about what I'm reading!" But he is struggling with Shakespeare . . . not because he can't understand the dramatic structure, or doesn't enjoy the language, or can't a write a paper about it, or any of those basic issues. As he describes his reactions, I see that he means that there's no respite when he reads a Shakespeare play--no chance to pull back from the experience and digest or even breathe. They are so dense and demanding. A Shakespeare play grabs the reader by the throat and won't let go. Even the comedies are inexorable, but the histories are like doom.

I understand that reaction. Really, when you read Shakespeare, you need to be prepared to fall off an ocean cliff and repeatedly smash your skull against rocks. For me, Othello is the hardest to revisit. Talk about doom. Watching Iago machinate and Othello weaken and Desdemona wander cluelessly around the room is like asking to be crushed in a garbage disposal. It's so painful.

Still, I'm glad he's undergoing the torment, and I know he is too. He seems to have discovered, at college, that demanding work can be a fascination and a joy. Every time I speak to him (and he calls home all the time; it's very funny), he's laying out his plans for self-improvement: he's going to take this or that course, he's going to attend this or that performance, he's going to take part in this or that project, he's going to read this or that play. He never bought into the expectations of high school, but he takes this college seriously. He is surrounded by artists, both masters and apprentices. He feels noticed, and he feels challenged. I am so happy for him.

Orpheus with his lute made trees,
And the mountain tops that freeze,
Bow themselves when he did sing:
To his music plants and flowers
Ever sprung; as sun and showers
There had made a lasting spring.
Every thing that heard him play,
Even the billows of the sea,
Hung their heads, and then lay by.
In sweet music is such art,
Killing care and grief of heart
Fall asleep, or hearing, die. 

--from Henry VIII

We did not climb Borestone Mountain. Instead, we drove to the coast and hiked on Sears Island, a charming shabby little preserve linked by a causeway to the town of Searsport. Searsport has a beautiful deep harbor, so for years the state government has been trying to figure out how to transform Sears Island into an industrial site. Various ideas have been mooted: nuclear power station, natural gas depot, container ship port, those sorts of things. In the 1970s E. B. White wrote an essay in the New Yorker defending the island against such encroachments, and there has been powerful local opposition to development. So in the end, none of these plans took root; and since 2009, the island has been conservation land.

It was amazing to me that on a holiday weekend, at the height of leaf tourism season, in the center of bustling midcoast Maine, Tom and I were the only people walking on this beach. But Maine can be funny that way. The wind blew, hard and steady. We watched seagulls swirl into the gusts and drop mussels onto the rocks below. We peered into caves in the cliff. In the woods behind the beach Tom discovered a cache of hen-in-the-woods mushrooms. Salt stiffened our hair. I pretended to fly.

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Geoffrey Hill readers: Our next poem will be "Merlin," and later this week Carlene will post some first thoughts and questions about it. In the meantime, you might want to check out the new comments about "The White Ship."

Thus far, on this holiday morning, the sky clings to its indeterminate white. A chill breeze tugs at the leaves. Tom and I had planned to climb Borestone Mountain today, and perhaps we still will. But if the weather doesn't soften, the climb will be a cold one.

I've spent much of the weekend re-preparing my house for the view of potential buyers: i.e., trying to hide or at least streamline the boxes of books that have lumpenly overtaken every room. It's absurd, the number of books I am not giving away to the Goodwill.

But yesterday I also sat quietly in a chair and reread my poetry manuscript. In regards to that sheaf, I have now reached the stage of amazement: I wrote this! It's a normal stage, but a good one--much better than the stage of despair or the stage of cynicism. And it was pleasant to listen to the rain drip from the eaves, and drink hot ginger tea, and think not-terrible thoughts about my work.

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Geoffrey Hill readers: We need a new poem to discuss. Anyone ready to step up?

This morning I am thinking about political cowardice but also about the devastation of Haiti. It is stunning how thoroughly Trump's lewdness and sexual aggression have distracted Americans from the fact that a thousand people have been killed by a hurricane in a nation just off the shores of their own.

So what accounts for this immense and horrified response to a man whose entire life has been a document to his awfulness? We didn't learn anything new about him. All we did was overhear him framing his actions into words.

As I listen to other women react, I am beginning to recognize what's going on here. The question is: are there any women in this world who have not, in situation after situation, been targeted, derided, damaged, reduced, or labeled simply for being female? I have never met one.

Trump's words do more than "strike a chord." They eat into a soul.

That said, I am now going to donate money to the Red Cross for Haiti.

Donald Trump: Pig-in-Chief

I had hopes that, even if the Red Sox couldn't manage to win on my birthday, that at least I could say that Donald Trump had quit the presidential race. But, alas, he is still with us--though a fresh layer of hot tar is dripping into his eyes and matting up his hair.

The man is an American humiliation. He is a shame and a sinkhole. And while he has managed to say something nasty about almost everyone who doesn't look like himself, women are his constant, quotidian targets. At best, we are caged animals in rut. At worst, we are too ugly to touch. Are we married, are we celibate, do we have vocations, do we have private lives, do we have faith, do we have ambition? What does any of that matter? He reduces our worth as human beings to a single question: "Would I fuck her?"

After yesterday's disclosures, no woman in the United States should be able to vote for Donald Trump. No man who values his mother, his wife, his daughters, or his female friends and colleagues should be able to vote for Donald Trump.

My country, do not let this swine become our decision maker.