Garrison talked about Anthony Hecht and Robert Service today, and he read a poem by Tony Hagland. Hoagland's poem -- from What Narcissism Means to Me, one of the great book titles of all time -- is excellent, like most of the rest in that collection.
I'm not a giant Service fan, but I'll go out on a limb and say that the poem of his that everybody know, "The Cremation of Sam McGee," really is a terrific piece of writing.
I've liked Anthony Hecht -- far and away the most serious and high-brow of the three -- for probably 15 years, ever since John gave me one of his books. (Venetian Vespers, I think, though it might have been The Hard Hours.) Serious and high-brown, as I say, but usually quite accessible and often enough downright easy. Take a gander, for example, at Dover Bitch and A Letter.
I was just now searching for a couple other poems he wrote when I stumbled on this obituary which mentions both of them:
Even his frankest examinations of human cruelty are marked by a calm tone and formal inventiveness. He could beguile the reader into taking a conversational piece in the manner of Frank O'Hara but then embark upon an account of torture and murder.They are two spectacular poems. The "Miss France" poem is "The Deodand" and it begins with a long first stanza that I had forgotten completely, so strong is the image in the short final stanza. And the Valerian poem is "Behold the Lilies of the Field," which I'm not able to find a link to. Maybe one of these days I'll type it in.
In an early poem, the narrator begins with an anecdote about his mother and flowers, before beginning an account of how the emperor Valerian was skinned alive; in a later one, the poet contemplates the belles of Paris, and then recalls how Algerians captured a young French Legionnaire, cut off his fingers and made him beg for food dressed as Miss France.
No comments:
Post a Comment