Poem by Peter Schjeldahl from the Jammy Jam Anthology

One anthology that no self-respecting poet should be without is the landmark An Anthology of New York Poets with the Ludens cherry red cover art by the Master of the School of Serenity himself, Joe Brainard (and many more b/w illustrations throughout).

Apart from its (oft-mentioned) failure to include more women poets (Sister Bernadette is here and well-represented) it is a divine anthology. I think the anthology's greatest sin was the now-in-hindsight-quite-embarrassing failure to include somebody seminal; I think many now realize Barbara Guest was surely one of the most progressive and gifted creators of the New York School. One could easily make the case that no one else in this entire volume continued to evolve with the miraculous grace and preternatural savvy she showed in the last few decades of her life. Her later work explored the field poem and seemed to be ekphrastically feeding on painting and the visual arts (her great nourishment) in an unprecedented manner.

Her oeuvre can be read as a full development of the plasticity and indeterminacy Mallarme first pointed towards with his Un Coup de Des.

She could tool philosophically trenchant poems in as fine a manner as Rilke. She was a perceptive critic, and she was able to marry art criticism and literary criticism to poetry (see "The Nude," for example).

Guest's poems are subtle and nuanced in the way nature itself is. Her poetry selves and unselves by turns, depending on the exigencies of the poem.

And she is not here. In this wonderful anthology.

This landmark volume was edited by Ron Padgett and David Shapiro, and remarkably well-preserved copies can be had on A.B.E. for a very good price (I think I paid 25 dollars for my immaculate hardcover that looks as though it were printed yesterday). The year was actually 1970 (original cover price was 12.95 then) for this first printing. Did it go through other printings? I don't know.

Anyway, I wanted to find a poem randomly but I cheated and ended up being drawn to Peter Schjeldahl's fine, very funny poem which I will reproduce here. Didn't he do a great job of writing everybody's autobiography (or perhaps I should say every poet's or critic's autobiography) in a few short sentences? Bravissimo, Peter, if you are here amid the living with us! I am too lazy to Google that fact, and obviously not urbane enough to know the answer off the top of my head. I suspect you're here. But then I always suspect everyone is here. Even the dead. Who could be more amongst us than say, Ted Berrigan, tonight? So many dead ones have mastered that trick of joyful omnipresence. Many of them are in this volume.

I didn't turn to the back, but the images I remember having seen of Peter reminded me of Munch's self-portraits somewhat, or one of Munch's subjects....as if a Munch subject had stepped out of a canvas circa the 1890s and walked into the New York School. Maybe it happened.


     Release


My life has been tedious
Confused and occasionally quite nasty
And hysterical
But I have never deliberately said anything
Without a lot of sincerity

My disagreements with myself are misunderstandings
Counterbalanced by a numbed optimism

I rarely hold opinions for longer than a few hours

Finishing a poem leaves me in despair
But I also make mild, intriguing collages
That fascinate me by their separateness

Sometimes I would like to kill someone
But I guess all I really want is to grab them and shake them
(No one in particular)

I feel best when alone and walking
Quite tall, agile, and slightly vicious
Also with a penetrating gaze for everything

I am currently suspicious of everyone
And regard nothing very highly
I do this out of a certain humility