I Liked This Funny Pantoum by Geoff Ward

and wanted to share it with you.

I found this on Jacket.

I was reading a perceptive review the author had written of Barbara Guest's book, If So, Tell Me, which was published by England's Reality Street press in 1999.

I particularly liked the review, because the author--who has published several books of literary criticism--traced composing strands of Barbara Guest's poetics back several centuries and discussed Continental antecedents that I thought were apt. I'm tempted to pick up one of his critical books now. Because I really enjoyed his take on the New York School of poets.

I think there are strong correspondences between Hart Crane's poetry and Guest's.

Both poets are rightly perceived to be individualists who did not conform to the expectations of the literary constellations around them. Both poets were critically misread for most of their careers. Both poets used catachresis extensively.

But back to that review essay.

Ward rightly recognizes the (first generation) New York School's existence as a conceptualist gesture rather than a reality. And he talks about how easy it is to historically configure that "school" in diverse and even contradictory readings. He says (convincingly)that one could even see the New York School as a significant chapter in gay American poetics/poetry.

The first point is more germane, I think. The gerrymandering that goes along with identity poetics is useful for anthology making or movement making, but not so useful when reckoning the single poem on the page. Because straight poets will often write very gay poems, and vice versa. If we speak loosely and go by intuition, Barbara Guest was a very gay poet. Even if she was a straight woman. I would say the same thing about Mina Loy.

I know one can't logically argue points like that, which involve a great deal of subjectivity and subjective interpretation of what an abstraction like "gayness" is. It all comes down to what elements one chooses to see as part of a group identity. And this will of course vary from individual to individual, from subculture to subculture, from decade to decade, etc.

Such categorizations are usually more about territoriality and turf.

And territoriality and turf are always a little bit embarrassing, I think.

That's why I find movement poetics sort of repugnant. It seems one of those things we should have let go with the end of the twentieth century.

But identity politics are relevant sometimes. I mean, there is the political and the polemical. Injustice makes a necessity of such categorizations sometimes.

Anyway, here's the very funny pantoum by Geoff Ward.


     Pantoum

The sculptor is known for his moon-shapes and use of the organic
He invites us for the weekend to his white house on the Lizard
Harsh words are exchanged and he chases us, brandishing driftwood
We decide we hate modernism and that life is good in Cheam

He invites us for the weekend to his white house on the Lizard
Where I noticed my eyes had changed colour in the cold
We decide we hate modernism and that life is good in Cheam
Despite the steep increase in barely solved murders

Where I noticed my eyes had changed colour in the cold
The princess was looking for a pea to lend significance
Despite the steep increase in barely solved murders
I found her a warm space and floated immediately

The princess was looking for a pea to lend significance
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan
I found her a warm space and floated immediately
Consult the cards, watch carefully, thin paper for Mao's thoughts

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan
New caves are going up, ready for the managers
Consult the cards, watch carefully, thin paper for Mao's thoughts
Where stands the deserted transmitter: put on goggles

New caves are going up, ready for the managers
He had got to grips with history and thrown it in a corner
Where stands the deserted transmitter: put on goggles
Poring over sheets that bear the legend Desperate Drenchings

He had got to grips with history and thrown it in a corner
When he came across his father, for many years north-facing
Poring over sheets that bear the legend Desperate Drenchings
And laughing at the government

When he came across his father, for many years north-facing
So as to catch the sunlight, rolling on the sea
And laughing at the government
Of beauty, of loss and of love's mystery

So as to catch the sunlight, rolling on the sea
When I held her I held vines and crumbling balustrades that sighed
Of beauty, of loss and of love's mystery
In the same dream, the same car in the driveway

When I held her I held vines and crumbling balustrades that sighed
The sculptor is known for his moon-shapes and use of the organic
In the same dream, the same car in the driveway
He invites us for the weekend to his white house on the Lizard