No photo of a smiling poet and three poems this time. Instead, as the aftermath of a sad November, we are giving you some prose for Poetry Monday: “In Memoriam,” “Déjà vu” and “A Brief Review.”
First, the memorial. One of our finest, belatedly but still insufficiently recognized American poets, Ruth Stone, died on November 19 at the age of 96. Not only as a poet but as a person, she was a marvel. A fan of hers for years, since discovering her book Cheap: New Poems and Ballads in 1972, I finally had the privilege of hearing her read and chatting with her just a few years ago inVermont. The reading – actually more of a recitation, because she was blind by that time and reciting her poems largely from memory, with her daughter at her side as rare prompter, was one of the best I have ever heard by anyone, anywhere. Reading with her that evening was Toi Dericotte, who also turned in, as she always does, a stellar performance, but I had heard Toi before on a number of occasions, and this was my first exposure to Ruth Stone off the page. What a delight! Petite, with long red hair, a jaunty cap and little boots, she was an animated and animating presence. Everyone became more in her company. Our timeline has been too short to acquire permission to quote her at length here, but these few words, the last stanza of her poem “Bargain,” will give you the flavor of her work:
“Sweet cream and curds …
Who will have me,
Who will have me?”
And close upon my words,
“I will,” said poverty.
And so it did. Ruth Stone was poor all her life, the National Book Award and other honors notwithstanding.
Second, the déja vu. Sadness is too mild a word to describe what many of us experienced when we read of the dark turn of events on the campus of U. C. Berkeley last month. Images of students protesting, police violently over- reacting bring back the nausea and horror the the sixties’ culture clashes. It made us think of Kent State. But this was 2011, and the Occupy Movement people – not only students but faculty and others – had pitched their tents near Sproul Hall, the very home of the Free Speech Movement, not far from the campus café where Mario Savio’s words appear, without the irony we feel on reading them today:
There is a time … when the operation of the machine
becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart,
that you can’t take part. You can’t even passively take part.
On learning from a colleague that the Occupy tents were being taken down by police and that students were being beaten viciously, former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Hass and his wife, the poet Brenda Hillman, went down to do what they could to protect the students. Instead, they became victims themselves. Brenda Hillman was talking quietly to the deputies when one of them, Hass tells us, reached out, shoved her in the chest and knocked her down. Hass, trying to help her, saw the deputies assault the line of young men and women with clubs, beating them on their chests, stomachs, ribs and spines. Hass himself was beaten on the ribs and forearm. Another colleague, the poet Geoffrey O’Brien, got a broken rib. Most shocking of all, Celeste Langan, a Wordsworth scholar who presented herself for arrest, was dragged across the grass by her hair.
Granted, I was not there to witness this and hate to think of what might have happened if I had been. Like the New York Times editors, however, who thought enough of Robert Hass’ first person account to feature it on their November 20 Opinion page, I believe what he said. There have, of course, been other appalling responses to the largely valid Occcupy movement, such as the pepper-spraying of an 84-year-old woman in Seattle, but for those of us who love poetry, the U.C. Berkeley episode will go down in infamy.
Finally, a brief, end-of-the-year review. The editors of Penguin Classics had the good sense to ask another former Poet Laureate, Rita Dove, to edit an Anthology of Twentieth Century American Poetry, which has just been released, and will be treasured. Dove’s choices, although they show some surprising omissions, as do all anthologies, are superb. Here you will find more of Ruth Stone, Robert Hass, Rita Dove herself, our beloved former Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress Maxine Kumin (an early contributor to Poetry Monday), Gerald Stern and many others, including some I had never heard of but that Dove brings forward and introduces to fine effect. The book itself is a handsome volume, with a sturdy binding, high-quality paper and comfortable print. Do go to a bookstore –an independent bookstore, hopefully – and l0ok at it. Hold it in your hands and turn some of the delicious pages. It might be enough to lure you away from your Kindle.
Warmest greetings for the holidays and the year ahead,
Irene Willis
Poetry Editor