-HUMANIST RAYA1 ,| • j■:v|H £ ^:x>r.&f, '■<:■■*' •■■■'■'.^;r\ • ■ . .',THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGOLIBRARY SOCIETY1985 BOOK COLLECTINGAWARDSIf you are a registered student; and if you havebegun collecting printed or written materials thatreflect a personal interest, hobby, or expertise,enter the 1985 Student Book Collecting Competi¬tion sponsored by the University of Chicago LibrarySociety. Collections may be of any size and on anysubject They will be judged on the basis of their in¬terest; cohesiveness> and originality rather than bythe rarity or cost of pieces in the collection.Each contestant must submit a brief descriptionof his or her collection and six to fifteen represen¬tative items. Two prizes of $100 will be awarded,one for the best collection by an undergraduate,and one for the best collection by a graduate stu¬dent. The winners will attend the Library Societydinner on May 22nd, and the prizes will be awardedat the Honors Award Assembly on May 23rd.Deadline:Between April 1 and April 5 submit descriptionand sample items at Library Society Office, JosephRegenstein Library, Room 180, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Com¬petition rules and entry forms can be picked up atthe Office anytime between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.weekdays. Or call 962-8455. Michael L. Baum, M.D., LTDPractice limited to Psychiatryof adults and adolescents byappointment only.55 East Washington(312-346-2190)March 178:30 Ecumenical Serviceof Holy Communion11:00 University Religious ServiceBernard O. BrownDean of the Chapel preaching4:00 Organ RecitalJeffrey Smith, Associate Organistof the Chapel - Admission free thisSundayatRockefellerMemorialChapel59th & WoodlawnIf1A SACRED ORATORIO IVYGFHANDtLEIIERCX RChjAliRv KAPEL CHOIRS o J 0 f S I >3 N ! v o RCT 1ES : R \J, \ 1C' I OR W ElYEfV DI RECTORPALM Silts!MAY• VMJAT'A A aVt.PM1 *GOOD FRIDAY\PRil 5 \J 5PMROCRLFFL! FR MEMO,RIM CHAPFFMAO SOU ! ft YVOODI WAN A\ t Ml IFCM 1C A CO • I L- ihHvM** i \ C\<\TS;Mlo-7300y oz♦u3Dc♦Z6 no$ic*nusic* noaicTHE DEPARTMENT OF MUSICpresents:If you missed it last nightYou still have three chances leftto see theGILBERT & SULLIVAN OPERA COMPANY’STHE MIKADOFriday, March 15th at 8:00 p.m.Saturday, March 16th at 8:00 p.m.Sunday, March 17th at 2:00 p.m.A limited number of seats are still availableat The Reynolds Club Box OfficeThe 100th Anniversary of the first performance ofTHE MIKADOThe 25th Anniversary of the Gilbert &Sullivan Opera CompanyDON'T MISS ITU!Sunday, March 24 - Laura J. Amend, sopranoand Carol Browning, piano3:00 p.m., Goodspeed Recital HallMozart: “Exultate Jubilate”, K 165; Brahms: selected songsrecitatives and arias by Puccini and Rossini; and moreAdmission is free.NPnosic-fiogiomisifiSJ2—The Chicago Literary Review, Friday March !5, 1985CONTENTSThe second annual short fiction contestwas an overwhelming success, attractingapproximately ninety contributions. Thefirst, place award winner "is Narfcy A Leom' for her story The King's Ball. In 'additional,second story by the same author. Windowon Saginaw Avenue, is also included. Thesecond place award winner is last yearscontest winner Lenette Sadek, for herstory Death and Levitation, which is printedwith the story Paulie. The staff of the CLRwould like to thank- all those who contri¬buted their work, a number, of which areincluded in this issue as honourable men¬tions.The Spring issue of the CLR will featurea literary essay contest, whose deadlinewill be announced in early April. Theseessays can be of any length and on anysubject related to literature, whether re¬cent or past, and the contest is open tonon-students as well as students. The firstplace prize is.J|75 again, and the secondplace prize is Ttte^'CLR. staff will judgeall entries, anCP .request..'that. writers usepseudonyms with s;ari ’-SttiaiiPed index cardstating the author's real name, th£r,title oftheir essay,- and their addr,$’ssv.and phonenumber. ^All contributions, -whether for the con¬test. or stories, poems, artwork, photo¬graphs or book reviews for the regularissue, can be dropped off in the CLR box ofthe Maroon Office, Room 303. Ida NoyesHall, or mailed to the address listedbelow.The Chicago Literary Review is pub¬lished quarterly by The Chicago Maroon,the official student newspaper of the Uni¬versity of Chicago.Contributions, business or editorialquestions, should be directed to the thirdfloor of Ida Noyes Hall, Room 303. 1212East 59th St.., Chicago IL 60637. or call:(3121 962-9555. / :v - • '. * *•. *•*•. v ^ ^ .•****!• • *i\v! ' ^ 'iililll"At-i|wmPxo JT,.SllllllEditor: David SullivanStaff: Elizabeth Barnes-Clayton. Jim Dunn.'Bill Hayes. Karla Karinen, James Keeney.Christopher Pearson. Chet Wierner, Ti¬mothy Belton.Production: Stephanie Bacon. Paul Cray¬ton. Karla Karinen. Bruce Kmg, LauraSaltz. David Sullivan.Advertising M^nager;.Laura Cypra'y** ■ ■ *The CLR would also like to thank1 the edi¬tors and staff of the Grey City Journal fortheir help during production. WHPK, HydeParks only radio station, for technical as¬sistance with interviews, and the MFA stu¬dents who generously contributed theirartwork. , mmwmmvIvXvXvivXvXvX'X'MvXv!NXv!»!»NX«!iwXv!*XwX,X,Xvi«1MMHMTh*£issue Vol $4 No 41«(N»c Tru«»i -r'l oThe Chicago Literary Review, Friday March 15, 1985—3COLLEGE STUDENTASSOCIATION ELECTIONSGIVE THE DEANA PUSHELECTIONS WILL BE HELDAPRIL 1- APRIL 10FOR MORE INFORMATION,CONTACT BRAD SMITH667-1915GIVE THE DEANS A PUSHILaU LAeLLlUL 4 e-Greater Chicago\vH UNGER WALKATHON want **Sunday May 5th, 1985Recruitment Rally Meeting March 30that 10:30 am, Chicago Temple77 W. Washington for sponsor sheets maps,inserts and educational materials.If questions call 953-2767For further Information,please fill out the coupon below ■lII want to be a walkerI want to be a sponsor —I want more information send to:Church World ServiceJanet Palrud8E St. Charles Rd.Lombard, IL 60148 THARTOfBAGGHVniRICHARD POSNERTHE FEDERAL G0URT8ISEMINARY COOP BOOKSTORE ■smMimmmwwwwwwREPAIR • SALES • RENTALSBY THE WEEK OR MONTHAPPLE MACINTOSH 3W" DISKETTES *4.00 «o.*5.50*0.*5.50.a*8.95eo.*2.75.o.APPLE MACINTOSH RIBBONSEPSON MX-80 RIBBONEPSON MX-100 RIBBONOKIDATA/GEMINI RIBBONUNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO BOOKSTOREOFFICE MACHINE DEPARTMENT970 E. 58th St.2nd FI.962-3400 or 753-2600■CELEBRATE■SPRING BREAK '85- Ft. Lauderdale *ITO6 on the beachFT. LAUDERDALE'S PREMIERECONCERT AND DANCE CLUB10 am to 6 pm POOLSIDE PARTIESLIVE D.J. EMCEEING POOLSIDE CONTEST • WATER VOLLEYBALLTOURNAMENT • FREE BEER CHUG RELAYS • FREE T SHIRT RELAYSTHE BELLYFLOP CONTEST • AND CLIMAX THE DAY WITH ... THEWETTEST, WET T-SHIRT CONTEST FEATURED IN PLAYBOY MAGAZINECASH PRIZES • FREE T-SHIRTS • AND OTHER GIVEAWAYS7 pm to 8 pm COLLEGE HAPPY HOURMONDAY, MARCH 25, 1985FREE SPRING BREAK 85 T SHIRT WITH PAID ADMISSION FOR ABOVECOLLEGE STUDENTS BETWEEN 7 O'CLOCK AND 8 O'CLOCKWITH PROPER COLLEGE I DALL BAR DRINKS AND DRAFT BEER - 75«COMPETE IN THE BEER CHUGGING CONTEST FOR TROPHIES. PRIZESEVENINGSSUMMERS on the beach presents...FT. LAUDERDALE’S FINEST ROCK N ROLL BAND NIGHTLY PLUS OURINTERNATIONALLY ACCLAIMED D.J. SPINNING THE BEST DANCEMUSIC AND ALL DAY. ALL NIGHT MUSIC VIDEO.Clip AND SAVl — — —CliC ANO SAVE *—Monday, March 25,1985NIGHTLY EVENTSMONDAY:Contest Nit.PrtzM and gtvMwnyt SATUHOMT:Com* and Party tilt 3 AM!TUESOff and FRIDAY“••at Buna on Mm B—ch” Contest THURSDAYiMMNRMoriNHm Look lor National Concart Acts$175.00 Cash PrintSUNDAY*WEDNESDAY: VWao Mute Nightopectai cWfiii ritgntONE FREE BAR DRINK OR DRAFTGOOO FROM 7-8 PM NIGHTLY<l«n* on. pMuMonwnSIMMERS or m« Owe* • 218 s Allan*. Btvrt FI LaudaxMl, Flood, 3131* • OOS| M2 WtTt(Local*, on* mm Mock North «f Lm Ola* Bhtl on At A*-SPRING BREAK '85U4—The Chicago Literary Review, Friday March 15, 1985FIRST PLACE, CLR SHORT FICTION CONTEST ■ ''■/fa/ :THE KING’SBY NANCY A. LEONII pul.l the crayon out of the box, reachingmy finger deep into it to retrieve the sky-blue crayon, which is an inch shorter thanthe rest. Peeling back the paper with mythumbnail, I reveal more of the crayon’sslick, waxy surface. Some of the blue col¬ored wax remains under my thumbnail. Ileave it there and resume coloring. Cinder¬ella is already late for the king’s ball.“Pass the sugar bowl, would youplease?”Returning to the kitchen table from Cin¬derella's dressing room, I look up to see ifthese words have been spoken to me. AuntGertie is staring at me. Her hair is pressedclose to her head by pin curls pulled tight,forming dark polka-dots on her whitescalp. One-by-one, she is pulling thebobby-pins out of each curl. As she does,not a single strand of hair moves. Cinder¬ella waits a moment while I hand the sugarbowl to Aunt Gertie" The sugar bowlmatches Cinderella’s gown.“You color inside the lines real nice,”Aunt Gertie remarks.I ignore her remark, wanting to hurry tothe king’s ball. With each stroke of mysky-blue crayon, the stro.ig aroma of cof¬fee brewing on the stove helps transformthe kitchen into a banquet hall. The musicbegins and the murmur of the crowd ofroyal guests becomes distinct as I prepareCinderella for her entrance into the king’sballroom.The door swings open. Are more guestsarriving? My uncle Billie walks into thekitchen. He would never have been invitedto the king’s ball. I ignore the intruder.Aunt Gertie has pulled out most of her pincurls and is handing the sugar bowl to mymother. I realize that the sugar bowl is ac¬tually a darker, prettier shade of sky-bluethan is Cinderlla’s gown.“Get away from me you son-of-a-bitch.You’re drunk.” spits Aunt Gertie, pushingthe intruder away.I press harder with my crayon. The sur¬face of the page becomes slick with thesky-blue colored wax. I’m not coloring sonice anymore. Sky-blue crayon marks ap¬pear outside the thick black lines of Cin¬derella’s gown. The guests are disturbed,the voices grow loud. Someone screams.It’s Aunt Gertie, Uncle Billy is pulling hard on a patch of curls freed from the bobbie-pins. She spills her coffee.I look at the woman who is my mother. Idon’t recognize her. I doubt that she re¬cognizes me. Her face is twisted, hermouth is open but no sound comes out. Herhand reaches across the table and I watchas she grips the sugar bowl. Her knucklesare white against the sky-blue ceramicbowl. A shower of white sugar descendsupon us. The sugar feels like dry sand onmy skin. I cover my ears, shutting out thescreams and the crash of glass on the lino¬leum.The music and the dancing has shopped,the royal guests have left. Uncle Billy hasdragged my mother's sister up the backstairs. I near shouts, just like the ones ’always hear coming from upsta s throughthe floorboards over my bed, only theseare closer. My mother doesn’t notice meShe is screaming — screeching. Her voicecracks, shouting curses as she tries to fol¬low the intruder and Aunt Gertie out thekitchen door and up the back stairs.I take my hands from my ears. I need touse them to save Cinderella. Cold coffeedrips to my lap from a stream runningalong the edge of my coloring book. Theflimsy paper has soaked up the brown liq¬uid. Prince Charming is now coffee coloredand beads of coffee roll across the bluewaxy surface of Cinderella’s gown. Mostof the shouting and pounding has stopped,only the sound of footsteps on the woodenstairs cause me to look up. Sounds of cry¬ing drift down the back stairs into thekitchen.“Get the broom,” my mother says tome.She sweeps up the mounds of whitesugar and broken pieces of sky-blue ce¬ramic scattered across the linoleum. I tryto remove the bits of sky-blue crayon frombeneath my thumbnail.Nancy A. Leoni edits High School HealthEducation Texbooks for the Laidlow Bros.Publishing Company and writes articles onmenstruation and the effect of alcohol onthe liver. She has a masters degree in oc¬cupational therapy, is thirty-three andplays Irish music.BY NANCY A. LEONIGrandma is sitting, as usual, next to thewindow in the living room of our house.Perched on the high-backed dining roomchair, she can oversee not only our entirefront yard, but everyone else’s front yardfrom our house down to the Jewel parkinglot at the corner.When running through the sprinkler inthe front yard, when doing cartwheelsacross the grass, or when rollerskating upand down the Martinelli’s smooth, evensidewalk, I can always be certain that, if Ilook up to the living room window of oursecond story apartment, there grandmawill be wagging her boney white finger atme. Sometimes, if the sunlight isn’t hittingthe aluminum screen directly, I can see herface. There she is scowling; her mouthmoving, making sounds that I usuallynever listen to. Most of the time, however,I can only see the waggering finger.I’m bored. Paula has gone off riding herbike somewhere and I can’t find her. I de¬cide to find something to do inside thehouse. No one but grandma is home, so as Ienter, I slam the back door shut, makingthe kitchen windows rattle. Grandma stilldoesn’t hear me. She’s leaning forward inher chair by the window, looking much likea cat preparing to leap upon its prey. Igrab a magazine and throw it, and myselfon my stomach, to the floor. Grandma’ssilver-blue head turns and I see the angryeyes and the scowling mouth that I sooften try to avoid. Then I see the object ofGrandma’s curiosity. Sitting on the win¬dowsill is a small ornately carved woodenbox. It is a jewelry box. I figure she wantsme to be interested, so I flip through thepages of Life magazine instead.I can see grandma’s profile from my po¬sition on the floor. Being careful that shecan’t tell I’m looking, I watch grandmatake an earring out of the box. The ear¬ring is lavender-colored and looks like atiny prism. She dangles the earring in thesunlight coming through the half-loweredVenetian blinds. One-by-one, she takesother pieces of jewelry out of the box andholds them up in the sunlight. Out comes apink and white cameo pin, a silver brace¬let, and a rhinestone necklace. I finish flip¬ping page after page of Life magazine be¬fore my curiosity gets the better of me. Iask grandma, “Can I see?” Grandmasnaps the lid to the jewelry box shut, mak¬ing me ask my question once more. “Can I look at the jewelry grandma?” I askagain. Then remembering something else,I ask, “Please?”Grandma looks at me as though I hadjust asked her to clean out our cat’s litterbox, or to perform some other equally dis¬gusting task. I never know what that lookmeans.After a moment, she opens the box andthen hands me the lavender-colored ear¬ring. “Now don’t break it.” grandmabarks.Grandma always sounds to me as thoughshe hasn’t quite finished her sentence. Ican’t help but think that “You brat”should be tagged to the end of everythingshe says to me.As if to show grandma that I can betrusted, I hold the earring flat in thecenter of my palm and hold it close to myeyes. The earring is made of silver filigreeand lavender-colored cut glass. The fili¬gree is tarnished and the lavender glasslooks grey and dirty in the my hand, butwhen I hold it up to the window, scatteredflashes of light dance about the room anda tiny rainbow appears on the oppositewall. I look at grandma, she has a funnylook on her face. I guess it could be called asmile.“Your grandpa bought these for me, justbefore we were married.” she says to me.I never knew my grandpa. Grandma turnsaway from me and stares out the openwindow. I look out too and see Paula rid¬ing her bike on the sidewalk toward ourhouse.“Your grandpa and me, we went for aride that day.” says grandma, still staringout the window. “That was in the horseand buggy days, you know.”Grandma continues to stare out the win¬dow and begins to talk. As she does, I nolonger hoar the “you brat” at the end ofgrandma’s sentences. She begins to painta picture for me of Saginaw Avenue; onethat I have never seen. Grandma’s wordsdescribe large, black horses pulling ele¬gant carriages over the cobblestonestreets. While gentlemen assist them intheir movements, ladies who are carefulnot to get mud on the hem of their long,trailing skirts climb in and out of these car¬riages.I still hold the lavender-colored earringin my hand. Grandma stops talking andopens the jewelry box once again. From out of the box, she pulls the matching ear¬ring. “Take these. They’re yours,” shesays. Grandma is smiling. I notice herbright pink gums and the eveness of allher teeth — false teeth.I hear banging on the back door. Paulais calling my name. Grandma stops smil¬ing. “What is she pounding for? she snaps.There it is again, “You brat.”Running through the hall to the kitchen to meet Paula, I hear grandma shout,“Don’t lose those now! You hear me?”I stuff the earrings deep into the pocketof my shorts as I fly out the door, descendi¬ng the steps two at a time. Racing Paulaon her bike to the front of the house, I cutacross the grass, soaked with water fromthe sprinkler. I look up to the window onthe second floor. I see grandma sittingthere She is verv stillThe Chicago Literary Review, Friday March 15, 1985—5fer acting that way andNor poking me.Daddy earn© in and walked back and forthand dropped hfs cigarette ashes on theworn flowers of the linoleum. I watchedDaddy’s grey trousers walk the floor.Petie w®s crying now and I started shak¬ing him and then he bawled out, “She sgonna disappear one day.” Daddy pulledup the tablecloth and asked was I pickingon my little brother.Daddy died when Petie and I were ingrammar school. Mother took Petie andme and carried Daddy's ashes to LincolnPark. She sprinkled the ashes over the la¬goon and onto the grass and I ran afterthe ashes. I found a small hard piece ?mdasked Petie what he thought it was. “Atooth,” he said. Mother sang loud in thepark thPen*. igh school now and I misshavit.g fu.. (h him He goes into his roomand shuts the door. He reads while he eats.He told me he is learning to levitate likeMother I used to tell him that she didn’tlevitate that day we hid beneath the tablebut that she was just standing on a chairbut he has a fit and shakes his head allover. Now I just listen and sometimeswhile I have Petie’s attention for a mo¬ment I tell him that I wish Daddy had agrave.BY LENETTE SADEKwmmm'■-V; % »..• IPAULIEBY LENETTE SADEKMy brother’s ghost is in the dining room.He stands with his hands in his grey pantspockets, his white T shirt hanging out, hiseyes a little bit narrow, the left side of hislip dght, it might be a smirk, but too muchof the white of his toot: shows. Nobodyelse sees him. Because he hurts. So theyforget and then they can’t see. Paulie hurtPa. Pa used to raise his finger in the air,and shake it, his white T shirt hanging out,$Jtt like Paulie’s. Pa used to shake hisfinger and yell, “You’re a punk, Paulie. Apurl.”And Pa was right. And maybe I did Pau¬li© wrong not telling him he was a punk,like I knew he was, but Paulie just made awhole lot of sense to me. The sense Icouldn’t explain with any words, but justkrt©W inside. I mean Paulie could state hisCase. If he had lived, he could have been alawyer. And he said I was going to playBp^piano and I loved him for that. Paulieknew important things. Like playing theWmo. Anyway, Paulie didnt get to be a©r. He’s the ghost in the dining room. Isee him anywhere else. Sometimes Iothers can see him in certain placessee him here. Maybe in church. Pau-ent to church on Tuesdays and Satur-. Maybe somebody can see the solesaulie’s shoes as he kneels down. Andn© didn't sneak in either. He walkedpliijght up to the church door, with thatjingle jangle w?'\ of h’s and didn’t carewnaIt his druggie 'rlends thought. Andwouldn’t >*>u mow nobody else believedPaulie went t-> church. Not Ma. Not AuntHenrietta.Maybe Paulie only haunts the diningroom because that's where he scuffledwith Pa. When Paulie took drugs he didn’tlook Father In the eyeball©, he looked atother part© of m fob®, and I could seethat, watching them from across the diningroom table, MS yelling at me, "Laurie, One time Pa hit me a good one and Masaid and always did say she couldn’t un¬derstand why I didn't get out of the wayof the scuffling. But I just couldn’t move. Igot so scared. Somebody was going to getkilled one of these days I knew for sure.Another thing about Paulie in the diningroom, his hands in his grey pants pockets,it always looked like he was leaningagainst something, like there was a wallthere or something, and then lookingaround with his crazy eyes. And whenthey were bloodshot, I was afraid of himlike I was afraid of the sewer rats in theold neighborhood. But Pa borrowedmoney from Aunt Henrietta to get us outof the old neighborhood and we moved intogether, Aunt Henrietta with us, I mean,and Paulie just went back to the old neigh¬borhood and even found spots in the goodneighborhood to buy drugs.Paulie and me used to sit at the diningroom table and talk. Before Paulie start¬ed the drugs, Pa and Paulie and me sat atthe dining room table and talked. Butafter, it was just Paulie and me when Paand Ma weren’t there. There were ripplesin the linoleum floor from that time Ma letthe bathtub run over and got us into tro¬uble with the seamstress who rented threerooms downstairs. Paulie pressed his toesup and down on a ripple. It made a littledup da dup sound and I made Paulie stopand he smoked cigarettes instead eventhough Ma said he wasn’t allowed. Maalways kept the dining room table prettywith a tablecloth and a center piece. In No¬vember Pa always brought home greensquash and red and brown corn for a cen¬terpiece. Paulie and me sat looking ateach other over the centerpiece.Ths day Paulie told me that if there arecondit.ons for lc./e there is no love, it wa3in the summer, and the wind made thesmall ivy leaves scratch against thescreen. Pa’s desk sat beneath the window.Ants marched over the desk. Two of themdrowned in the coffee from the day be¬fore. The sugar did it. t warned Paulie notto talk like that cause Ma got real madeand would yell, “Bullshit Paulie,” at him.And then I made, him tell me what he telligent for you to love me, it's not love,you’re in love wth something_ejse, .anImage, inside you. !f Pa wants me to gointo business with him and not think of meever doing anything else with my life,who’s he interested in? Paulie or the busi¬ness? It’s disallowing me to be a per¬son.”That’s just about what Paulie said, and Isaid, “Paulie, you ought to be a poet.”'•Sure, sure,” he said, jumping on the oldfootstool next to the china cabinet, mak¬ing a sad face, making a happy face. “I’llbe a mimic, a mime, and you play the pianoand we’H go to New York.”That stuff Paulie said about Pa, thatwas part of the punk in Paulie though. Be¬cause Pa would have been glad for Pauliejust to do something, anything..Pa askedPaulie, “What do you want Paulie? Whatcan we do Paulie?'’But that was a long time ago, beforerehab got popular and cheap because in¬surance decided drug addiction was a dis¬ease. Now, Pa just walks right on throughPaufte's ghost. They never talk about himanymore, ft’© like he never was. Ma getsstrange days ever since Paulie’s gone, likeyou would think she's taking drugs. AndPa, he drink© too much and has got this mu¬scular thing around his eyes of squinting.Aunt Henrietta died almost a year to theday after Paulie. And me, l just prance myeyes kind of like over the surface of thedining room and sure enough there’s Pau-tie, in his grey pants* hands in his pockets,narrowing his eyes, showing a bit of toothat the left corner of his lip, and leaning,leaning against something. Pa and Mawent to sell this place. But I’ve been of agefor awhile now, and sort of got in controlbeing die only child since Paulie’s beengone. I surf going to get rid of the placebecause Paulie lives here.Lenette Sadek recently movedthe Chicago area and is now living itCarolina with her husband. She iyears old and is at work on her firsttion of short 3tories which she honave published In the next year.That day he told me, “if l got to be in¬S—The Chicago Literary Review, Friday March 15,1985FIRSTSONBY HAN KAE-HUNI loved bananas when I was six. Apples,melons, and pears tasted cooler then theyfelt to the touch. The first bite of a bananawarmed my mouth with sweetness whilethe skin cooled my hand. Bananas were asexotic as the woman who bought me myfirst, and that excited me to dream.It was not that the local shops lackedtemptations. With my ten-won allowance Ifound it hard to choose between twentysheets of fresh white paper, four comicbooks with airplanes to copy, or driedsquid toasted over a grill with a roastedyam thrown in. In the small Korean town Ilived in, bananas were simply never seen.Then, on my first trip to Seoul, the capitalcity, I discovered a banana cost fifty timesmy weekly fortune.A beautiful woman sang me sad songs,took me to Seoul, and bought me as manybananas as I could eat. in the city I wasthrilled by taxi-cabs, traffic lights, andescalators, but when I returned home, Inever dreamt of taxi-cabs, traffic lights,or escalators.Months after my visit, I held mymother’s hand in a market. I sweated inthe summer heat. I was pressed into hipsand breasts by the crowd squeezing be¬tween racks of cotton, stalls of shoes, andmountains of cabbage. For a moment smelland sound disappeared with the crowdand I saw vividly my mother’s face. I no¬ticed the creamy skin of her neck and chindarken at her cheeks as the perfect yellowof the bananas she handed me darkenednear the stem. Then she was gone with themarket and I stumbled alone through thealleys of my neighborhood. I fell severaltimes on the sharp gravel but I kept thebananas clutched tightly in my hand. Iknew I had to hurry so I ran until thehouses blurred and I was safely home atlast, bananas under the blanket. I slowlydrew my arm out. I was confused by myempty hand. I smelled the bananas nearme. I knew they were under my pillow.Snatching it up, I fou. 1 * othing.Then I remembered ! did not have amother.Since my grandmother died, I lived withmy father and my grandfather. Soon afterthe funeral a maid began to come everyday to cook and clean, and because threemen could not make a home.The house had four rooms but f lived injust one. I ate in the dining room. My fa¬ther's room was forbidden to me. The firsttime I met the maid, she warned me thatlittle boys lost their hot peppers in kitch¬ens. It was in the room I shared with mygrandfather that I drew American air¬planes, plotted water-fight strategies,and did my homework. It was where mygrandfather told me his stories.If bananas were exotic to me, my grand¬father’s stories were as comfortable as hisgood mornings. Yet his stories got me intotrouble. One winter day I was pelted withsnow over Admiral Yee.Admiral Yee saved Korea three timesfrom Japanese invasion. He was as cleveras he was courageous. He invented theturtle-ship, the first completely iron-cladship in the world.When the Japanese invaded the firsttime, hundreds of years ago, their shipsoutnumbered ours two to one. But to theirdismay, fire-arrows could not burn thestrange ships of Admiral Yee. They re¬treated in confusion and dishonor. Theycame a second time with an even largerfleet and lost again.Years passed. The old king died to besucceeded by his young son. The newking's advisors urged him to strip the turt¬le-ships of iron to sell for gold. This goldthe foolish court spent on drink and silk,and soon the treasury was empty. The ad¬miral retired in grief to his fishing vil¬lage. 1 WJrWhen rumours of a third invasionreached his ears, the king hastily sum¬moned Admiral Yee. The brave soldiercried when he saw the once proud turtle-ships naked of armor. Fighting despair, hegathered his wits.When the largest fleet of all arrived, theJapanese lost a final time to AdmiralYee’s turtle-ships. The great leader hadtraveled to each village in Korea, humblybegging from every housewife. The turtle-ships had met the Japanese arrows witharmor melted from pots and pans.The day after I had heard this story wasthe first day of snow. In the playground Icalled my friends a b>mch of dirty Japa¬nese and fought them all. Admiral Yeenever cried for mercy. I was wet, shiv¬ering, and triumphant when the bellsounded for class.The first time I ever got mad at mygrandfather was after his Aesop's fable.As he sipped his morning coffee, mygrandfather told me that Aesop was a wise man who lived a long time ago.One day Aesop was sitting outside abathhouse. Nearby, a huge rock lay block¬ing the path to the bathhouse. Soon a manapproached the bathhouse, came to therock, then stepped off the path to enterthe baths. Throughout the day, many mencame to the bathhouse and all steppedinto the mud to round the rock. The sunwas setting when a lone man came to therock. He paused and called to Aesop forhelp. When the two had finished movingthe rock, they were covered with mud andsweat. The man asked Aesop if the bathswere full and Aesop replied that theywould be the first men to enter. Inside thecrowded pool, the man asked Aesop whathe had meant. Aesop told him that every¬one who came to the rock had been soiledin the mud by the laziness of the one be¬fore him. They had all proved themselvesto be no better than animals, so the bathshad been empty of men.I told my grandfather his war storieswere more exciting. I also thought Aesopwas stupid to wait so long if he wanted therock moved; I knew that the late* r.e wentto the baths, the dirtier the water wouldbe. I kept politely silent about that.Months later, the teacher announced ahumorous storytelling contest with a boxof watercolors for the prize story. Neverhaving owned paint I got excited thinkingabout drawing orange flames and bluesmoke on my American airplanes. That af¬ternoon I told my best friends a storyabout how the elephant got his trunk andthey laughed so hard that I knew the wa¬tercolors were mine.When I told my grandfather about thecontest that evening, he insisted that I tellAesop’s fable instead. I said the contestwas for funny stories, not for boring ones.He rarely raised his voice to me but thistime he shouted that I was his grandson,and that I would be better to lose the con¬test than to tell the class foolish non¬sense.The next day, I was sick with disappoint¬ment, knowing I would lose. Despite myprotest, my friends all bragged in classabout my elephant story. After I dronedthe Aesop’s fable, I sat to listen to the win¬ning story. After school my friends went toplay without me.That afternoon I refused to talk to mygrandfather and hung around the kitcheninstead. When I complained to the maid,she stopped her cooking to tell me a storyof her own.She told me I was born first son of a firstson of a first son. My grandfather's grand¬father had been a governor of Korea. Hisson had been a gentleman who spent hislife riding in carriages and writing Chinesepoetry. And my grandfather himself hadbeen an Assistant Minister of TobaccoTaxes.Before I was born, there had been a rev¬olution because the government was filledwith corrupt men. My grandfatherescaped prison because he had been hon¬est, but he was forbidden to ever workagain. Our family grew poor, but I was toremember whose grandson I was. I was silent. How could we have beenrich once, when now we ate meat only fourtimes a year and our rice was often mixedwith peas and barley?As I left to think about her incrediblestory, the maid swore me to secrecy. Mygrandfather never liked to talk about thepast, so he would be angry at her for tell¬ing such tales. I knew the maid valued mypromise so I pressed her to tell me aboutmy mother. She told me that my motherhad left her husband and t.aby to run offto America. She was supposed to be quitebeautiful, and since she lived in America,very rich, i asked the maid why my motherhad left me behind but she said I would notunderstand.In a few days I forgot the maid’s story,and on my seventh birthday my grandfa¬ther bought me a watercolor set and a col¬lection of fairy tales.My father rarely left his room duringthe day. The door was shut except whenhe summoned the maid to bring his mealsand summoned her again to remove histray. I knew he went out at nights but Inever saw him leave I saw him returnonly once.Sometimes he opened the door to callout my name. I was excited on these rareoccasions since I could expect to eat Chin¬ese noodles and listen to animal stories, trushed to him and left the house with a 50-won note.After I’d run to the noodle shop I couldhave walked home to wait for the deli¬very, but it was more fun to stay. Througha small window I could watch the noodle-man flip the dough and stretch it thin be¬fore it landed with a thud on the board. Hetossed and stretched over and over. Afterthe last thud, he rolled the dough flat, andwith a sharp knife chopped it into perfect¬ly identical strips of noodles, i neverdared speak to him but I knew he did notmind me watching. One time he grinned atme and whistled a song I knew. I sangalong softly to his toss and tune.“My wicked lover left me (thud) and leftwith with a burden (thud). He's travelingon the highway (thud), he's leaving me be¬hind (thud). Before he travels fiftyleagues (thud), I hope he cracks his stupidlec (chop, chop, chop)!’’eft the shop with the noodles coveredin a brown sauce filled with bits of pork,scallions, and carrots. When I finallyreached home, I put the steaming noodleson plates to carry into my father’s room. Isat contentedly slurping my noodles whilemy father began his animal storiesThey were not really stories, though myfather could tell some funny stories likehow the elephant got his trunk. Mostly myfather answered questions I had about an¬imals.Once I had asked a teacher what wouldhappen if a bear and a tiger fought. Hisrambling and hesitant answer about whysuch animals would never meet, and howthey would not fight if they did meet. I suf¬fered politely. I asked my father.The tiger is mean and has sharper claws,but the bear would win with the strongest arms in the jungle. Just as the tigersprings, the bear swings his paw andsplits the tiger’s skull.But the tiger would beat the lion be¬cause the lion is too noble. If the lion iswinning, the tiger feigns a broken leg. Asthe lion stops to let the tiger rest, the tigerwould bite the fool’s head off. Elephantscan afford to act noble, my father wouldsay, but the weasel had better be cun¬ning.Soon my father would tire and fall backsilent on his pillow. I would take this op¬portunity to explore his unfamiliar room.There were no pictures in the room, thoughI had often looked for one of my mother,just a dresser of clothes, a low table, hisbed, and an American-style desk. I wascurious about a stack of notebooks on thedesk with strange writing in them, but likemy grandfather, my father never an¬swered questions about the past.When my father talked, he smoked ciga¬rettes one after another and the roomgrew blue with his breath. His arms werethin above his blanket and his cigaretteoften trembled. When he rested, it was notlong before he began to cough, sweattrickling down his forehead.As I readied to leave, he sometimesstopped me to ask about my schoolwork.Since I always got high marks, he wasalways pleased. Once or twice, he pulledme close to him and told me never to turnout like him. Then he let me out to playwith a gift of 10-wonOne night, shouting in the dining roomwoke me. When I stepped out of my roomthe light hurt my eyes, making it harder torecognize the animal at the door. Its facewas all blood for a second, then I sawsharp white teeth and black streaks ofmud. As the teeth parted I saw my fa¬ther’s voice asking me if I had had enoughrice. I mumbed that I was still hungry sincethe rice had been mixed with peas fordays.I noticed my grandfather standing withus when my father shouted to feed mewith good rice. My grandfather yelledback that no man who refused to work andspent his father's savings on drink shoulddare speak so disrespectfully. As I hurriedback to my bed I heard. “You have lostyour wife to drink and violence and soonyou will lose your son,’’ and then “I’ll killthe bitch before she gets my son and sheknows I mean it.’’My father came in with bowl of rice. Hetold me to eat but I was too frightened toeat. He told me to eat again, and I was toofrightened not to eat. I ate and he left andI slept.Next day I asked the maid about mymother again. She must have known some¬thing about the night before because shefed me rice cakes while she talked. Mymother wanted me to visit her soon. Shewould send her friend to take me toAmerica. I remembered my mother’sfriend, bananas, taxi-cabs, and escalatorsin the city. The maid told me to keep it asecret from my father, but that I would beleaving the summer after my eighth birth¬day to visit my mother for two weeks. Ipromised.That night I listened to the radio. On myfavorite station ladies sang sad and beau¬tiful songs. When I was sad I would listento the radio to put me to sleep, when I washappy, I would tire myself by wrestlingbears on the bed. When I woke, I wasalways haopy; I could go to school andmake my grandfather happy by beingsmart, play with my friends, and spendten-won on drawing paper, roasted yams,and comic books. It was harder to re¬member my promise than to keep it.I had kept my promise, school was over,and now it was time to leave for America.My grandfather and I quietly left thehouse after breakfast. At the end of theailey, my mother’s friend was waiting in ataxi.“Meet your mother,’’ my grandfathersaid, as the taxi started to the airport. Ilooked at her and said good morning verypolitely. My mother’s friend had come aweek ago and we had shared several se¬cret trips together. We had gone shop¬ping, to eat Chinese noodles, to mountainparks, and played the slot machines. NowI was mad because she was too familiar tobe a mother and not familiar enough to bea grandfather.I stared out the window. I liked the smellof leather in the taxi and liked having aseat near the window to watch the peoplego by. When I traveled to school, the buswas already packed with smelly fat ladiesand I could never get to the window. Fromthe taxi, the people looked silly walkingso slowly.When we got to the airport I rushed outto look for escalators. When my grandfa¬ther called to me I had already run up thedown escalator and down the up escala¬tor. I was now watching the steps slidesmaller as they moved higher. I wanted tostay on my step as long as I could as theteeth slid shut. Maybe I could stretch my-'self like the Thin Man and slide in the darkcracks. I could explore the world insideand see what the stairs looked like afterthey slid in on top and before they slid outon the bottom He called againThe Chicago Literary Review, Friday March 15, 1985—7APPROXIMATE WORDS:EUGENIO MONTALE IN ENGLISHThe Second Life of Art: Selected Essays ofEugenio Montale edited and translated byJonathon Galassi, The Ecco Press, 1982, pp.354, $17.50.Otherwise: Last and First Poems of EugenioMontale, translated from the Italian byJonathan Galassi, Random House, 1984,pp. 159, $14.95 Hardback, $8.95 Paper¬back.by Rebecca WestIn a poem written in 1975 entitled“Questions without Answers,” Menialeresponds to the query whether hi> inspira¬tional lady, his ‘‘onlie begetter” was “oneor many.” The poet remonstrates:If the namewere a consequence of things,i could not single out one alonebocai se things are facts and factscomprehensively are scarcelyacmes.Unfortunate^ I have had only theword,something that approximates butdoes not touch bottom...If the word is approximate, how muchmore so is the translated wdrd, which is atone more removed from the "things” thatlanguage both re-presents and trans¬forms.Translators, especially of poetry, under¬stand well the virtual impossibility oftheir undertaking. The tradition of the un-translatability of poetry is an ancient one;Dante, for example, stated that “allsweetness is destroyed in translation.”Leopardi wrote: “Ideas are enclosed andalmost bound in words like precious stonesin a ring. Truly they become incorporatedin them like the soul in the body, so as toconstitute one whole.” The implication is,of course, that translation means a loss, awrenching cut and away, a fatal lack. Cer¬vantes’ famous phrase, “translation islike gazing at a Flemish tapestry wrongside out,” Victor Hugo’s “a translation inverse seems to me something absurd, im¬possible,” and the long-standing disdainfor the translator, often seen as a mere“technician” or frustrated creative writ¬er, all express the antagonism that trans¬lation has often elicited. The Italiam dic¬tum — ‘ ‘ t r a d u 11 o r e -1 r a d i t o r e ' '(translator-traitor) — succinctly sums upthe negative view of the “task of thetranslator” (to use Walter Benjamin’s titlefor his eloquent essay on the subject).Prose translations generally tend togenerate less extreme reactions, if oftenfor somewhat simplistic assumptionsabout the differences between prose andpoetry. The figurative, rhythmic, and son¬orous potentials of language, so integralto the creation of poetry, are assumed tohave a secondary role in prose where theinformational and diegetic functions oflanguage loom larger and create a senseof direct, as opposed to poetic or allusive,communicative clarity. Literary prosebelies such assumptions; and it may wellbe that there is no such thing as an “easy”translation, but rather simply difficultiesof different kind and range.Eugenio Montale's poetry is particularlydaunting to the would-be translator for avariety of .reasons. The 1975 recipient ofthe Nobel Prize for Literature (born 1896,died 1981) wrote authentically difficultpoetry, what might be called a modernEugenio Montale trobar clus (the Provencal term for herme¬tic, technically sophisticated verse). Therewas even published in Italy, and in Italian,a Montalian glossary that sought to clari¬fy some of the poet’s rare lexical choicesthat had stumped even native Italianreaders. Even when the words themselvesare understood, the syntactical and rhe¬torical complications remain, to say noth¬ing of the philosophical and emotionaldensity of so much of Montale’s product¬ion. His first two collections of poetry(Ossi d: sepp/a/Cuttlefish Bones, 1925 andLe occasion!i Occasions, 1939) have neverbeen translated into English in their en¬tirety, and the third (La bufera e altroiTheStorm and Other Poems, 1956) was trans¬lated completely for the first time only in1977. Selected poems have appeared inEnglish versions since the fate fifties but,in spite of the increasing critical attentionpaid to Montale’s work here in America,especially since the Nobel and since hisdeath, none but the most intrepid transla¬tors have tackled his demanding earlyverse.Jonathan Galassi, the translator of thetwo volumes under review, chose to workfrom the “margins” toward the "center"of Montale's great contribution to modernletters. By this, I mean no denigration ofsuch a choice. There are intellectual, aswell as strategical, justifications for mak¬ing Montale's critical essays and his lastbook of poems available to the English-speaking public before complete transla¬tions of his earlier collections of versehave appeared. First, as concerns theprose essays, it is right to claim, as Galassidoes in his Introduction to The Second Lifeof Art, that they “provide the rudimentsof a context in which to view Montale’sgreatest work, his poetry...” Such a con-textualization is extremely helpful toanyone desirous of penetrating the oftenadamantine shell of Montale’s potry. Theessays also serve as a delightfully eclecticoverview of European literary and cultur¬al concerns from the twenties to the seven¬ties and can, therefore, be read with prof¬it even by those not particularly orexclusively interested in Montale himself.The last book of poems, Altri versi (literal¬ly Other Verses) translated by Galassi asOtherwise, includes previously unpub¬lished poems, some written between 1962and 1977, some in the last years of thepoet’s life, others dating from as early as1918. The collection is both an introductionto the poet’s first voice and a conclusion tohis last; reading these poems thus pre¬pares the uninitiated for a better compre¬hensive understanding of the "high” sea¬son of the first three collections, as well asof the lower key of the next three (Safura,Diary of 1971 and 1972, and Notebook ofFour Years, published respectively in1971, 1973, and 1977). Taken together,Galassi’s two books constitute one of themost accessible and appealing entreesinto what might otherwise be an inaccess¬ible and too “alien” poetic universe forthe non-specialist American reader.A cursory glance at the Contents of TheSecond Life of Art gives the reader a hintof the rich variety of concerns that per¬vades Montale’s essays (as well as thetemporal and extra-Italian sweep of thepieces). There are sections on “Culture andSociety,” “Italian Writers,” “Other Writ¬ers,” as well as essays organized underthe rubies of “Observations and En¬counters,” “Tributes,” and “Interviewsand Self-Criticism.” This organization ofthe material is Galassi’s, for the essayswere culled from many disparate sources.Montale earned his living as a literaryand music critic for the Milanese newspa¬per, the Corriere della Sera; most of theprose pieces are journalistic in origin andreflect the exigencies of the genre: brevi¬ty, conciseness, a style both informativeand “catchy” enough for a general read¬ership. Some pieces included by Galassiwere written and delivered as speeches(the essays on Croce and on Dante, for ex¬ample); they are both longer and morescholarly in tone and substance. There arearticles on Eliot, Auden, Pound; portraitsof Stravinsky. Brancusi, and Braque; med¬itations on the cinema (an essay written in1927 when film was still a new art form),on Fascism and literature, on the future ofpoetry (Montale’s Nobel acceptancespeech of 1975 entitled “Is Poetry StillPossible?”). There are autobiographicalsketches, interviews that reveal a Monta¬lian mini-poetics, and satirical compendiaof the typical characteristics of the “Intel¬lectual” and the “Poet”. This is truly amiscellenea.Montale’s p» -e style is typicallyserious in communicative and often didac¬tic intent, but tempered by a lightness oftouch The author is seldom heavy-handed,often playful, ironic, acerbically humor¬ous. This is a timbre not easy to capture inEnglish, since much of its effectiveness de¬ pends on the rhythmic and semantic subt¬leties of the original Italian. The highestcompliment that can be paid to a transla¬tor — that we are not conscious of readinga translation — must be paid to Galassi.He consistently avoids the annoying, oftenpatronizing habit of some translators wholeave certain words or phrases in the orig¬inal (a practice often defended as provid¬ing a touch of “local color,” when it is nodoubt more often occasioned by an inabili¬ty to find an effective English substitute);he works hard at clarifying difficult allu¬sions and locutions within the texts them¬selves to keep footnotes to a minimum; heis “faithful” to the original, yet mindful ofthe necessity of respecting the very dif¬ferent syntactic and coordinative struc¬tures of Italian and English, differencesthat produce Italian sentences that, left intheir original form, would be inordinatelylong and referentially confusing in En¬gl! sh.It might seem that my praise of Galassi'sversions contradict my opening commentson the virtual impossibility of translation.The fact is that the perfect translation fsimpossible. These renderings are improv¬able; they are, themselves, “essays” inthe etymological sense of “attempts." Butthey are very good attempts, and I amsure that it will be a long while beforeanyone else gives us the fruits of anotherlong meditation on and dialogue withMontale’s prose. Knowing the original Ita¬lian essays, I can allow myself the luxuryof disagreeing with some of Galassi’s lexi¬cal and/or structural choices, but I am con¬vinced that these approximate words,while not “touching bottom” in any ulti¬mate or definitive way, still are an excel¬lent rendering of Montale’s prose voice.Otherwise is a bilingual edition of Mon¬tale’s last and first poems. I think thatsuch editions emphasize the "counterfeit”quality of translation. I am using the term“counterfeit” as it is derived from the OldFrench verb contrefaire meaning “to makein opposition to, to imitate.” This extend¬ed meaning of “counterfeit’ seems to meappropriate to a discussion of translatedtexts, for it brings into sharp relief the dy¬namic interrelationship of the original tothe translation; the something “made” towhich the “newly made” is juxtaposed.The superiority or at least the anteriorityof the original cannot be ignored or for¬gotten in a bilingual presentation. Thetranslation is ancillary; often it is impliedthat the reader will attempt to read theoriginal with the aid of the translation,even if he/she possesses minimal linguisticcompetence in the original language. Nat¬urally, if the original language and textsare known well, the urge to compare isstrong. Under the lens of such scrutiny,and perhaps also because of the manycomplex problems that the translation ofpoetry presents, Galassi’s attempts in thisvolume are somewhat less successful thanthose in The Second Life of Art.Before giving a few examples of howmy own strategies would diverge fromGalassi’s, I should like to praise otheraspects of Otherwise. The five-page Intro¬duction is a masterful and eloquent sum¬mary of the essential qualities of thepoems that follow. Words such as “diaris-tic,” “wry,” “witty,” “fragmentary,” allcharacterize with great accuracy thehodge-podge that is this last book. Wehear the voice of the very young poet ashe struggles toward a style, and we hearthe voice of the very old poet as he casts askeptical eye back over both the “ashes”of past experience and the “mere words”with which he so doggedly attempted totouch bottom. Galassi’s notes, unobtrusi¬vely placed at the end of the book, pro¬vide useful biographical and textual de¬tails and often refer the reader toMontale's self-commentary or to pertinentcritical essays. The short bibliographythat closes the book includes writings byMontale and a convenient list of notabletranslations into English of Montale’sprose and poetry. The book is gracefullyand carefully presented, showing a scru¬pulous attention to detail, even in itscover illustration, a watercolor by BobiBazlen, one of Montale’s dearest friendsand his cultural mentor, in short, Other¬wise is a handsome, thoughtful book.The poetry that Montale wrote in thelast decade of his life is essentially pro¬saic, quotidian, and epigrammatic. Wehave the impression of listening in to thedesultory, sometimes nostalgic, some¬times bitingly satiric musings — as an ob¬servant, yet detached, survivor. This is, ofcourse, a pose as rhetorically and philo¬sophically sell-conscious as was the “highstyle” of the earlier poetry, albeit a muchmore immediately penetrable mask. Thepoet relies heavily on subtle rhythms andassonances for his poetic effects, andrevels in the use of decidely unpoetic ele¬ments: few readily discernible rhymes; an avoidance of traditional line lengths(especially the hendecasyllabic or eleven-syllable line of high Italian poetry forseven centuries); an abundance of slang,jargon, and foreign terms. There is a gooddeal of surface play in these poems, aswell as what might be called almost child¬like glee in the deflation of his own poeticmyths as they appeared in the earlier vol¬umes.My primary criticism of Galassi’s ver¬sions of these poems is that they are toodecorous, too “poetic,” when the originalsare slangy, off-hand, and even self-paro¬dying. He often does not capture the auraleffects — assonance, alliteration, etc. —even in those cases in which English can ap¬proximate such effects. A few examplesfollow. A short poem called “Hunting”reads in Galassi’s version:Some use grapeshotSome let bullets flyWhat matters is to do awaywith the angelic butterfly.The original text is:C’e chi tira a pallinie c’e chi spara a palla.L’importante e far fuoriI’angelica farfalla.I would suggest:There are those who shoot pelletsThere are those who fire bullets,JThe main thing is to bump offthe angelic butterfly.Galassi tries to capture some of the echo¬ing effects of the original in “fly — butter¬fly.” But I think the other version succeedsIn keeping several elements that are lostin Galassi’s. First, the original poem hasseven syllables per line, and my transla¬tion maintains this rhythm. The use ofbump off — butterfly” and of “pellets —bullets” also repeats the original allitera¬tions and echoes of similar roots (pa//ini —palla ; far fuori — farfalla). I would alsoargue that “bump off” is better than thepolite “do away with,” for “far fuori” isthe classic gangster term in Italian for“blowing away.” The shock value of link¬ing this slangy term with the Dantesque“angelic butterfly” (Dante’s phrase forthe soul in Purgatory X. 125) is diluted toomuch by the polite “do away with.”Here are two other brief examples ofexcessive lexical decorum. In a fragment,Montale writes: “Quel bischero del merloe arrivato tardi./l piccioni hanno gia man-giato tutto.” Galassi translates “bis¬chero” as “that fool of”; a Tuscan slangterm, the word is much stronger and moreobscene, meaning something like “prick”or “asshole” in English. (A play on wordsis lost, inevitably, I think, in any Englishrendering, for “merlo” literally means“blackbird” but figuratively can mean“jerk” in Italian.) Thus the poem literallysays, “That asshole of a jerk got there toolate./ The pigeons already ate every¬thing." Similarly, “teste di cavolo,” aphrase used in another poem (literally,“cabbage heads”) is translated “dunder¬heads.” Given the context (“Alas, porYorick, che teste di cavolo/noisiamo,”/Alas, poor Yorick, what dunder¬heads/we are), I can see why Galassi want¬ed to keep the “heads” of the original, but“dunderhead" is too English donnish, toofar from the mildly obscene, certainly vul¬gar force of the orignal. I do not have amuch better solution, but would suggestthat “blockhead” or “numbskull” is notquite as uncolloquial as Galassi’s choice,both still play on “Yorick — skull.”These are details, arid perhaps nitpick¬ing at that. Yet I think errors or miscal¬culations of minutiae can throw an entirekvoice out of key. I find it odd that Galassifails at times to capture the extremelyprosaic, casual tone of certain poems,given his excellent ear for the rhythms ofMontale’s actual prose writing. Interest¬ingly, the translator handles the morelyrical, more traditionally “poetic” poemsmuch better. There is a delicate, sadbeauty to Montale’s octogenarian lovepoems, for example, that Galassi renderswith exceptional skill. Montale’s belovedlady, baptized long ago by the poet as“Clizia” (the name of the nymph of classi¬cal myth who is so enamored of Apollothat after being transformed into a sun¬flower by the cruel god, she continues tofollow the god of the sun, with her faceeternaly turned toward him), this sameClizia of poems written over forty yearsago, reappears in a poem composed lessthan two years before the poet’s death at85: "Clizia in ’34.” Galassi gets this onejust right:Still loungingon the chaise longueof the verandafacing the ga-dena book in hand, perhaps alreadythenthe lives of half-unheard-of saintsand baroque poets of scant reputa¬tionthis wasn’t lovethen as now it was alwaysveneration.These lines also serve as another defini¬tion of the difficult, demanding, delicateart of finding approximate words. 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Just bringin your favorite film negatives, color slides, color printsor instant color prints for big, beautiful enlargements upto 16" x 24"Tha University of Chicago BookatorePhotographic Department■■■■ 2od Floor (MoilarCard)war 962-7558IBX 5-4364jlHHMMI . ^^^, 1985 PASSOUER 5745APRIL 6-13HILLEL WILL PLACE YOUFOR SEDER AND HAVE2 MEALS A DAYTHROUGHOUT PASSOVERNOW IS THE TIME TOSIGN UPIF YOU DID NOT GET YOURPASSOVER MAILING COMETO HILLEL b PICK ONE UP5715 S. WOODLAWN 752-1127DEADLINES FORSeder placements, Friday, March 22Meal Reservations, Monday April 1HILLEL HOUSEwill have twoSEDER WORKSHOPSon theHISTORY AND TRADITIONS OF PASSOVERWEDNESDAY, MARCH 27th from 8-10 ;p.m.andTUESDAY, APRIL 2nd, from 8-10p.m.alsoHILLEL WILL PROVIDE A SMALL AMOUNT OFMATZAH AND WINE TO THOSE STUDENTSCONDUCTING THEIR OWN SEDERS.The Chicago Literary Review. Friday March 15, 1985—9-jf-TheCompleatGargoyle y cat; ie of non-creditThe Compleat Gargoyle, The University of Chicago's quofferings, can be your guide to some of Chicago's finest intellectual delights. Eachquarter The Compleat Gargoyle announces over 40 non-credit courses, seminars, lectures, and otherstudy opportunities. All are designed to provide the rewards of university-level study forthoughtful adults. The Compleat Gargoyle offers a chance to think and to share ideas with otherinteresting and interested adults. Those who join us find that there can be a cruly excitinglife for the mind after college. Why not be with us this spring?Among our Spring Quarter offerings:•The Arts—Color Study Workshop,- TheArt of Performance; WatercolorPainting; Oriental Brush Painting; ThePlay—From the Page to the Stage;Music at Lunch.• History and Cultural Studies-Charismatic Conquerors: Jenghiz Khan,Tamerlane, Babur, and Their Influence;Islam in West Africa,- The Reformationin Germany; The Great WesternRevolutions.•Language-Reading Latin; TheAlbanian Language and Culture.• Literature-Realism and Comedy inthe English Novel; The Hero; TheWritings of Emile Zola; Love andMarriage in English Literature:Shakespeare, Milton, Defoe, Austen,and Hardy} Proust's Remembrance ofThings Past.• Philosophy—Emerson and theAmerican Mind; The Work of FriedrichNietzsche and Arthur Schopenhauer.•Political Science-The PoliticalSociology of South Asian Nation-States;Four Great Presidents: A Study inLeadership Styles.• Psychology-Eight InfluentialPsychologists; Child Development fromOne through Six.• Science—Black Holes. • Writing-Fiction Writing Workshop,- EffectiveWriting for Business and the Professions.• The Publishing Program—Electronic Manuscripts;The Author-Editor Relationship; Acquisitions,-Proofreading; Manuscript Editing; Introduction toComputerized Manuscript Editing.• The Stratford Program-Four- and five-daysummer study trips to the Stratford TheatreFestival in Canada, offering exceptionaltheatre in a beautiful setting.• And much more!10^ The Chlc‘90 U,„rar*#eVj'**• Fridi*y March rs 1985 Please send me a free copy ofThe Compleat Gargoyle. Posthaste!NameAddressCity/StateZipMail to:The Compleat GargoyleThe University of ChicagoOffice of Continuing Education5835 South Kimbark AvenueChicago, Illinois 6063750% tuition remission for UC faculty spouses andfull-time UC staff. For details call 962-1727 (NoRemission on Straford Travel.)For your convenience courses are offeredevenings downtown, weekends on the campus,and weekdays on the Near North Side.The Universityof Chicago962-1722HOLDING HANDSI visit my Grampa often. He lets me siton his lap to snap his suspenders andstudy his face. He has a big cigar in hisface, which he Keeps between his yellowteeth, and he can blow smoke rings out ofhis nose. His nose is pretty hairy inside. Soare his ears, and the rest of his face, evenafter he shaves. His face is rough andwrinkled, and his eyeballs are red. But hesmiles with his mouth and his eyes, andlaughs when I pull his suspenders wayback, shaking me in his lap.Grampa is a dairy farmer, so he has lotsof cows. The cows smell good, like alfalfastew, and so does Grampa. Twice each dayhe brings the cows in from the par .ure tothe barn for milking. Before dav l andotter r.oon he rangles a big bell, and allthe cows moo and shove each other intothe barn. They have big bags with fingers,full of milk, which might blow up if the milkisn’t squeezed out. Grampa does this bypulling on the fingers. He locks the cow’sheads in cages full of alfaifa so they can’tmove around, and they all make lots ofstew on the cement floor. Grampa wearsbig rubber boots up to his knees, withsteel over the toes in case the cows step onhim. When the cows try to kick him hehollers, “Chit!”, which is Swiss for shit.Grampa has been milking cows since hewas a little boy in Switzerland.Sometimes Grampa has to look forbabies in the cows. He calls the babies“caffs”, and many of the cows have themsince they are all girls. To check for caffs,he lifts the tail of each cow and sticks hisarm in one of the holes all the way up tohis shoulder. He doesn’t get chit on hisarm, but he gets it in his ear.It takes about four hours to milk thecows, six if Grampa lifts their tails. Thecows chew and chew, twitching their tailsat flies, and at Grampa when he sings tothem. I like to rub my face on their velvetnecks, and I like their milk, especiallywhen Grampa squirts it at me right from afinger bag. He has big hands from squeez¬ing so many bags, and he’s a pretty goodshot. Me and the cats hang around the baralot.Grampa keeps the barn really clean be¬tween cows. Sometimes he lets me helphim hose down and soap the empty milkcans. I have a pair of rubber boots just likeGrampa's, only they’re red. He gave themto me for my fourth birthday, and I wearthem every minute, jumping into his bigfootsteps all across the yard and barn.We wash the floors and Grampa puts thefilled-up milk cans away in the cooler.Then we get to feed the caffs. They areonly as tall as me, and have long eye¬lashes and curly fur. I feed them with agiant baby bottle, and when the bottle isempty, the caffs ram at it, until we are allon the ground in a pile. Grampa smiles andthe caffs suck on his fingers, because he’stheir new mom. If they sucked on their realmother’s fingers, he would have no milk tosell.Grampa holds my hand as we leave thebarn and head for the house to eat. Wesmell of cows and milk and soap. I’m allwet, so he rides me on his shoulders to dryin the sun. The air in the kitchen is full offood, and boy are we hungry.Grandma usually does the cooking, but Ilike best the things that Grampa makes.Once he made me a birthday cake that wasall white with a blue picture on top. Isquatted on the table and blew at my twocandles so hard I fell into the cake up tomy elbows. Grampa laughed and wipedoff my blue arms.Grandma serves meat with every meal,and Grampa uses his knife to get the in¬sides out of the big bones. He puts half acarton of salt and pepper on all his food,but especially eggs and steak. He swal¬lows his food without chewing it, andwashes it down with plain whiskey hedrinks from a water glass.In the evening Grampa sits in a lumpystuffed chair and drinks more whiskey. Helistens to fights on the radio, or watcheshis dogs snap at fireflies out under thetrees. He says the flies light up the night,so God can see what we’re doing downhere. He goes to bed early, and Grandmagives him the eye as he lurches toward thebathroom. She yells after him, “Don’t fallazleep on da Gotdam chitter papa!”, andwith a far off look in his eyes Grampa mu¬mbles, “Ja Mutter.” I don't like Grandma,and I’m not sorry when she catches cancerand dies. Grampa comes to live with us inthe suburbs for awhile, which is betterthan Grandma with her evil eye.My father doesn’t like Grandpa livingwith us. In fact, he doesn’t like him at all,he calls him a Swiss Oakie and a dumb oldfart. If he tries to watch Country Westernsinging on TV, my father yells at him,“Turn off that Oakie shit!”, and pulls theplug.My father doesn’t allow pets in hishouse, so we have no cows for Grandpa to milk. We buy all our milk at the store, andGrandpa spends a lot of time on the patio.He doesn’t laugh as much as he used to, buthe smiles some, especially at me. I’m atschool half of each week day, but I spendall the rest of my time with Grandpa. Helets me sit on his lap, and I can pull on hisnew mustache. He sings a little Swiss songall dry and croakity, like he’s swallowingsand, and coughs and puffs on his cigar,blowing vodka smoke out through hisnose.Grandpa’s big hands are itching forsomething to do, so he makes me atruck out of wood. He slices u£ acat to make wheels that really turn, anduses his knife to outline little doors andwindows. ^!e paint the truck red, and playwith it all weekend. Chi Monday I take mynew truck to school to share. When I gethome, my father is shouting at Grandpa for cutting up the bat.Grandpa takes me and my sisters toBurger King. Burger King has a giantcrown on the roof, and sells hamburgersyou can take out. He buys us all bigburgers with cheese, french fries and choc¬olate milkshakes. Everything smells sogood, we wan’t wait to get our treatshome. Grandpa passes around a milk¬shake, and we all get chocolate mustaches.My sisters sword-fight with their trenchfries in the back seat, and I sit in front tohold the milkshake while Grandpa drives.He starts up the Plymouth and looks be¬hind him to back out, but we go forwardinstead, crashing into a light post. Grand¬pa Is shaking, but us girls are laughinglike erazv. t have chocolate milkshake allmy front and hanging from my noseand hair.We can hardly wait to teil Mom and Dadabout the milkshake crash. We laugh andgiggle, but Mom cries, “My God, are youkids alright?’’. My father hoifers, “Thatfucking alcoholic has destroyed this car!”.Grandpa sits on the patio and covers hi31 Jpik;1' i i% 1% \ > '-L ». if |j 1'WMf l iI IU,J y i-. 1BY JILLIAN GRADE whole face with his hands.My father packs Grandpa off to livewith his sons. One is grown, but the otherisn’t much older than me. When he wasborn, Mom says Grandpa crowed like arooster. He was fifty years old then.Grandpa and his sons live on a cattleranch. The cattle are all boy cows, soGrandpa doesn’t milk them. But he helpsto get the cattle fat, so people can eatthem. He wears pointy leather boots, aleather belt to hold his knife, and a bigcowboy hat.At Christmas Grandpa brings me newboots just like his, only red, and a hat forcowgirls. I wear them with a red and whitefringed skirt, and I have a cap gun in theholster at my side. I play in the ditch outback, pretending to ride my black stallion,which is Grandpa. Sometimes he’s thesheriff, and we put my father in jail. Inever take my red boots off.My grandfather doesn’t do much aroundthe ranch anymore. He mostly just watchestelevision and drinks wine from a waterglass. He smokes cigarettes that he makesfrom tobacco in a bag, rolling it in littlepapers wfth his big hands. He doesn't saymuch, and he never laughs. But smiles withhis mouth and eyes though, and asks if I’dlike to sit on his lap. But l don’t like to siton men’s laps.Grandfather pours me some wine in acoffee cup. It tastes terrible, but after awhile it feels pretty good. My sisters andcousins want some too. and we gatheraround our grandfather holding out cupsand glasses. He pours for us, and drinksfrom the bottle himself. It Isn't long beforeI’m in his lap, studying the lines around hisred eyes, and the egg in his mustache.“You should cut this thing off Grandpa.It’s got crud all in it." Grandpa cuts themustache off with his knife, and we alllaugh to see his fat white iip underneath.Grandpa smiles with all of his yellowteeth, and his eyes fook far away. Heyodels like a toady frog and coughs 'tillhis eyes pop out, sending us kids to thefloor laughing and holding our sides. Myuncle walks in, looks at Grandpa s emptywine bottle and five drunken kids on thefloor, and explodes I feel my Grandfa¬ther’s shame as my uncle pushes him off tohis room.My cousin and I are playing naked underthe hose. He and I are forbidden to swim inthe rushing creek, so we have to make do.I suppose we re too old to run aroundnaked, but the water feels good slidingdown our bodies, so we don't care. Grand¬father is sitting in the shade of a fig tree,watching us and the dog. The dog is havinga rough time licking her fur clean. She gotbit by a rattler, and her face looks like asaggy balloon. She slobbers on every¬thing. including Grandfather's sneakers.Under the tree there, Grandfather isquiet, except for an occasional cough. He'shad a cold for weeks, and has given upsmoking and drinking to shake it. He cuts afew figs for me and my cousin, using thesame old knife he used to cut the umbilicalcords on calves so long ago. We eat thefigs, which are warm and sweet, andGrandfather rests, his face flushed in thenoontime heat. We can see my uncle's pick¬up leaving a trail of dust on the back roadas he plows toward the house.The truck skids to a stop, throwing grav¬el up behind it. My uncle jumps out, andshakes Grandfather by the shoulders.“What the hell's going on here?! Dad, areyou crazy?! You kids get some clotheson!”, he blasts. Grandfather's face turnsscarlet, then purple. His big hands closeinto fists, his eyes focus black, and hepunches my uncle square in the nose.Rapid-firing Swiss obscenities, he shovesmy uncle and his gushing nose into thehouse. “My son, My son.”, he curses.Mom takes us to the hospital, but thenurse says children aren't allowed in in¬tensive care. I’m angry that I can’t see myown Grandfather just because I’m a kid.Everything is shiny white and smells liketoilet cleaner mixed with vitamins. What aplace to die I think, remembering thesweet-smelling green alfalfa on myGrandfather's farm.We visit the hospital three times, andeach time us kids have to wait downstairsI think about my grandfather in a roomwhere he can’t breathe because his lungsare full of cancer. My father ' o pillowover my face once, and it w«u il. Iwant to see my grandfather, to myhand in his, though we hardly kncother now. I’m afraid for what mighhappening to him up there in that whiteroom. I know I will never see him again,and it's maddening to feel him slip awaytwo floors up.Mom’s eyes are red from crying. Shesays our grandfather has passed away."Is he dead?”, I ask, hoping I’ve misun¬derstood her. She turns to my aunt andtells her that he didn’t suffer. He was un¬conscious until very near the end. Just be¬fore his heart stopped, he spoke to Mom,with a far off look in his eyes In Swiss hesaid, “Don’t hit me Mama. I won’t wet thebed anymore.”The Chicago Literary Review, Friday March 15, 1985—11Revolutionin TimeClocks and the Making of theModern WorldDavidS. Landes“Stunning... [it] fairly radiates theauthor’s own delight. Like the classicclocks it so lovingly describes, it is anexhilarating monument to humaningenuity.” —Newsweek8co!or, 28 halftones, 13 line illus., 1 map$8.95 paper BelknapOntogeny andPhylogenyStephen Jay Gould“It is rare indeed to re3d a new bookand recognize it for a classic...Gould has given biologists a newway to see the organisms they study.The result is a major achievement.”—American Scientist$8.95 paper BelknapAristotleto ZoosA Philosophical Dictionary of BiologyP.B.MedawarandJ.S. Medawar“Anstotle to Zoos is one of themost delightful, and delightfullyeccentric, dictionaries I have everencou ntered." — New York TimesBook Review$7.95 paperThe Growth ofBiologicalThoughtDiversity, Evolution, and InheritanceErnst Mayr“It is full of insights and historicalrevelations. Nothing quite like TheGrowth of Biological Thought hasbeen attempted before. It is a bookthat could have been written onlyby a scientist in complete commandof his subject.” —The New Yorker$12.95 paper BelknapThe Art andScience ofNegotiationHoward Raiffa“The Art and Science of Negotiationis a quantum leap forward in thestate of the art... [Raiffa] employs aclassroom wizard’s mastery over thehypothetical question to analyze inlively case studies and problems theessential characteristics of variousforms of interactive competitivebargaining.” —American BarAssociation Journal$7.95 paper BelknapThe Odes ofJohn KeatsHelen Vendler“Vendler’s study of the Odes is assympathetic, as fundamentallyKeatsian, as it is persuasive. It con¬tains the fullest and most searchingexpansion of these six poems.. .thathas yet appeared.”— Times Literar/Supplement$7.95 paper BelknapThe Art of TellingEssays on FictionFnmkKermode“The Art of Telling isa brilliantandwell-articuiated presentation ofKermode’s argument about how toread a narrative... There can beno doubt that he is one of ourbest critics." — J.Hillis Miller$6.95 paper xHarvantiRaperbacksAt ooc* stores or fromHarvard University Press.Cambridge MA02138 <; it k \ t tM i> i. \ > sStudent Rush $4Wed., Thurs., and Sun. evenings STANLEY H. KAPLANEDUCATIONAL CENTERMarch ClaaaaaSAT MCAT DAT..SPEED READING ESI4WK..MCATApr* ClaaaaaSAT. ACT..GMAT ORE LSAT..SPEED READING ESL4WK....MOTPREPARE fORMOT • SAT 4 LSAT a GMAT a GREORE PSYCH a GRE BIO a OCAT a VAT a MATINTRODUCTION TO LAW SCHOOLSPEED READING a SSAT a PSAT a ACT a CPAOAT ACHIEVEMENTS a TOEFL a MSKPNMB I. 11. « 11 a flex a N-CLEX a CGFNSrMGEMG a NPB i a ESL a NCB iI SffMG. SOMMER. FALL WTENSWESI -ajJRy Courses constantly updated naxibieI A* programs and hours Visit any came' and,IB sm tor yoursalt why we make theI difference Speed Heading Coursefeatures Free Demo lesson—Can to*days & limes dial a-test hotline(3i2i soe-oioeARLINGTON HEIGHTSCHICAGO CENTERHIGHLAND PARKLA GRANGE CENTER (312[312312 437-6650764-5151312 433-7410352-5840OuMMe N v Siaw Only Can Ton Free 600 223 17(2Carters in Mepr u S Ceet Puerto R«x Toronto CarwoaOLD PLAYBOYSFORCOLLECTORS60's, 70 s, and 80’s$175■k each!BOB’S NEWSSTAND5100 S. LAKE PARK • 684-5100Monday thru Friday 7 am to 8 pmSaturday 7 am to 11 pmSunday 5:30 am to 8 pmCigarettes *114all the time.The Graduate Faculty ofPolitical and Social ScienceNew School for Social ResearchSummer Institute inCritical Theory and Social ResearchPresentation of the classical concepts of the Frankfurt School and an analysis ofpresent-day problems using a combination of old and new analytical instruments willform the base of this program. All Institute participants will attend a weekly seminarmeeting where faculty papers will be presented and discussed.Guiding students in their study of the relationship of critical theory to the problems ofcontemporary social research and collective action will be the following distinguishedscholars:• Andrew Arato—New School for Social Research• Jose' Casanova—Passaic County College• Jeffrey C. Goldfarb—New School for Social Research• Alberto Melucci—University cf Milan• Paul Piccone—Editor, Telos• Mihaly Vajda—formerly, Institute for PhilosophyHungarian Academy of Sciences• Joel Whitebook—New School for Social ResearchSummer Session begins June 10. You may enroll with The Graduate Faculty as adegree seeking student or on a non-degree basis. For more information on the SummerInstitute or other degree programs, mail the coupon below or call (212) 741-5710.NEW SCHOOL FOR SOCIAL RESEARCHV#?*. Graduate Faculty Admissions65 Fifth AvenueNew York, N Y. 10003I am interested in the Summer Institute in Critical Theory and Social Research. Please send:□ degree application □ non-degree application □ international student applicationNameAddressCity/State/ZipTelephone ( ) *[:l-i: ■■■?. ir, S" , , ,wfmmm.■IINEW SCHOOL FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH: A university which includes the Adult Division. Graduate Faculty ofPolitical and Social Science. Undergraduate Division, Graduate School of Management and Urban Professions. ParsonsSchool of Design, and (Jtis An Institute ot Parsons in Los Angeles12—The Chicago Literary Review, Friday March 15,1985HE AND I DO NOT FORM A NUMBERSingular Voices: American Poetry TodayEdited by Stephen BergAvon Books, 1985326 pages. $12.95TarC.K. WilliamsVintage Books, 198365 pages, $5.95by David SullivanIn the recently published book SingularVoices, where a group of American poetschoose one of their poems to reprint anddiscuss, C.K. Williams writes about FromMy Window, the poem that opens hi% bookfar. In his essay he examines the self¬questioning thrust of the poem about twoVietnam Veterans who catch the poet ashe witnesses an embarrasing public inci¬dent.The human mind seems to have nodifficulty in spinning out grand sys¬tems of ideas and beliefs. We dog¬gedly go about grounding ourselvesin our metaphysics, in "greater”realms, but a confrontation revealsto us how chancy and contingentthose realms actually are. The ur¬gencies of our encounters consist...inthe potential they have as responsi¬bilities, in demanding of us that wego back into ourselves, to re-formourselves, to re-institute ourselvesin a more self-conscious moral uni¬verse.From my Window confronts the readerwith the experiences that confronted thepoet, its narrator insists that we are impli¬cated in the ambiguous moral, philosophi¬cal, and social questions that are raised.These ambiguities arise from the complex¬ity of our reaction to the specific imagesand incidents of the poem, but the wellhoned language remains wholly at the ser¬vice of the story-line From my Windowfails to embody the ambiguities of the sit¬uation in its language and act of creation;what one remembers is a specific visualimage or an intellectual question, not thewords themselves.In the long poem that concludes Tar,however, C.K. Williams successfully exam¬ines a more difficult ar.J fundamentallyambigious situation in which he is intima¬tely enmeshed, while he maintains controlof his craft. Whereas From my Window is apoem about an external incident in theworld which is witnessed and effects thepoet, One of the Muses is about an internalstruggle which Is felt and embodied by Ihepoet. The first poem presents us with the“urgency” of an "encounter**; but the lat¬ter poem examines the process that fol¬lows where "we go back into ourselves, tore-form ourselves ’'One of the Muses is fundamentally am¬biguous because ft enacts this process ofreforming ones seif as it proceeds. Thepoem opens up if we accept that it is aworking out of an elusive, irreducible ex¬perience. In its first line the poft baldlyproclaims "I will not grace you withname...Even "you** however modest theconvention.” Let "you” be ‘‘she’* heply states. Thus our frame of reference isdisoriently ambiguous and arbitrary. Hehas given us the decision making processthat preceded the poem in the poem. Thisambiguity is preserved throughout One ofthe Muses for this is a poem neither aboutths poet s relationship to a woman, nor amuse, but to berth as one.This ambiguity is buried in the metaphorof ‘that fKH.se of memory events, the sha¬dowed. off-sized rooms of which/it amusesus to flip the doors like a deck of cards.”The metaphor comes from Keats’ letterswhere he describes the mind as "a largeMansion of Many Apartments,” the firstbeing the chamber of thoughtlessness, thesecond “the Chamber of Maiden-Thought.” Keats' odd cha/ge o| a name Jotthe second room indicates that in it oneconfronts an "other", and that this con¬frontation often has sexual overtones.This metaphor begins a series of associa¬tions with Keats’ Odes, and through com¬paring them to his poem we can examinehow Wiliiams crafts his language while hepursues and probes real ambiguities.In the lines that follow the metaphor ofthe rooms C.K. Williams says he will exam¬ine "the malleable,/ mazy, convolutedmatter of the psyche itself,/ the psychestricken once with furrows of potentialqrhich are afterwards untenanted." If isPsyche that Keats provides a shrine of hismfnd for in Ode to Psyche, the first of theodes. In It Keats asks her to "pardon thatthy secrets should be sung/ Even into thineown so ft-cone had ear," and the poem thathe writes becomes her. Similarly C.K Wil¬liams embodies his mysterious muse inwhat he writes, “the proposition nowcould be that this is she...not a net whichsome winged thing protests or pines, buther” Like Keats, Williams is uncertain how much he sings for her—to her, andhow much for himself—to himself.This fundamentally unanswerable ques¬tion about the process of creation is cen¬tral to undersetOde to a Nightin¬gale, and much c« the general shuctureand specific language reoccur in One of theMuses. Both poems use ambiguous lan¬guage to indicate the complex relation¬ship being delineated. Early on Keats mis¬uses his pronouns so that the bird becomesconfused with the narrator. “My heartaches,” but "Tis not through envy of thyhappy lot,/ But being too happy in thinehappiness,—That thou...” This confusionforeshadows grammatically the ambigu¬ous union that follows. While in One of theMuses an early line announces in colloqui¬al plainness "There was this.” The linecombines the past and the present, so“this” refers both to the experience withher, and to the poem in him.The two central metaphors that C.K. Wil¬liams plays off against each other as hedescribes the narrator’s attraction and re¬sponse to his attraction parallel Keats’metaphors of the nightingale’s song andhis poetic "fancy”, in One of the Muses thepoet equates her silence with "a sym¬phony” that is "always with me”. “Therewere harmonies in it, progressions, colors,resolutions...a quiet on the stair, hushedhail”. The metaphor of rooms reappearsfor she is like music from another darkdoorway where she leaves "her clef ofreticence ajar.”For Keats the song of the nightingale isa "plaintive anthem...buried deep/ In thenext valley-glades.” The bird itself isnever seen and the union that the poetenacts comes only through the ambiguousascension of the language. As he rises tothe song of the bird his poem becomes hissong.Williams’ muse, however, creates a sym¬phony out of silence, and as he will learn,distance. He recognizes that the silences,beautiful as they are, scare him. “I couldhave, if I’d wanted to, dared to. been cer¬tain of the silences" he says, but "how Imust have wanted not to know." To knowhe must join her in being sHent. and whenhe finally does he says “We seemed, to mychagrin, my anguish, borrow, to be whollyIn and of them."A sllmilar fear comes over Keats as heWes up to the bird “on the viewless wingsof poesy." He Is "half in love with easefulDeath,” and the nightingale’s numbingsong fills him with a sense of otherworldlybeauty which he almost succumbs to, ex¬cept that it is of his own creationEach poet fears that by accepting andunderstanding the muse’s song they wMabandon the sane world for th$ frighten¬ ing sublime one of art. Williams refers tohis time with the muse as a sickness, his“Afflictions,” while Keak. says “a drowsynumbness pains/ My sense, as though ofhemlock I had drunk.” But whereas Keatsfears that he will become into/icated bythe beauty and leave the world where"but to think is to be full of sorrow,” Wil¬liams fears that the beauty itself is embo ¬died in her absence from his life. "If I waschanged” he says after she finally left, "itwasn't the embrace...but what came after,her withdrawel."Though each poet has a different reac¬tion to the song of his respective muse,each uses the metaphor of the poetic giftas a re creation within oneself of that song.For Keats this occurs in the music of thelanguage, "Forlorn! The very word is likea bell,” which guide his thoughts. In One ofthe Muses Williams points directly to"this, these lines, constructions, etudes."Each sees the limits of poetry; that themuse that inspires must eventually leave,and that often the point of union is onlythe most ephemeral of couplings Poetrycannot be that union, though at its best itcan enact in a given poem a soaring bal¬ance between memory and words.Keats turns against this ideal balance ashe ends Ode to a Nightingale because hisimagination cannot surmount the bordersof the poem. "Adieu!" he says, “the fancycannot cheat so well/ As she is fam’d to do,deceiving elf,/ Adieu!" The poet has strug¬gled so hard to become one with his muse,with the imaginative recreation of theworld, that this admission of poetry's in¬adequacy is bitterly realistic. The balancebetween craft and creation is lost, as he isleft with only words.For the poet in One of the Muses, howev¬er, the balance between memory andwords is maintained because he nevertrusts his recreation to go past languageFor him the point is not to transcend thewords, but to fill them Though C.K. Wil¬liams lacks Keats’ expansive music, hebalances the ambiguities of writing abouta union which can be seen as both in theexternal world, and in his mind, without li¬miting himself. Twice he mimics Keat's lan¬guage, though his purpose is prec sety theopposite of Keats*. When the entangledpoet goes mad to escape what he has driv¬en himself to his eyes ‘dart across thefield of fear, away, away." These samewords in Keats' poem symbolize the unionof muse and poet, "Away! away! for i winfly to thee." Later, after Williams is "shri¬ven of her,” he explains that having to do"without her meant only that: without her,not fortorn, bereft." He fs not devastatedas Keats is when he laments, "Forlorn! thevery word is like a beff/Yo toff me back from thee to my sole self!" Williamsalways recognizes within the poem thather leaving is inevitable, what he receivesIron her is what he can articulate in thepot m.These parallels with Keats’ letters andpoems enrich our understanding of One ofihe Muses but do not limit it. Williams doesnot settle for Keats’ answers, but burrowspast them to examine the roots the otherpoet’s metaphor came from. A good writerdoes not haphazardly borrow olderphrases or structures but refinds them,and reinvests them with new insights. Si¬milarly any metaphor, no matter how ele¬gant, remains a mental abstraction unlessthe writer feels a true connection with theemotion that the metaphor embodies. AsKeats wrote in his letters, "Nothing everbecomes real till it is experienced—Even aproverb is no proverb to you till your lifehas illustrated it.” When the metaphor orproverb finds its proper expression thenthe language embodies the feeling; this iscraft.The craft of a poet is important, but itmust be wedded with an ability to minethe richest veins of the metaphor. In Oneof the Muses C.K Williams refuses to stepback from the difficult ambiguities of hismufti-layered theme, he never settles foran easier answer The ideal poem fusesthe craft of language with the sweepingarc of thought, so that the poem is com¬plete but open-enoed C.K Williams artic¬ulates words "from the conflicting music of(his/ conscience," while preserving thatsymphony of the other’s "silencing, and si¬lence.”He expresses this dual nature of one’sidentity and one’s transformations, of theother and the self, and of the possibilitiesfor change, at the end of his essay on FromMy WindowVie seem to have to force ourselvesagain and again to try to reconcilethe incongruities of our consciousfffe, the discrepancies between ourintentions and our acts, the astonish¬ing gap between our ability to elab¬orate admirable ideals and the easewith which- we sffp from identity toidentity to evade them. Whateverhope we do have would seem tohave to be found in ourselves, and inour awareness of those others whoare the greater moral portion ofourselves.At this best C.K.. Williams not onty con¬fronts us with the essential hypocractes ofall our actions, but unearths the roots ofthese actions, and as he delves deeperinto hTmseff he delves deeper into us,ffffmaaaaammamaaammarThe Chicago Literary Review. Friday March 15, 1985—13Photo not shownactual size.Give color PosterPrints by Kodak■Turn your special 35mmfilm negatives or slides intobreathtaking 20" x 30"posters.■ A gift with a warm, personaltouch that enhances the decorof any room.■ Full-frame, printed onKODAK EKTACOLOR Paper.See how good your prints can really be ...Ask for quality processing by Kodak.. 2ad Floor962-7558IBX 5-4364•GIVE THE DEAN HILLELwill be having aBEGINNING HEBREW CLASSTUESDAYS lit 10:00 A.M.CLASSES BEGIN THE FIRSTWEEK OF SPRING QUARTERLISA LIEBERMANwill be teachingIRISHDINNERQtInternational House1414 E. 59th St.FEATURING MUSICAL ENTERTAINMENTBY HYDE PARK'S OWNSAMHRADH MUSICMenu:Creomed HaddockCornish HenCorned Deef CobbogeIrish Lamb StewShepherd's PieDunmurry RiceDolmondum Skink SoupCauliflowerBrussel Sprout AuGrotinBroiled PotatoIrish Soda BreadAll dishes served o lo corte.Prices vary.5:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. Friday, March 45• Bausch & Lomb Soft Contact Lenses• NEW Super Wet Gas Permeable(Boston Lenses)• Custom Extended Wear Soft Contact Lenses• Latest Design Tinted Blue & Green Sof*.Contact Lensesspecial package INCLUDES COMPLETE eveEXAMINATION CONTACT LENS KIT FULL YEARFOllOW UP SERVICE ON ALL ABOVE CONTACT LENSESOptometrists: Dr. Joseph Ogulntdt • Dr. Kurt Rosenbaum$8850$16550$1785°$1495°%cU*tfotu Sye SouUtyueEye Examinations, Fashion Eyewear, Contact Lenses493-83721200 E. 53RD ST 752-1253KIMBARK PLAZAU.WAYS CONVENIENT PARKING Daily: 9-6Sat: 9-3 30By appointmentOver 45 years of professional service will assure your satisfaction$885014—The Chicago Literary Review, Friday March 15, 1985cDAGUERROTYPE: IN FROTHY LIGHTThe December moon — a torn fingernailcaught in dark silk —your breath against my cheekas the night fillswith silver flickering starsand lakefront snow.Embers redden into asheswe were too languid to stirlike bees drowsy from the smoke of burning cedar logs.Bayberry candles sputter on the mantlewhere the potpourri dries.Watching the sun meander throughthe bedroom window, we stir lazily heavily,hearing the cat chortle as he stretches into the day.Breakfast is your turn:croissants and orange marmalade, cafe au lait.Purple asters nod in the crystal vasemy brother gave me one birthday ago.The sun climbs the oakwood cupboardcaressing the Wedgewood bowl,its clay women forever dancing.You slipped into my arms quietly .like a thin pale fingerinto a cool gold band.— Martha M. Vertreace NUMBER ONE SONNothing subtle about opening a clam-stubborn sphincters hiding in the shell.My father would cajole and wait, then drivethe clam knife home with a determined twist.Nothing elegant either about eating onethe first time: fearing'for all myspindle-legged girlhood that I’d beless the man than he was. Hissure-fire recipe:one drop tobasco, salt, vinegarclose your eyes and slurp.That’s that. I did it without wincing, provedwhatever yet remained untested.I never dared do it again.— Martha M. VertreaceON .SECOND THOUGHTFrom Smithson’s ceiling Foucault’s pendulumunsteadies us who walk in liquid airaround the steel cable, barely notingmotion, holding hands in case some feywaywardness belies earth’s gravityand we fall up or down.On second thoughtlet go. Let’s see just what solidifies,what sets when what we know veers off, dis¬integrates, remasses on some shorewe’ve never seen.We waitthe steady state of our reserve, when ourtrue selves around true North converge.— Martha M. Vtt(hencemThe Chicago Literary Review, Friday March 15, 1985—15MARXIST-HUMANISM, AN INTERVIEW WITH RAYARaya DunayevskayaRaya Dunayevskaya is not new to Chicago, for asa young Russian immigrant she landed in this city in1922, and soon began her life-long involvement inthe revolutionary movement.She greets me in her red dress, wearing a redbutton with a picture of Rosa Luxemburg — “TheRed Rosa" — and takes me on a tour of her library.It would be difficult to guess that this warm, affec¬tionate, lively woman in her mid seventies is one ofthe major thinkers of our time. Her study is packedwith volumes of Hegel, Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, andLuxemburg in several languages. There are vastsections on women’s history, Black and labor histo¬ry, Eastern European and Third World countries.The Raya Dunayevskaya Collection, a 7000 pagecollection of her numerous writings, is stacked upneatly in gray boxes in several rows in the library.In addition there are rows of her major works,Marxism and Freedom (1958). Philosophy and Rev¬olution (1973), and Rosa Luxemburg, Women's Lib¬eration, and Marx’s Philosophy of Revolution(1982), works which have been published in sever¬al languages — French, Italian, German, Spanish,Japanese, Persian, and smuggled to mainlandChina and behind the Iron Curtain. Finally, sheshows me bound volumes of the Marxist-Humanistmonthly newspaper, News & Letters, a paper andorganization which she founded 30 years ago in De¬troit, though since 1984 News & Letters has beenpublished in Chicago.In the one and half hour interview she speaks aseasily of Emily Bronte and Herman Melville, as ofHegel’s “negation of the negation,” or the strug¬gles in New Caledonia, and is constantly reachingfor a bock to quote me selections of it. It is all partof the dialectical flow of her thought which is socharacteristic of her writings. We began by discuss¬ing her association with Leon Trotsky.CLR: I know that your writings stress that the onlybiography you are interested in is the biography ofan idea. But since Trotsky was such a historic per¬sonality, would you tell us about the period whenyou were his Russian secretary?Raya Dunayevskaya: I do not deny what history hasgranted Trotsky. I certainly consider him great,whether we speak of his statements, or his actualrole in the Russian Revolution, and I consider theperiod I spent with him in Mexico in 1937-38 great.But the reason I would prefer to speak about myown views and the philosophy of Marxist-Human-'sm is precisely because my real development wasnot when I was Trotsky’s secretary but began with♦he break with Trotsky. It is not only a question ofdiscovering new ideas, but the method in which youapproach your task is key.You see, in 1936, I had wanted to join the Ameri¬cans who were fighting the fascists in Spain. But Iwas turned down because I was a woman. That waswhen I wont to Mexico to work with Trotsky as hisRussian secretary.This was the period when the greatest frame-uptrials in history were taking place in Russia, twoyears during which Stalin killed off the GeneralStaff of the Russian Revolution. Inside Russia theworkers faced the most Draconian anti-labor laws,including forced labor camps. And in foreign policyit was the period which ended in the signing of theHitler-Stalin pact, an agreement which in effectgave the green light to Hitler to start World WarII.To my utter shock and disbelief, I realized thatwith the outbreak of the war, Trotsky, who hadbeen fighting the Stalinist bureaucracy for over adecade, would now turn to the workers and askthem to defend Russia, because it was a “workers’state though degenerate.” Here was this man whohad helped make two great revolutions, the 1905and the 1917 Revolutions, and I couldn’t believethat I was saying to Trotsky, “You are wrong and Iam right.” Actually I lost my power of speech fortwo days.But precisely because it was so great a break andchallenge to what I used to consider Marxism, / hadto prove it. I was not only opposing the Hitler- Stalin pact, I was opposing Trotsky’s conceptionthat nationalized economy equalled workers’state.I was quiet for three long years, and then I wentback to the three original Five Year Plans of theRussian economy, which had been published at theoutbreak of World War II, but I also returned toMarx, because I felt Trotsky did not understandMarx, especially the philosophic Marx. So, my firstessay on the nature of the Soviet economy, calledRussia as a State-Capitalist Society, was alsobased on what I later discovered was one ofMarx’s 1944 Economic-Philosophic Manuscripts,which are today known as the Humanist Essays.CLR: I had a chance to look at some parts of yourlatest work in progress, Women's Liberation andDialectics of Revolution: Reaching for the Future,and it seems that the question of alienation inman/woman relationships, and the women’s strug¬gle to change society is a main theme of these col¬lected essays of yours. Could you discuss thatbook?Rt): The essays include 35 years of my writings onthe subject, and are divided into four parts:I. Women, Labor and the Black DimensionII. Revolutionaries AllIII. Sexism, Politics and Revolution — Japan,Portugal, Poland, China, Latin America, U.S.— Is There An Organizational Answer?IV. The Trail to the 1980s: The Missing Link —Philosophy — In The Relationship Of Revolu¬tion To OrganizationYou see, what I believe characterizes our epoch iswhat I have called the movement from practice thatis itself a form of theory. Women’s Liberation isone very important manifestation of this move¬ment from practice. What I mean by this is thatmovements of our age, be they in the U.S., EastEurope, or the Third World, have brought forth newrevolutionary forces who at the same time haveacted as Reason, as thinking subjects. Their maturedemands, in turn, have posed a challenge to all phi¬losophers, to work out the new stage of cognitionphilosophical.For example, I look at the Black women from theperiod of the Abolitionists to today, and their mag¬nificent leading role, which has been so historicallyand philosophically ignored — particularly as tothe direction it can give to the movement — by fe¬minist theoreticians.CLR: I was first attracted to your writings when Isaw that you as an American philosopher, in dis¬cussing the 1979 Iranian Revolution, related thatto the 1905 Iranian Revolution and the role ofwomen in that revolution. Even among those of uswho supported the Iranian women, few would re¬call women in the 1905 Iranian Revolution!RD: Historically, women have been ignored not onlyas revolutionaries but as thinkers as well. What Ihad been interested in was the impact of the 1905Russian Revolution on the East. The Iranian womenin a certain sense went beyond their Russian sis¬ters. Russia at that time included as well Poland,and that meant Rosa Luxemburg. Nevertheless theRussian women did not establish a separatewomen’s Soviet, whereas the Iranian women did,and called this new form of organization “Anjo-mans” or Soviets. In March 1979, a few days afterthe magnificent International Women’s Day demon¬strations of thousands of Iranian women, I was spe¬cifically critiquing the Iranian male Left who wereignoring the revolutionary role of women in oppos¬ing Khomeini. The point was that the Iranian Revo¬lution could continue if, among other elements, therevolutionary feminism that was in the air was notstifled. Unfortunately it was.CLR: This brings me to what I think is a centralaspect of both your work in progress and your lastbook Rosa Luxemburg Women’s Liberation, andMarx's Philosophy of Revolution. How do you de¬fine the relationship between Marxism and femin¬ism?RD: From the very beginning, meaning Marx’sbreak with capitalist society in 1843-44, he wasvery anxious to establish the concept of theman/woman relationship in his writings. The Hu¬manist Essays show you how central this conceptwas to Marx. He was insisting that even though hewas singling out what he thought was the most rev¬olutionary force — the proletariat — you did nothave to believe a single word of what he said oneconomics or on politics, to realize how alienatedthis capitalist society was. All you needed to dowas to look at the relatonship between man andwoman. Why do you treat your wife, or your lovedone so miserably? Why is she the second sex? Whyis she considered as not having a mind of her own?Why do you disregard her — whether she is in thehome, or in the factory, or is trying to be a writer?If you recognize the truth of what you have done towomen in all these years, you recognize that thissociety must simply be uprooted lock, stock andbarrel. And I believe that what he said in 1844 wascharacteristic of his life as a whole.For example, in Capital, his greatest work, whichis supposedly all on economics, he included nojessthan 80 pages on just “the Working Day,” most ofwhich is spent on women, their labor, how exploit¬ed they are. No matter how low the salary of theman is, the woman’s salary is always lower. And hewasn’t only speaking of working women. Take thecase of Lady Bulwer-Lytton. She was author of anovel, Cheveley or the Man of Honour, and she haddared not only to differ with the views of her con¬servative aristocratic politician-husband, but de¬cided to make her views public. Because she daredto go out on the hustings and attempted to rent alecture hall to speak at, her husband and her sonhad her thrown into an insane asylum! In an articleMarx wrote in 1858 called Imprisonment of LadyBulwer-Lytton he defended her and attacked not only the Tory press for its sexism but also the so-called radical press, which more or less had pre¬sented the same attitude.In 1868, Marx, as head of the First InternationalWorking Men’s Association, was instrumental -inelecting a woman, Madame Harriet Law, to its high¬est body, the General Council. Another examplewas in 1871, just before the Paris Commune erupt¬ed, when he had encouraged Elizabeth Dmitrieva togo to Paris, where she became active in the ParisCommune and organized the Union des FemmesPour la Defense de Paris et les Soinsaux Blesses,an independent women’s of the First Internation¬al.In our age, the women’s movement has raiseavery important questions which no others haveraised. The American feminists saw that male chau¬vinism was not only a characteristic of capitalism,but that it existed in every society, including thepre-capitalist societies, and that it also existedwithin the Left movement. In the last decade wehave seen how women all over the world have in¬sisted that the Left confront its male chauvinism.Let me show you how I express some of these voicesin my Rosa Luxemburg Women’s Liberation andMarx’s Philosophy of Revolution:Too many revolutions have soured, so wemust start anew on very different ground,beginning right here and now. Under no cir¬cumstances will we let you hide your male-chauvinist behavior under the shibboleth ‘thesocial revolution comes first.’ That hasalways served as excuse for your ‘leader¬ship’, for your continuing to make all deci¬sions, write all leaflets, pamphlets, andtracts, while all we do is crank the mimeo ma¬chine.I think it is important for the Women’s LiberationMovement to come to grips with what Marx’swhole concept of “Revolution in Permanence”meant. It was based on the fact that unless revolu¬tion continues through to full human self-develop¬ment, we will not be able to get rid of all the alien¬ation and frustration and exploitation thatcapitalism has left us with, in the mind as well as inreality.For the 1980s I think that the Women’s LiberationMovement, until it is seriously concerned with revo¬lution, will not get anywhere. This was proven inthe 1984 electon when we couldn't even present agood minority point of view of women. I thinkwomen have shown that if they stick only to career¬ism, it is going to be the end of them instead of thebeginning of a new society.CLR: Earlier you mentioned Marx’s 1844 HumanistEssays. You were the first to publish and discussthese Essays in English as part of your first workMarxism and Freedom in 1958. How do you thinkthat the Marx we see in these essays is differentfrom what is called Communism today?RD: Not only is Marx’s Marxism different fromCommunism, it is the exact opposite. Marxism is' atheory of liberation or it is nothing, and Commu¬nism is a matter of exploitation now, though itwasn’t that at the time of the Russian Revolution.The ‘new humanism’ which Marx spoke of in these1844 essays was not a matter of counterposing ma¬terialism to idealism. He had rejected both thepetty-bourgeois idealism of Hegel and Feuerba-chian materialism. He was speaking of a new unityof materialism and idealism, and that out of a newrelationship or practice to theory. From the verybeginning it was not only capitalism that he reject¬ed, but also what he called “vulgar communism.”By “vulgar communism,” he was referring to con¬temporary socialists of his time who had reducedthe whole concept of socialism to a mere abolitionof private property. In fact it is here that the ques¬tion of the relationship between man and womancomes up again. Marx was asking: Is a womangoing to be any freer if, instead of being the pri¬vate property of her husband, she becomes thecommon property of all in “universal prostitu¬tion?” No, of course not! Marx was insisting that itwas the nature of the relationship of man to woman' that was the issue, not whether she was the proper¬ty of one man or many. At the same time, he arguedthat to transform private party to common proper¬ty, without uprooting the alienation of labor wasno improvement. What had to be transformed werethe relations at the point of production to end themost fundamental of all divisions, that betweenmental and manual labor. One hundred years afterhim, vulgar communism masquerading as Marxismin Russia, in China, in Eastern Europe, proves in ac¬tuality what Marx was only predicting.CLR: In your Marxism and Freedom, even thoughyou had no special chapter on women, you bring inthe milkmaids of the Paris Commune, showing thatthey were all revolutionaries, that they sparkedthe greatest revolution in Marx’s time. Your bookwas written in the 1950s, long before the Women’sLiberation Movement arose. What m /ou singleout those milkmaids?RD: It really relates to what I was iu I discussing.Once I went back to the Humanist Essays, I began tolook at labor not only as economic exploitation butas alienation of man from his own activity. In earli¬er societies labor used to be the activity of humanbeings and was not only manual. It was mental andmanual at the same time. That was how they devel¬oped. Human beings had to define their relation¬ship to nature, they had to make tools, they had tomake themselves human rather than just having ananimal relationship of running for food. They need¬ed for example to make houses. It was a laborwhich exercized all of human beings' faculties,women as much as men. So I asked myself: Why is itthat we always credit the men in every revolution,and what were the women doing?In the case of the Paris Commune, the men may admit that yes, it was the milknr'early in the morning and stopp<removing the cannons from POkay but that is not all that is irup early, but what made themsoldiers were trying to removemade them resist the soldiers,were unarmed themselves? The:ready organized themselves in tand now they were the ones whdiers from carrying out the go\As Edith Thomas tells us in herWomen Incendiaries, Louise Micfthousands of women who ran upsoliders.This magnificent revolutionpoet, was exiled to New Caledoractivities during the Commune.Louise Michei proved her internalbecame the only exiled Commusupported the revolts of theagainst the French colonizers. I \quotation from her writings whilesince the revolts of New Caledorthe headlines these past few weelDuring the Kanaka insurrectionight, I heard a knock on the‘Who is there?’ I asked. ‘TaiaiI recognized the voices of thbrought us our provisions...Thto say goodbye before gowater in the storm to join tfight bad white people,’ theyhalf my red scarf from the (Iwhich I had preserved thrordifficulties, and gave it to ttbrance.Louise Michel had also written scry as well, which I had discussedture on “Women and Literature”the International Women’s Year inCLR: Can you tell us a little mosee as the relationship betweenand revolution?RD: Periods of creativity, whethwhether of masses changing thevery distinct periods in history:crises, such as on the eve of a civfollowing great social change, wflease” of all sorts of new humaitivity.When you are at the eve of £don’t know it is the eve of changperiod contains very new formscause you have a new percepiThere is a deep crisis, and in cperceive reality in a new way, ancide, you as an artist look at humthat gives you a perception notyou are in, but of what willwhat will come out of this periocwords an anticipation of the neeven though you may not really tpolitical sense of this crisis, but jiTake for example WutheringBronte, which was written on tfRevolution, and it is comparablesian literature of mid 19th centtture of that period was so greathe writers were socialists, andality so creatively that they shoity but gave us some glimpse intchas created something entirelycharacters and in the atmosphlived. She catches something neety, which certainly wasn t verywoman and in showing Catherineto step over all the obstacles thobrave enough to marry Heathcliff.D.H. Lawrence, had of courseis never beautiful, unless it in soiauthor; by that I think he showmovement to the creation of thters that makes you see more thsee. In the same spirit, Marx ha<can learn more from great novelcal political economy.16—The Chicago Literary Review, Friday March 15, 1985A DUNAYEVSKAYAmilkmaids who were upstopped the troops fromom Paris to Versailles,at is involved. They werethem conscious that theemove the arms? Whatildiers, even when they? These women had al¬ts in the months before,ies who stopped the sol-1e government’s orders,n her beautiful work Thee Michel was among thean up the hill right at thelutionary feminist andCaledonia because of hernune. There once againnternationalism since sheCommunard who actuallyjf the native Kanakasers. I want to read you a> while she was in exile,Caledonia are so much inw weeks. She writes:irrection, on a stormy>n the door of my hut.‘Taiau,’ he answered.; of the Kanakas whons...They were comingre going across thejoin their people, ‘tothey said. I ripped inthe (Paris) Communethrough a thousandt to them as remem-tten some beautiful poet-:ussed in detail in my lec-iture” on the occasion ofr'ear in 1975.He more about what youjtween literature, womenwhether of literature orig the world, occur in twoistory: At the very greatof a civil war, and at timesige, when there is a “re¬human thoughts and ac¬re of a major crisis, youchange. Literature at thisforms of expression be-)erception of everything,id in order to be able tovay, and not to go to sui-at human beings in a way)n not just of the periodt will follow afterwards,period of crisis, in otherhe new. All this occurs,■eally be conscious in the, but just “feel’’ it.lering Heights by Emilyi on the eve of the 1848jarable to the great Rus-i century. Russian litera-3 great because many of;, and were analyzing re-iy showed not only reali¬se into the future. Brontentirely new both in themosphere in which theying new both in the soci-t very great for her as aatherine, a woman, tryinges though she still wasn’tthcliff.:ourse written that a workt in some way escapes its> showed that there is ai of the plot and charac-lore than you intended toarx had also said that yout novels than from classi- The point, however, so far „.-s women and litera¬ture are concerned, is «lv, literature even at itsgreatest reflects the n lominated society underwhich we live, which ir .> affects all of us, womenincluded. Whether we at . talking of the womencharacters in Greek tragedies — Clytemnestra,Medea, Electra — or whether we look at Shake¬speare’s Lady Macbeth or be it Eugene O’Neill’sMourning Becomes Electra, or Jean-Paul Sarte’sThe Flies, we are all affected by this culture, andwe will not escape male chauvinistic speeches com¬ing out of our mouths until we tear this alienatedsociety up by its roots.Virginia Woblf, in her essay, A Room of One’sOwn, which is absolutely the f'“>es! piece of criticismof women and literate: e, sp : 'ks not only abouthow different women are portrayed as charactersin literature as compared to what history bookssaid women were at the very same period, but alsonotes that often writers create these new charac¬ters, but no one recognizes thorn.Then there is the great revolutionary writer andfeminist Ding Ling, who was able to capture in a dif¬ferent period of history — that is before the Chin¬ese Revolution of 1949 — the question of male-chauvinism within the Chinese Communist Party inher most original essay Thoughts on March Eighth,and dared to challenge Mao directly in the 1950s.In that essay, she dealt directly with man/womanrelations in the guerrilla center of Yenan itself,especially those of leaders and their wives. Shesaw the wives of leaders as crue y taken advan¬tage of as they became like Ibsen's “Noras who re¬turned home”. The moral of the story being thatlike Ibsen’s heroine, who rejected her Dcii’s House,once you slam the door behind you, you must leaveit slammed!And on the eve of the Portuguese Revolution, TheNew Portuguese Letters, which was published in En¬glish under the title The Three Marias, presented anew form of literature in which a series of lettersfrom one woman to another, exposed the patriar¬chal society and took up the conditions of womenfrom the 15th century to the present, especially therelationship of man to woman. The form as well ascontent of the work was so revolutionary that thethree authors were imprisoned.Now it is true that a great writer — a Shake¬speare, or a Tolstoy or a Melville — can envisionthe “human element’’ and “original character’’ andgive us a glimpse of the future. What one sees in allthese articulations, is when one age is disappear¬ing and a new age is coming forth. It is what thephilosopher Hegel called “a birth-time of historyand a period of transition’’. It can be seen in thedimension Shakespeare created in Hamlet at theemergence of a new world of individualism — thehistoric emergence of capitalism. It can be seen inKing Lear, at the death of feudalism or in what Tol¬stoy created as an “original character’’ in AnnaKarenina and in what he presented as a historicperiod in War and Peace. And it can be seen in whatMelville did in Moby Dick on the eve of the CivilWar, and in his Confidence Man with his concept ofthe “original character’’ with original “instincts".Melville felt that the way to define this originalcharacter was to compare it to a “revolutionizingphilosopher.”The point, however, that I want to stress, is thatthe great artist is not the same as that revolution¬izing philosopher, or to put it more plainly, that“philosopher of revolution," Karl Marx.Not being that philosopher of revolution, yetaiming to transform the reality of the world we livein, the writer or artist, more often than not, doesnot understand that masses in motion have in¬spired his or her vision. He or she remains the ‘out¬sider looking in’.CLR: This discussion of philosophy brings me toyour second major work. In 1973 after a decade ofintense political writing and activity of the 60s youwrote Philosophy and Revolution: From Hegel toSartre, from Marx to Mao. In that work you em¬phasized the Hegelian roots of Marxism and thequestion of returning to Hegel “in and for himself".Why do you think that today’s generation of Leftistactivitists need to go back to Hegel?Raya Dunayevskaya, Charts Denby, and Yoshlmasa Yuklyama, 1969 Raya Dunayevskaya with Natalie Trotsky, 1938RD: On the surface of it, any concern for Hegelmight seem irrelevant and totally abstract in aperiod of Reaganomics, when the two nucleartitans have brought us so close to “ApocalypseNow". However, I think a careful examination ofthe totality of the crisis — economic, political, mili¬tary, ideological — reveals to us a theoretic void onthe part of the Left that is nearly as grave as thatamong the capitalist idealogues. This makes it soimperative that we work out a totally new rela¬tionship between the opposition movement frombelow — practice — and philosophy and revolu¬tion.Now the one thing we learned from the turbulent1960s was this: without a philosophy of revolution,near revolutions abort! It is a fact that becausethose near-revolutions had ended so disastrously,in particular France 1968, that the New Left finallyended their delusion that “theory can be picked upen route" and a deeper look into Marx’s philoso¬phy of revolution was begun by some.The year 1970 happened to be the 200th anni¬versary of Hegel’s and 100th of Lenin’s birth, whichsaw a revival of both Lenin and Hegel studies, andgave me a chance to speak of both Revolutions andDialectics in and for itself. Dialectics “in and for it¬self" is the question of Negativity, the power of ne¬gativity. How the fact that you object to what is be¬comes the very impulse to change it, and hownegativity, as against the way it is explained to us,does not mean “not being positive". In fact, the“negation of negation" is the positive result of adouble negation.In other words, you need a revolution for theoverthrow of the old and you need a revolution forthe creation of the new. This double rhythm of revo¬lution is what is so critical about the Hegelian dia¬lectic, and how we constantly have to return toHegel and then take that concept of negativity andconcretize it for your own age. Your own age iswhat you concretize it for, not as an abstraction,but by showing that you are very solidly rooted inthe ground and want to change this society.The problem is that state-capitalist ideologuescalling themselves Communists for too long havetried to keep hidden the relationship of the Hege¬lian philosophy to Marx, and have tried to attri¬bute Marx's Humanism to some idealist left-overfrom the “mystical” Hegelian “negation of the ne¬gation". Why do you think they have bothered totake issue with Marx’s Humanism so strongly? Notbecause they are afraid of Hegel who died morethan 150 years ago, but because they were afraidof the revolts in East Europe, which refused to ac¬cept that Communist totalitarianism was the sameas Marx’s Marxism. The first revolt against thattotalitarianism was in East Germanv in 1953, whilethe Hungarian Revolution of 1956 actually broughtMarx’s Humanit Essays out into the open and pre¬sented them to the world.CLR: You also speak of the American roots ofMarxism, especially in the Abolitionist movement.How do the two dimensions of Marxism and BlackHistory relate to one another in your opinion?RD: The reason I single out the Abolitionists is pre¬cisely because their whole life was dedicated tochanging the character of America. The movementrenounced all traditional politics. They were inter¬racial and in a slave society actually practicedequality between Black and white. They were alsosupporting women’s right to equality in an agewhen women had neither *the right to vote, nor theright to property nor divorce. They were interna¬tionalists, and really added a new meaning to theword intellectual. Their intellectual creativity wasan expression of precise social forces. And eventhough they were pacificists in philosophy, theywere supportive of insurrectionists like JohnBrown, so that when John Brown attacked Harper’sF rry, they were all with him, and Wendell Phillipsst oke in defense of the great martyr.Now, Marx certainly did not think John Brownwas a Marxist and he did not single out his move-rr mt as class struggle. But he completely associat-e with John Brown and saw that insurrection as aignal" for the Civil War in the U.S., as he pointedout in one of his letters to Engels in 1860.The British working class came out in support ofthe Abolitionist movement, and many of themjoined the First Working Men s International, whichwas headed by Marx. Marx’s relationship to theAbolitionists, even though they were not enqaqed in class struggle, shows how multi-dimensionalMarx was, and how important he considered theAmerican roots of revolution. He considered theAmerican Revolution of 1776 the first national rev¬olution, and wrote of the Civil War as the first in¬ternational revolution.On the question of the Black struggle carried totoday, the whole movement of the 1960s whetherthe youth movement or the Women’s LiberationMovement, came out of the Black Civil RightsMovement. It began 30 years ago, with the Mont¬gomery Bus Boycott in 1955 when Rosa Parks, aBlack working woman, refused to give up her seaton the bus. Then there were the young Black stu¬dents who wanted a cup of coffee at a segregatedcounter in Greensboro, North Carolina.In Marxism and Freedom, I place the Montgo¬mery Bus Boycott on the same level as the East Eu¬ropean revolts, which I just spoke of. It was no ac¬cident of course that these two world events wereinseparable from the birth of the philosophy ofMarxist-Humanism and the creation of its organi¬zational form in the U.S., News & Letters Commit¬tees. In an unprecedented act, we broke with theseparation between worker and intellectual andelected a Black production worker from the South,Charles Denby, to be the editor of News & Letters.Denby whose autobiography Indignant Heart: ABlack Worker's Journal later received much inter¬national publicity and who remained a tireless rev¬olutionary until his death last year, truly showedwhat we mean by worker not alone as a revolu¬tionary force — as if he is only a muscle of revolu¬tion — but worker as a thinker who presents a to¬tally different picture of alienation undercapitalism than the intellectual. In a pamphlet en¬titled Workers Battle Automation, as early as1960 he wrote:The intellectual — be he scientist, engineer orwriter — may think automation means theelimination of heavy labor. The productionworker sees it as the elimination of the labor¬er.Then in 1976 in a joint introduction Denby and Iwrote to a pamphlet Frantz Fanon, Soweto andAmerican Black Thought, we discussed the two wayroad of ideas that has historically existed betweenthe U.S. and Africa, and took up particularly theinternational dimension of the Black as revolu¬tionary thinker.Take for example Franz Fanon, the magnificentworld revolutionary from Martinique who becamea leader of the Algerian revolution. Fanon lookedat Hegel’s Phenomenology of Mind and the strug¬gle between the master and the slave and helooked at the dialectics of that struggle when themaster was white and the slave was Black. Thetruth of that matter was that Fanon was not only aHegelian but he also criticized Hegel, saying theone concept he has to take exception to in that sec¬tion on “Lordship and Bondage,” was Hegel’s con¬ception of “reciprocity". Fanon wrote that in thecase of the Black, it wasn’t true that the Masterand the Slave finally reconcile at all. Instead theyfight themselves till death, and that is how theyovercome Mastery or Slavery.CLR: Your relationship to the Black movementseems, from your works, to be almost a lifelongone. How did it all start?RD: Well, it may appear4c you that I am a newcom¬er to Chicago, since I have been here only sixmonths. But the truth of the matter is that when Ilanded here first as a Russian immigrant child. I* lived in the ghetto of Chicago, where the UlCcampus is located now. Two years later I led myfirst strike at Cregier Public School against cor¬poral punishment and anti-semitism. Later as a se¬nior in high school I led a protest against the se¬gregationist policies of Medill High School. I wasstill a teenager when the American Negro LaborCongress was organized in 1925 and I was allowedto become a member of it. I was also the literaryeditor of the journal Negro Champion which waspublished here in Chicago. I cannot possibly traceall of my work with the Black movement, but yourreaders can read about it in the Raya Dunayevs¬kaya Collection, that is available on microfilm atNorthwestern and University of Chicago.By the way my affinity and close contact with theanthropologist Melville Herskovits from Northwes¬tern University datescontinued on page 19The Chicago Literary Review, Friday March 15, 1985—17THE FLAMINGO APARTMENTS5SOO South Shore DriveSTUDIOS & ONE BEDROOMS•Unfurnished and furnished•U. of C. Bus Stop•Free Pool Membership•Carpeting and Drapes Included•Secure Building - Emily's Dress Shop•University Subsidy for Students & Staff•Delicatessen «Beauty Shop Harvardthis summerHarvard Summer School,the nation’s oldest summersession, offers open enrollmentin nearly 250 day and eveningcourses and pre-professionalprograms in more than 40 liberalarts fields. 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March 162-9 pm18—The Chicago Literary Review, Friday March 15, 1985MARXIST-HUMANISMcontinued from page 17to many years ago, when he establishedthe impact of Black African culture on theAmerican society, that is ali of AmericaBlack or white, and showed that Black his¬tory and culture was not what it was con¬sidered to be in the academic circles as“just primitive”, but that it had a greatdeal to contribute to the Western world,and had done so.More recently the publication of Marx’sEthnological Notebooks in the 1970s haveshed new light on Marx’s view of underde¬veloped lands. You see, in the last yearsof his life, Marx was studying the under¬developed lands, the Iroquois, NativeAmerican society, Ireland, India and Rus¬sia. He wrote that it was very possiblethat a backward country could have itsrevolution ahead of the most advancedcountry. In a sense he was predicting inthe 1870s the Russian Revolution of1917!CLR: In your Rosa Luxemburg, Women'sLiberation, and Marx’s Philosophy of Rev¬olution, where you write of the :mportanceof these ideas tor the Women’s LiberationMovement and for revolutions in ThirdWorld countries, you speak of a “trailfrom the 1880s to the 1980s”. What doyou mean by this expresson?RD: Many intellectuals think that Marxgave up his interest in the question of dia¬lectics irid instead turned to economics inhis later works, a misconception that couldbe traced back to Frederick Engels. ButMarx did not give up any of the philosoph¬ic concepts he was taking up in his 1844studies on Hegel. And I have traced this indetaii in my works.In the last years of his life Marx chose tofocus on the primitive societies. Why didhe do so? Marx took up the studies thatLewis Henry Morgan the American anthro¬pologist had done on Iroquois NativeAmerican societies, as well as other newanthropological works. A few years later,after Marx’s death, Frederick Engels, sup¬posedly on the basis of the same studies,wrote his famous Origin of the Family, Pri¬vate Property and the State But whereasFngels glorified primitive society and sawit as an egalitarian society for men andwomen, in Marx’s Ethnological Note-brooks, we have proof that he had no suchconception. Marx was aware of the rela¬tively higher status of women in these ear-'lier societies, compared to the status ofwomen in the so-called technologically de¬ veloped societies, but he was also awareof the dualities and contradictions cf theprimitive societies.Marx did not think that just becausecommunal ownership of property existedin these societies, that they were there¬fore bereft of any contradictions. He cer¬tainly did not think that just by addingsome technological development youwould reach the new socialist societythere!The point that he had been tracingthroughout the 1850s, on backward lands,now became much more explicit, where henow saw they could have an entirely dif¬ferent transformation than the develop¬ment experienced by Western Europeansocieties.CLR: The revolutions therefore, in the un¬derdeveloped lands, did not necessarilyhave to go through the classical path ofWestern European societies?RD: Yes, in fact he criticized the scholar Mi-hailovsky for making a universal out ofMarx’s concept of human development inWestern Europe. The reason Marx re¬turned to dialectics and Hegel was be¬ cause he saw that a leap forward could bemade. Just as revolution could take placefirst in a backward land so they couldtranscend certain stages because it wouldbe a communal effort and would includemen, women and children. He was pointingout that there was no way for him to knowthe actual point of transcendence, but thatthe element of communal rather than pri¬vate property, women's striving forequality in these societies as well as theirculture, could all lead to a new process ofdevelopment.So he had recognized the possibility ofrevolutions happening in underdevelopedlands. He had recognized that the primi¬tive commune could be more advanced onsome questions than the technologicallyadvanced countries, and this was especial¬ly seen in women. And finally, at theheight of European ethno-centrism andonly three years before the dividing up ofAfrica in 1885, Marx was immune to theprevailing concept of a civilizing missionand in fact showed a great application forthe Biack and North African culture.In his Ethnological Notebooks, for exam¬ ple, he ridicules the British anthropolo¬gists who considered Black Aborigines ofAustralia “backward’. The Black man wasconsidered backward because he wouldnot accept the existence of a soul withouta body, after death, which was preachedby the Christian missionaries. To Marx,this indicated, instead, the intelligence ofthe Black and the stupidity of the schol¬ar.Marx went to Algeria in the last year ofhis life. The Algerians were of course bythen under the rule of the French. Marxwrote of the dignity of “Mohammad’ssons” and their hostility to the West. Tohis daughter Jenny he wrote, “Moslems infact recognize no subordination, they areneither subjects nor administrate ob¬jects, recognizing no authority.”CLR: Finally, could you tell us about plansfor your future writings?RD: I am right now correcting the pageproofs of my soon to be published work.Women's Liberation and Dialectics of Rev¬olution, then on March 21 st the WayneState University Archives of Labor Histo¬ry and Urpan Affairs in Detroit where thecollection of 40 years of my writings areon deposit under the title The Raya Dun-ayevskaya Collection — Marxist-Human-ism 1941 to Today Its Origin and Develop¬ment in the U.S. is sponsoring a lecture byme on the collection. They are also openinga month long exhibition of my arctvves inconjunction with the lecture. Following thelecture i will be presenting them with anew volume consisting of my documentsfrom 1981-85.I am also in the process of starting towork on a new book on organization. Thequestion of organization was a questionthat the Women’s Liberation Movementraised but did not answer. The questionsof the Women's Liberation Movement,of anon-elitist group, of the necessity of de¬mocracy after the revolution have to beanswered, and Marx’s answer was “Revo¬lution in Permanence” as ground for orga¬nization.The point is that you should never sepa¬rate organization or ai y o’her subjectfrom revolution, which ic ^separable fromMarx’s philosophy of Revolution. Theseneed to be held together as one. or we willonce again face more aborted revolu¬tions.I also would like to invite all of you whocan come to Wayne State University in De¬troit on March 21 st to <1o so, and partici¬pate in that discussion on the philosophyof Marxist HumanismThe Chicago Literary Review. Friday March 15, 1985—19•wpKwM^aX^yJ>6)1vjqwyjef{nfli;:v;^nd;veoiedrKit>^vTire^;t^lngs;w.eTe-;'•>K;hts^am^;TH^it^;^rit;gr-!pies;-;';-;’v:anP-^t!^;';$Hp;';woHCSb:736r5PrtaP>e;My:«tjpth»r!s;TOJ>^:tr4D^WeT^t::::::::::::::::W:^^;iMpyv^ri;>-:-;-;‘y':-aiive, theam shining:i thread Sv0kjtva\pbssibter*et in ^t]*(pry:s:::po:ero; :empty ciCSpefrjnrieiUiyJs;i images, and others,ter sections,s many of the poemshe sometimes myste-ear patterns et thei coloring book is the :She;}s;a;tr99;^:Hm&ef;-uncovers $^$#ihp>Sv::l.ha\^>^r^t/eid;fver>>y:h&r:igf«et>;exaropj9::>v::ia:fiia(;joy;m«vXvX;X;'yXyi&toOjGwXXX-XviXXXvX;:ph in one of these poems. gjjpwas of coerse, before theacts, stranded on a graph.I die first commercial mterrup-:^y:fe«dy>:y>::;:;:;;;;;;;;;::::;;:;::;;:;:;:;::ifhe^^&t^ireXyiv/XyX;:S;Si^^]e^^xx:xx;:x>xjtb:^ftOW^^^;:;:;:;X;X;X;:X^ie pa«€wa/^:uWiprintDffterjhyfl^&rtxxxxxx:duairHcronea rabbit outsun, '} on fts meridian — ;XyII swungRomania from a crane, suddenlypersona* begins its swing toward darkRECREATING WOMENSfrrfrfwnafiEleanor WilnerThe University of Chicago Press, 1984107 pagesby Chet WienerThe U. of C. Press has recently publishedEleanor Wilner's Shekhinah in its PhoenixPoets series. This collection, by the formereditor of The American Poetry Review anda current contributing editor of Calyx, isthe poet’s second since 1979. The poems ofSekhinah reveal a world ripe with a spe¬cial kind of possibility, of potential corre¬spondence within various realms of expe¬rience, of thought and circumstance, oftime and natural processes. The poems atdie beginning of the collection featurewomen protagonists from mythology, his¬tory and Wilner’s own imagination.Towards the erd of the book the poems in¬creasingly refer to the poetic process it¬self, with no elimination of the otherlevels. This is because the correspondenc¬es within Wilner’s poetic style creates apolyvalent matrix of denotation whichrefers to its own process. “Shekhinah”functions as both an essence and an axisthat for the position of Wilner’s voice. Theimages of her poetry, whether of person¬al, mythological or natural focuses, evolvelike Penelope in Wtmer’s “The World isNot a Meditation”: “...her body like a lutewhen it ie strummed, /from a house that’sfull of signals.”“Shekhinah” is an ancient Hebrew noun(feminine), derived from “leshakhein,” todwell within. It’s original lexical functionwas to compensate for the incorporealgod’s hidden essence. From the thirteenthcentury its meaning has remained asso¬ciated with a universal presence, as thefeminine aspect of the divinity. Next it be¬came associated with inspiration. Wilner’sShekhinah is divided into four sections.Each section title begins with a productivetitle: /. Revisions, ft. Retrospectives, til.Requiems and /V. RecoveriesI. Recoveries illustrates the relation ofthe Shekhinah’s immanent presence to itspossibilities as poetry. Trellises areraised and stars scattered in such poemsas “The Uses of a Trellis” or die poemsfeaturing Charlotte or Emily Bronte; from “Caryatids,” of III. Requiems, is an ex¬ample of how modal and inspired possibili¬ties overlap in Wi’ner’s poetry. The poemcontains the epitaph “for Polly lossi-fides,” and the repetition of the secondperson pronoun emphasizes its characteras addressing someone, even as each“you” is preceded by an “if.” At the sametime it calls back, by its subject matter,the sensation of a “we” in the poems ofsection i. The ostensible launching point,or level of significance first encountered,is the dissolution of caryatids by man¬made forces:if you have not taken the posethat promises support withoutstrain, somethingunconditional — thenyou have not felt the sea tuggingatthe pebbles of your toes andknownthe clouds of sulphur rising from thetrafficof the jerry-built metropolis below,dismembering, grain by grain,the cool marble of your composure.This poem reminds me of John Ashbery’s“Down By the Station Early in the Morn¬ing” which begins, “It all wears out,” butthe tremendous differences between thepoems are instructive. The bypogrammati-cal center of Ashbery’s poem is memory,and its visual center is that person. The hy-pogrammatical center of “Caryatids” isthe pressure upon a feminine, almostregal, supportive poise. The image fromwhich this poem proceeds is “the draped.-;bodice of stone, the face/slightly worn tavmark the sentance of time...” X-XvX*Compare the ‘emoting’ of “Down ByXtfrev!Station”: XvXvXX;Then air gradually bathing and;X#iingX;Xthe emptiness as it leaks, XvX X-XvXvXEmoting all over somethingX;‘.drat is;;X;probably mere reportage XvX X XvX X XvBut nevertheless likes beitigXemptedXXon... .XvX Iv'.vXXvXvXto the physical processes of .?J&ry$Hda vXvXvft you have not entered thf^'.-X-XXXvXXXcool votaries of the porch!;XvX XvlvX.;X;Xy/"yxthen you have not known l^XXXXXXvXXXvthe horse breaking from tfi^^>yX;X;X;X;-yXwater streaming froroX^&x'Sk&H-feXXXcliffs of his teeth, XvX X.;wrecks clinging to ht8x-:op;et’;'yiHi;^::x;vburrs. XvXXvX-XThe difference is that "Down by the Sta¬tion” has an individual wh#|y‘(rWdfleS::<i>h-::fold in a matrix as memory .white the sy^tagm of “Caryatids” Xtltostfa<fc$X e Xmetaphorical position Remarkably bothpoems finishWiner'slament Theof eguided alone...And so:ajfcfvciayXCulminates in merriment Xjwy^eHX^f SiXiXShock like an electrto&ne.XX-XXvXvXwrecking frjfai bur^>#KOMgHxth:d>:;Xthe wonts of ^fcijxaoHtt&XXas those Xy|>XyXyXyXyX;X;Xobscure ones, a?^;bopksyvviw X:X, letting in XXf X X XvX. X X X Xyand an exHbneous^SbjXdi-’.f/OibivX-the street XvIXXvXXXvXvXXConfirming the new valggy the h;o{ipvv::yxcore has again, the fight XvX X X X X X XvXyXProm the lignihouse tha^^SfeteKW^as^XXaway. 'M:XXXvXvXvXvX matter how it is spun, turned or lamented,will endure.I was surprised, then almost disappoint¬ed when “Shekhinah” (“whose covenantaskes nothing of tomorrow’’) appears out¬side of the two framing confines of thebook in a translation by Raphael Patai ofa 3rd/4th century Hebrew poem by Yehu¬da ben Idi, and in the first of six descrip¬tive notes at the book’s conclusion. Shek¬hinah is named tw«ce in the poem“See-Saw,” which is ■!■-* 'hys^al center ofthis collection of for sitv Mother ex¬ample of the fine a. utectu .i construc¬tion of the book is the manner in which“The Continuous is Broken, and Resumes,”of IV. Recoveries, answers “Candied,” ofI. Revisions, in “Candied” Eve walks outon Adam “sick”, among other things, “ofthe chirping choir in the hedges, and/ ev¬erything so blessed cheerful.” In “The Con¬tinuous is Broken, Then Resumes,”(Adam)...dreamed of closure: ob¬sessedwtih falling curtains, heroic cou¬plets,and the absolute chord of amens.Now everywhere he walks, theworld is mute.When he has passed, the birds pickup their noteswhere they had dropped them...Details of the circumstances, like the sing¬ing of birds, unite the experiences of thetwo poems.“Ars Poetica,” .-fKv/K- Recoveries, is di¬vided into twaijteHsiyJfere. Wilner herselfposits a .bf&^!v^t^jSiK;>lh€. subjectiveand the.;.m^prleX^gritfyjng;'ppss(bjlities ofher a|iti;#Olri::W^;(h^(WdHv:Xv:vXvXvX. my god, so like ourselves!...Again, the potential of Wilner’s poeticexperience feature a female perspectivein the second half:The door is swinging on its hinges — theroompried open, the one upstairs in Blue¬beard’s castle.They have been hanging there a longtimein their bridal dresses, from hooks,by their long hair.The wind that makes them sway untilthey seem almost aliveis like a rush of compassion.These images of swaying bridal dressesrecall images of various alterations andactions upon such surfaces as stone, wallsor mountains, by water, arrows, wind,time and the play of light — which recurrwith increasing frequency in sections IIIand IV. These figures demonstrate a her¬meneutic which unites the subject and ob¬jects of the poems. IV. Recoveries playsthese figurai components off of each otherto the extent that the entire section be¬comes an "Ars Poetica.’’ The recurrencesof these figurai components form gnosticcorrespondences of “Shekinah,” and theemotional perception and expanding pos¬sibilities of this poetry are best seen in“Meditation on the Wen-Fu:”And, as to the heavenly arrowof which Lu Chi speaks — it must havestruckstraight down, deep into stone, into theheartof granite. Strange, then,what wells up, what pours forth in aflood,should be both clear and brightX as water, heavy and dark as blood;v’that stone be wounded into speechXAHd. that such wounds should heal us.The wrecking hall in “Down By the Sta¬tion” symbolizes the “hottow” possibilityof creating poetry by presenfind oM sub¬jects in new poetic contexts In “Carye-tirne. — Mery Theresa RoyalV. " .. • 6X.2t—The Chicago Literary Review, Friday March IS, 19SSJapanese Restaurant SUSHIandSEAFOODIN THE EXQUISITEJAPANESE STYLETEMPURAandTERIYAKITEMPURA • SUKIYAKI • TERIYAKITuesday-Saturday: Lunch 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.Tuesday-Thursday: Dinner 5:00 p.m.-l0:00 p.m.Friday & Saturday: Dinner 5.00 p.m.-l0:30 p.m.Sunday: Dinner 4:30 p.m.-l0:00 p.m.5225 5. HARPER 493-4410in Harper courtALL MAJOR CREDIT CARDS ACCEPTED SUNDAY-TUESDAY mmxor cocKt&ils60 OZ. PITCHERS FORONLY 3.00WEDNESDAY - THURSDAY ALL IMPORTEDBEER $1.25 (12 oz.)• HUGE 45” MITSUBISHI SCREEN FORSPORTS AND OTHER SPECIALS• FREE POPCORN AFTER 4 PMOne of the top ten jazz juke boxesin Chicagoland-CHICAGO TRIBUNE1750 E. 55th St.684-1013ON C-BUS ROUTEMAB PRESENTSWyntonMarsalisSATURDAY APRIL 138 p.m. MANDEL HALLtickets go on sale first week next quarterwatch for detailsThe Chicago Literary Review, Friday March 15, 1985—21According to the waiter who servedthem, the elderly man had shuffled aboutinitially before settling on a table andseating himself as the sign requested. Thetable adjacent to his in the corner wouldhave had a better view of the sireet but itwas already occupied by the girl ap¬parently involved with a book.She had ordered just the cup decaffinat-ed. As the new pot brewed, the waiter ca¬joled the man and helped him, as he insist¬ed, select ti e fanciest pastry on themenu.Though the waiter claimed himself to beliberal and forgiving, he admitted thatwhen the two finally saw each other theydid cause a disturbance. To start, neitherone was in their element. They had, bysome rarity, chosen a glitzy French cafe onthe polished front of Michigan Avenue.She sat slumped in her chair bundled in awooly oversweater and golashes, andwore her hair so awkwardly crop-earedthe waiter suspected her Dad still cut it.Her habit of fidgeting incessantly with thecap of her felt tip pen was irksome. Sheforgot to cover her mouth when shecoughed. Such bearing was brash—too un¬abashed middle-class for the hauteur ar¬ranged to happen there, and with herpalms smashed against her cheeks likethat as she read...well, it was the flourishof all faux pas. She was, quite simply, ob¬livious to the urbane.The man was equally displaced thoughfor entirely different reasons. While find¬ing his way to a table, he had bobbed pasttwo of the finickier clientele with his pack¬age of flowers without noticing that theytook offense at so near a scent of rose petals from a stranger. At first glance hecould have been a peddler, but he was toosnappy for that. The waiter joked thatperhaps he was Chuck Berry as a grand¬dad. He wore big, loose, gold rings on hiswiry hands and strutted as if he still hadriffs reeling off his finger tips. Whateverhe was, he had black music broiled in himand he had been born, unmistakably, inChicago.The lunch rush at this particular estab¬lishment was more hectic than anywherethe waiter had served. By eleven every¬day he could expect the front sectionalong the windows to be full and remainthat way until close. That day, the waiterrecalled, the pace was brisk. On such occa¬sions it was a waiter’s duty to tick like afine Swiss watch—serving coffee, pastry,pate, and coffee, coffee, pastry, pate, andcoffee—gracefully, flawlessly, endless¬ly,with a face unruffled and erudite. Onecould not disrupt the delicacy of each in¬sular tete-e-tete. There was no dither.As he expected, the new brewer was in¬tolerably slow. By the time the coffee forthe corner table was ready the chocolateladysfinger was frosted and warmingunder the heat lamp. In his signaturesweep, the waiter had arranged theorders on his tray, manuevered adroitlythrough the aisle, and arrived at thecorner table ahead of the breeze.The girl seemed serenely indifferent toany tardiness in service or that the coffeehad arrived at all. She lifted her headonly to give a perfunctory nod to thewaiter’s apology, but halted. With un¬canny accuracy, her glance shot bullseyeto the pastry—stunningly centered on thewaiter’s tray. The sight of the icing spill¬ ing daintily onto the doily liner and thescent of chocolate wafting uproariouslyoff the platter broke her bookbound re-very. Entranced by the beckoning,streamy finger, she mumbled somethingclumsily and waved the waiter away, fol¬lowing all the while with groaking eyesover the pages of her book as he set thatluscious tidbit in front of the man seatedacross from her.“That’s yours!” came an epilepticshriek, startling a portlier man nearbywhose liver pate had leaped from hiscracker and onto his lapel. “Why you, sillybilly,” the girl chided in shrill crescendo,rising up, hands on hips in a huff.The waiter lost much of the resulting ex¬change as he was off searching for a clean,damp cloth to daub off a stain from a cus¬tomer’s coat, but he couldn’t help overhearing some since the bawdy scoldingand overall raucousness resounded overthe demure hush of prudently handledutensils and cautious sipping. However,what was said, the waiter was quick to re¬mind, was heard not so much for its volumeas for its import.It was that comment that he didn’t re¬cognize her without makeup and all herclothes on...More than one fork fell, and so too thatdelicately ticking wait equilibrium top¬pled as the cream the waiter was carryingtable to table.So it happened, she was a dancer at thedisreputable Bunny Snug Pen and he wasthe second sax man. That the fuddy, rum¬pled younq thinn would transform into ana !,jring, sequined - ’•en in a matter ofhours, and that the shrivilier version of aman, greyed and surely seventy, hadn’tparted with such baser entertainments setmore than a few patrons aghast. Yet be¬neath his age spots he had still the gleamof his tawnier buck years, and, upon in¬spection, one could discern that with a bitof shaking out and fluffier grooming shewould have been perfectly capable toknock-out as required. One could imagine the man hobbling in the bar, smile jigglyas the ice in his gin, skin darkly lit by theglittery spin of the disco ball and theflashes off the keys of his instrumenthanging loosely at his side. Now and thenhe’d throw out pinches to scantly cladwomen, indiscreet parts. She would wrig¬gle through the crowd holding high traysof silly cocktails. She’d wear a lowcut leo¬tard of leopard-skin and grit a smile out ofher head dizzy with the exhaust of smok¬er’s mouths. One didn’t venture to imaginewhat she did when she danced.This element of latent sexuality in twoso unsophisticated caused more rancor inthe restaurant that their banging aroundto change to the same table or the ribaldwit and foolery that followed.No doubt they enjoyed toemselves. Theydrank pc*s of coffee and required to befetched u perpetual supply of wipe rags.Everytime the man crowed, it seru hishead cackling baCk, the table rocking, andthe cops tittering until coffee dollopedover the brims, into the saucers, and ontothe table. The girl contributed her share ofspill? by an agitated, jerky gesticulatingand krmc', :og o' thmgs with an ungainlylength ot *. > oho had never quite tamedfor daily use.The waiter replied that the front sec¬tion cleared out t^lore one o’clock thatday. The man with the soiled suit receiveda guarantee for dry cleaning fees. Therather arrogant duo off the side ate hasti¬ly and tipped meagerly. The two remainedthere at that table swapping tales andknee-slapping with their crude carry-allssandwiching the table top arid bottom un¬wittingly sabotaging the place, iheycouldn’t have done better had they ralliedwith pickets. All that shined silver beganreflecting unpleasantly.Shortly before close they collected uptheir things. It was Friday and she had towork Happy Hour.“See you tonight,” they had said part¬ing at the door. The waiter still wondershow many that was meant for.FIREJames leans across the table, quite sure,But anxiously desires support.Father resist >t wanting to thinkOfthePhoen 'sert where I was born.“Why do I remem^. ‘he state from whichWe moved when Eii^Deth s plans aborted?”In the pause I watch.In the pause I watch.\J|/ Sgf i f:Albert and Lil watched the set,Quand j’etait un enfant.Curious, I watchedAs he stroked her smalt face.Angelo counseled Isabella quietly,paternally, “Solomon’s flight’s delayed.”Later, she pauses beneath the hazel bough,Where she had seen the red berries last spring,Remembering our guilded boat and the ethereal towersWmajM Circe beckons to the man on the shoreBy her straight leg and quivering thigh.Jm His mind, caught by the red rose,BWBB Stretches across the rood, slick grey.; . r Her painted fingernail, greased, slides faster„ ■*>* '■W *4*'Encircled by a brown picket fence,The precocious plot, tended with care,Protected by the pool of cobalt water,Separate from the red desert sand,Grows fertile upon the ivory soil;Warmed by the fire born of the dark hazel wood.-—James Keeney22—The Chicago Literary Review, Friday March 15, 1985■p *nyounpichm(hem.The pictures youtake are special—themoment, the place, theevent, the feelin g. 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Each participant is provided with afully IBM-compatible Zenith portable personal computer with 320k of memory,dual floppy disk drives, major software packages, pnnter. and a 1200 baud modemwhich enables 24-hour access to DePaul's cluster of VAX computers Partici¬pants may also use the personal computer laboratories on campusFACULTY: Instruction is provided by a team of faculty from DePaul University sDepartment of Computer Science and Information Systems, the Department ofFinance and the School of Accountancy, as well as by guest lecturers from busi¬ness and industry. Tutors are also provided.ADMISSION: A bachelor s degree is required for admission to the programPreference is given to applicants with company sponsorship. The intensive natureof the curriculum demands a high degree of motivation.For further information, counseling, and applications call 341 -8381 or write to theEXECUTIVE PROGRAMDepartment of Computer Science and Information SystemsDePaul University243 South WabashChicago. Illinois 60604Applications are now being accepted for the programstarting on April 15. 1985A CHEAP THRILL...a KAYPRO Computer system from Pomerleau.We will meet or beat any legitimate price!POMERLEAU COMPUTING SYSTEMSTools for your mind.Avwhm5211 South Horpor Av«(In Horpor Square)Chicago, Illinois 50615Phono: 66*7.2075The Chicago Literary Reviews, Friday March 15, 1985—23EXCLUSIVE ENGAGEMENTSTARTSTODAY FRI SAT SUN 100PM ?45PM 4 OOPV 6 15PW 8 00PM 945PMWATCH THE ACADEMY AWARDS MARCH 25th McGurgGxirt330 (AST OHIO STRUTTHE GEFFEN COMPANY PRESENTS "LOST IN AMERICA"Starring ALBERT BROOKS JULIE HAGERTY Executive Producer HERBERT S. 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PROFESSIONAL FEEADDITIONAL REQUIRED.Offer expires 3/22/85Contact LensesUnlimitedEVANSTON1724 Sherman Ave.864-4441 NEW TOWN2566 N. Clark St.880-5400 GOLD COAST1051 N. Rush St.(At State/C'edar/Rush,above Solomon Cooper Drugs)642-EYES24—The Chicago Literary Review, Friday March 15, 1985Ted KooserLETTERS FROM NEBRASKA, AN INTERVIEWTed Kooser is a Nebraskan poet who hascarefully crafted his poems of rural char¬acters lives and gestures for many years.Recently he has gained National promi¬nence for his book of selected poems SureSigns. His new book of poems, One Worldat a Time, also being published by The Un-iersity of Pittsburgh Press, is due out inApril. This interview was held with DavidSullivan after the poet’s reading at theSchool of the Art Institute in February.CLP: in another interview you said thatpoetry has no utilitarian value. What doyou think the function of poetry is?TED KOOSER: Well, that’s a tough one. Ithink that there are a couple of facets to itthat I’m interested in; the idea of keepingthe language alive, of poets being keepersof the language and revitalizes of thelanguage is one facet. An example of thattha*’s sort of interesting to me is that mywife when we first met didn’t read poetry,wasn’t taken with it. I learned that shehad been a very bright girl in school andhad taken speed reading, so there was nostage in her reading in which those soundsactually were felt in her throat—theywent directly from the page into her brain,so she didn’t really understand what poet¬ry was all about. So after I began readingthings to her—other poets that I was enth¬usiastic about and so forth—then she fig¬ured out that there was music to it. I thinkthat that’s something because there areprobably hundreds of thousands of peoplewho are speed readers, the sound of thelanguage is being deadened by the factthat these people are not hearing thewords. A beautiful word like “wistful”—you take it into your head as an idea andit’s nothing, but that sound—it’s perfect.That's one of the resporAbilities of poets,to keep people aware of the music of lan¬guage, rhythms, and 5) on.And of course there’s the merit of story¬telling that I think is important. It’s ameans of delivering information, some¬times unusual or new information, if youtake the original sort of Ur framify or Urgroup of people where you have a fire-tender and a basket maker and a hunterand a Shaman The Shaman is the branchwhere all the poetry comes from and it’sthe person's job to not only entertain inthe evenings with stories and so forth, butto instruct them and carry things contin¬uously ’rom generation to generation.Those are useful, again they don’t haveimmediate utility in the sense that potterydoes.CLR: Your talk about shamans and theroots of language remind me of the oldtale about people coming from hundreds ofmiles away to watch a ceitain saint whoread without moving his lips, it seemsthere is a division now from the words’roots, the more we progress intellectuallythe more we move away from the symbolsrelation to the real world.TK: That's great; I like that.CLR: I think it's very important to your po¬etry, the precision of language, and thecareful structuring of each sentence. Youhave the same kind of attentiveness toeach word that William Carlos Williamshad.TK: I see them as being little machines thathave a task to perform. And that you wantall the cogs in there that you need and youwant it all well oiled and everything, butyou don’t want any extra doodads mixedup in there, and so when I'm writing apoem I am constantly working on cleaningit up, making it as precise as possible, andI might restructure a sentence 15 times totry to get it into the way that I feel com¬fortable with. Ideally when you get donewith a poem there Isn’t a word in therethat you could change, that would notharm that poem in some way. I've beenworkin’ on one this morning about the icesqueaking over on the lake. I was up at6:30 this morning workin’ on that for anhour and a half, probably wrote two lines,just tryin‘ to get those things the way iwant 'em, and they're still not quite right.Probably won’t be for weeks.CLR: Where does the impetus for yourpoems come? Do you start with a meta¬phor from the natural world or an idea?TK: You know it doesn’t seem like a realpoem unless it includes the natural worldin some way. I want to incorporate theworld into the poem, but ordinarily whathappens is that the poem will begin withsome sort of an association; for instance inthis thing that I was playin’ around withthis morning, you have here in Chicago, themost dominant thing to me—and of courset’m not familiar with it—are these glitter¬ing towers. Now what are these towerstike? And there are a thousand things youcould think of—but I came upon one of theobvious ones, which are like crystals grow¬ing in the air, with facets that flash withlight And I wanted to write about the iceon the lake, which is crystalline, so al¬ready I have some kind of an association. WITH TED KOOSERNow I have to bring those two things to¬gether through this medium of the ice andthen develop a poem around that associa¬tion, and l think what will happen is that Iam considering that architecture is hu¬morless and dead earnest and so serious,and that the lake is not, in my context thetake is humourous and playful, and thatit’s over there squeaking, and making asound which struck me as being exactly thesound that little boys make when they’replaying cowboys and Indians where theygo “phew, . .phew” and which is that samesound—which is a balance that I have toset up somehow.1 take an associations and pull a poemout from that. It fascinates me that peoplerespond so to associations, and l thinkthere’s something deep about that, if I canestablish for you that there is a relation¬ship between these towers of gtasb andthe ice on the lake, and if I can convinceyou that that relationship is there bybuilding a poem around it to enforce therelationship, and if you know that thosetwo things' are associated, then all of asudden you go "maybe everything is asso¬ciated!” It’s tike being tunc^. into Emer¬son's Oversoul.CLR: You often make the objects of yourpoems come alive through this type of met¬aphor but the people of your poems seemway in the background, surrounded bythose objects.TK: You know, William Stafford said to meone time, he said that I treated—i can’tquote him exactly—but he said that I treatinanimate objects as it they have life and ltreat people as if they are inanimate ob¬jects. Which I thought was kind of inter¬esting cause you don’t know what yourdoing until you hear from other people.CLR: How much are those people that dopopulate your poems based on actual ex¬perience, and how much are they con¬structs of the poem?TK: Well, I can recall—it’s like lying—liketelling a lie for a long period of time. I amnew 45 years old and ! have stories that ihave been telling about my family, aboutmy great aunts and uncles, probably for35 years now. And some of them I nolonger remember whether they are true ornot. I think they’re somewhat based intruth, and some of them I think, probablynot. They’re inklings in them that justdon’t quite work out. But ordinarily if thereal experience can be framed up in apoem in a way that satisfies my concept ofwhat a poem should be—then I’d stickpretty closely to the real experience, i hada poem in Poetry Magazine awhile backabout my aunt who is old and ill and whohad sent me a birthday card on my 45thbirthday, and that poem is dead on. It'sexactly what happened. But there’senough of a poem in it that I felt that itworked that way. There are other ones inwhich I would have to create the entire thing based on some kind of sense of whatthe truth of things is.There’s a poet who I knew some yearsago who had written a group of poemsabout working in social service as a socialworker, and these poems were about hisexperiences meeting these elderly peopleand disabled people and so on. And one ofthe poems in the book concerned a womanwho was a domestic servant, and at onepoint in the poem he had the line, ’cans ofpop I got her,’ and i said “Don, listen, whydon’t you make that bottles of pop i gother’? just think of that tine: ‘botttes of popI got her,’ all those o’s and everything,”and he said. “I can’t do that cause it was‘cans.’ ' You know, he would not compro¬mise the truth for a better tine, and Iwouldn” T6ve any hesitation to.CLR: To what extent should poems be pub¬lic? Does the poet have a responsibility toaddress certain issues? Your poems stayaway from personal involvement and areoften written from the standpoint of awatchful observer.TK: Well I don't like poems that are cen¬tered on the first person pronoun. I justdon’t, I'm just not interested in that. Nomore interested than 1 would be if you andI were down on the street and somebodywalked up to me and took me by thesleeve and said, “I've got a terrible head¬ache," or that person would say. “My wifejust left me, and I’m feeling terrible.” I—granted , as human beings, we have tohave some sort of sympathy for that, but idon't need to read it in magazines—I wastelling Mark Pertberg yesterday that Icall that “The Poetry of the ingrown Toe¬nail,” where you build the poem aroundsome personal sadness, often you justcan't build it to the point that it reachesanyone else. But I’m interested in keepingmyself out of the poem in ways other thanmy selection of materials for a poem, thethings that I bring in to the poem sayabout as much about me as I want to say.CLR: in your reading last night you toldthe story about getting stuck in the mud onChristmas eve while delivering flowers toa woman whose house you couldn’t find.You go up to the nearest trailer where alight is on, ail the time listening to an ar¬gument inside grow louder, and you knock.When the crying wife answers, her shir¬tless angry husband behind her, a fotd-upChristmas tree in the corner, you said thatyou felt like you just wanted to stay rightthere with them. That unexpected feelingof companionship startled me. It providesa mental picture of the poet as a compas¬sionate watcher, almost an involvedwatcher. But you shy away from exploringthose confrontations in your poetry.Why?TK: Let me come at this from a differentway. I think this may explain me a littlebit. I recently wrote a short story in whichan elderly farm woman who lives with her:* ■ bachelor farmer son—her husband is in anursing home, having had a stroke—onemorning in the dead of winter the sondrives her to the nursing home to make herdaily visit. And when they pull up in frontof the nursing home he tells her that she’sgonna have to move out of the house, thathe wants to get married, and she’s gonnahave to move to town. This is her place, ob¬viously, but he has equal control over it.So she goes in and she talks to her husbandwho can’t communicate with her, and shetells him what’s going on, and she’s tre¬mendously upset. And then she goes out tothe front door to wait for her son to comearound and pick her up again, and when hepulls up in front he has his girlfriend withhim. And she sees them in the car, and sheturns and goes back through the back ofthe nursing home and goes out the backdoor and starts walking across the fieldsrather than to confront the situation.I sent this to a friend of mine, SarahVogin who is a novelist in San Francisco,and she told me that I had—that unless Ican bring oft this confrontation with thesepeople in the car, that I had not written astory. I am turning away from the realsubstance of the story, which is the con¬frontation, and I see that as being true ofmy life in general. I grew up in a familywhere never a harsh word was spoken, noone raised their voice in anger. Theremight have been people realty mad a lot ofthe time, but it was very formal. And so Ihad a terrible time in any confrontationalsituation, and I would be like this woman,who’s a sympathetic character to me. Iwould split and go out the back door andsay, “I won’t mess with these people.” youknow, “I’ll do it myseif.” that comes acrossin the poems too, that I really don't—I re¬ally am most comfortable as a sort of anomniscient observer of things.CLR: The same thing seems to be true inthe stories of Raymond Carver, often in anearlier version of a story he doesn’t seemto have pushed things far enough.TK: We 11, when Sarah wrote me this letterback, the phrase that she used was that‘there are places in this story that youhaven’t put enough pressure on,” which Ithink is what we re talking about. There'ssomething that you can gain by—it’sheat—the more pressure you push on it themore heat you generate at that place.CLR: Often the heat isn’t even in dramaticaction, but supression. In a poem like TheWidow Lester almost everything is heldback, or in check, there is almost a reluc¬tance to talk, to begin the poem.TK: Which would be like my family in thegenerations that that woman would'vebeen in, my grandparents' generation.They're very very Stoic. My grandmother,who lived to be about 86 or 88 as I re¬member, had an enlarged heart that noone knew about until she died, and the doc¬tor said that she must have been in terri¬ble pain for years. But you think that she dever mentioned that?The Widow LesterI was too oid to be married,but nobody told me.I guess they didn’t care enough.How it had hurt, though, catching bouquetsall those years!Then I met Ivan, and kept him,and never knew love.How his feet stunk in the bedsheets!t could have told him to wash,but I wanted to hold that stink against him.The day he dropped dead in the field,I was watching.I was hanging up sheets in the yard,and i finished.From Sure Signs. Universityof Pittsburgh Press, 1980CLR: Do you find yourself following a spe¬cific line to bring out a character? Are youfollowing the words or a mental picture?TK: i think in The Widow Lester it would becreating a character and trying to figureout what that character would say, in theway that you would with fiction. I re¬member that the first line that I wrote was“how it had hurt though, catching bou¬quets all those years That's a line thathas a sound to it that goes along with thisspirit of this person—those long vowels atthe end of the sentence, and a kinda sigh¬ing sound to itClR: Your president poems etch a very dif¬ferent type of character, how did theycome about?TK: i don’t know'—I hate authority, tor onething. I actually saw this happen with Rea¬gan. I was actually watching televisionand saw him raise his finger in emphasisthen aii of a sudden hts eyes _.^sed in onthat finger, and he just folded it up andput it away. I think b'thly what hap¬pened was that somebody had toid him notcontinued on page 26The Chicago Literary Review, Friday March 15, 1985—25poet, and your ego is centered in being apoet, you are in real trouble in thiscountry, because all the rebuffs that youget being an artist or a poet are mortalwounds to you. Look at the poets whoseegos have been completely centered inbeing a poet: John Barryman, RobertLowell. Those people have been destroyedby it. It’s partly the country’s fault and it’spartly the fault of the poet for taking thatactivity so seriously that it becomes a con¬suming passion.CLR: Do you have friends who you showyour work to?NEBRASKAcontinued from page 25to gesture that way, one of his speechcoaches, but of course I took it as beingmuch more sinister than that—as being areal lapse in his sanity, in a sense, whichI’m sure is there (laughter).As The President SpokeAs the President spoke, he raised a fingerto emphasize something he said. I’ve forgottenjust what he was saying, but as he spokehe glanced at that finger as if it weresomebody else’s, and his face went slack and gray,and he folded his finger back into his handand put it down under the podiumalong with whatever it meant, with whatever he’d seenas it spun out and away from that bony axis.From One World at a Time,University of PittsburghPress, 1985CLR: The other poem you wrote, aboutNixon, is sad and biting but not unsym¬pathetic.TK: Well, I see him as being that way. Thatpoem kinda came out of a dream. Have youever had a dream from which you awa¬kened and felt that someone was in theroom with you somewhere? Well, it cameout of an experience like that, the idea ofsomeone standing in the silence naked inyour room. It struck me as being the sortathing that Richard—that poor, bumblingRichard Nixon would find himself in—atthe foot of someone’s bed who was havinga real life, a real sex life. He would bestanding in his altogether at the foot ofthe bed in the darkness looking on at thecountry. effective in communicating emotion, soyou’ve got to get right out there and keepthis tension going. I was mentioning yes¬terday that there’s an old Charlie Chaplinmovie—never can remember the name ofthis thing—in which he’s in a departmentstore and he’s rollerskating ilong a mez¬zanine but the rail has been taken off andhe skims along this edge on his rollerskate—he’s showing off for this girlfriendof his—and you know that at any minutehe’s going to fall off into the downstairs ofthe store, but he doesn’t. I use that as animage in my mind as how you work withsentimentality.CLR: I’m attracted to your harder poems,like The Widow Lester, the poems that donot give the reader a lot. In that sensethey seem separate from you, just ob¬served. Do you feel that you follow thepoem’s language as you write?TK: Sure, sure. And that’s often the waythat interesting associations will arise. Ican start writing by writing down lists ofwords, catalogs—yesterday on the train Iwrote down a whole catalog of things thatI was seeing from the windows, and everyonce in a while those things that I he'd writ¬ten down, just the act of writing it down asa word, triggered a little something n me.I don’t know what it is yet, but <here’ssome association there that I think I canfollow through with some feeJing.CLR. Do you think that physical objectshelp you to articulate your feelings?TK: There’s got to be a reason that a physi¬cal object pleases enough to get my atten¬tion, and there has to be something in methat is responding to that object. That’swhat I want to get at through the object,by going out and looking at it and seeing,“What is it? What is it about these tworusted car fenders here beside therailroad track? What is it that made meCLR: It reminds me of Walt Whitman’sSleepers, where he goes from bedside tobedside throughout the country, watch¬ing. \TK: God, I’d forgotten about that, that’sright.CLR: Your poetry reminds me of Whit¬man’s in your celebratory love of physicalthings, too.TK: I guess I would consider that to be acompliment. I read Whitman when I was ingraduate school, and I occasionally pickhim up and read him, but I don’t know a lotof Whitman, and I’m always kinda dis¬couraged by the way that Whitman cansuspend a line. I can’t do that, you know.It’s like stringing a clothes line, minewould all sag to the ground in the middle,but he can do that, and it’s a wonderful en¬ergy to have.CLR: Your celebration seems to be muchmore specific and wistful, connected to thesmall towns of the Midwest.TK: Well, it is a difficult thing to handle—Nostalgia, I think, is probably a legitimateemotion. In a sense we all have it, we’vegot to count it. I’m always kind of ambar-rassed that some people will come up tome and say how nostalgic I am, because Idon’t intend to be at all. I intend to beharder with the facts than that. But that’sa tough tightrope to walk, if you get tooloose with your sentiment you fall over theedge with your sentimentality; if you’retoo tight, you’re too far back from it to be think about those? What made me noticethem?’’CLR: Do you try purposely to stick to plainspeech?TK: You bet. I think one of the advantagesof having the kind of job that I do is thatI’ve been away from university life for 20years, and I have been dealing every daywith people that speak common diction,that don’t read poetry. And I often when Ifinish poems, try them on people in the of¬fice, to see how they respond to them. Andthese are people who don’t know anythingabout poetry, they don’t follow poetry,they don’t read poetry, and if I can get tothem with a poem I feel like I’ve reallydone something. Cause I don’t give a shitabout getting to people in the English de¬partment, they’ve got enough in getting toeach other. I think in a way it would havebeen unfortunate for me as a writer tohave stayed on in an English department,though there are many poets who can dothat.CLR: For those writers the environmentwhere writing is accepted seems to pro¬vide an important center for their self-es¬teem, but not necessarily for creativity.TK: I think it’s really healthy for a personto have a center, a safe center somewhere,and from that center you go off, you’re apoet, and you go off and you have a job,and you go off and you’re a family man,but you always have this center to retreatto. If you let your center drift into being a Photo by Phil PollardTK: Sure, see I carry on literary corre¬spondences with a lot of writers aroundthe country, and I like that distance. It’slike we’re all telephone poles, and we’reall holding up a strand of wire off some¬body else, and we have this network. Thenice thing about dealing with other writersthat way is that, in a letter you are in com¬plete control of your communication. Youare not sittin’ down with somebody andtryin’ to communicate with all the awk¬wardnesses that that has. You know ex¬actly what you can put down in that letter,and the person at the other end can do thesame thing. You're not imposing. I have abig problem with imposing upon people.You’re not knockin’ on their door saying,“God, I just wrote a poem; tell me whatyou think of it.”Matter of fact, there are a couple of peo¬ple that I have been writing to for years,one of these guys is a very dear friend ofmine, and we know everything about eachother, our medical histories, our maritalhistories, sex life, and everything. Thiscorrespondence started in 1967. And wewere together for 24 hours, and we werejust climbing the walls. The first thing Iwanted to do was to go in the next roomand write him a letter, I just didn’t want tobe around him, and he didn’t want to bearound me. We were brought together insort of a convivial moment and it was di¬sastrous ror us. I’d rather be out there inNebraska wnere nobody is, writing letters Cleaning A BassShe put it on the chopping blockand it flopped a little, the red rick-rackof its sharp gills sawing the evening airinto lengths, its yellow eyes like glass,like the eyes of a long-forgotten dollin the light of an attic. ‘‘They feel no pain,”she told me, setting the fish upright,and with a chunk of stovewoodshe drove an ice pick through its skulland into the block. The big fish curledon its pin like a silver pennantand then relaxed, but I could see lifein those eyes, which stared at the darkeningworld of the air with a terrible wonder."It’s true,” she said, looking over at methrough the gathering shadows, ‘‘they feel no pain,’’and she took her Swedish filleting knifewiih its beautiful blade that leaped and flashedlike a fish itself, ana with one strokelaid the bass bare to its shivering spine.From One World at a Time,University of PittsburghPress, 19851hoie by Ray Sandakerto people.CLR: That sounds like letters from anothercountry attempting to bridge the loneli¬ness of distance. Your poems are oftenfilled with a quiet loneliness, a sense of theimmence distances of the prairies.TK: It’s an odd thing the way that happens,because I think you write out of unhappymoments, or lonely women's when you’retrying to reach someone for _ me reason.And so when the accumulation of thosepoems is presented in a book, it piobablyconveys a mood about you as a person thatis really pretty one-sided. Because I don’twrite the happy, celebratory poem every¬day about something that I love I can un¬derstand reviewers who look at earlybooks of mine and talk about those vastdistances in them, this loneliness, barren¬ness, and so forth, which is obviously thereon the Great Plains, but there are lots ofother things, too—I just don’t write aboutthe other things.CLR: Do you feel that your poetry is partof a regional style?TK: I’m not very comfortable with that.The poets in the Midwest who are goodfriends of mine are within several hundredmiles of me, but I think our work is as dif¬ferent as my work would be, from some¬body writing in California. Once you startto publish a iot of poetry there are alwayssome young poets who are interested intryin’ what you're doin’ but for the mostpart, once you’re a mature writer, you’renot gonna write like anybody else. I guesswhat you see in the Midwest to some de¬gree is a strong sense of visual imagerywhich you may not see in poetry elsewhb.in the country and that’s because that isthe strongest sense when you have a placewhere you can see for a long ways—you donot smell corn and wheat fields, you see'em. You know, they’re shimmering in thedistance, and there’re big spaces, butyou’re not tastin’ ’em, you're not smellin’’em—the visual sense is the prominent one,but that just comes out of common experi¬ence.CLR: But that common experience has apowerful impact on a writer, that silenceseems to be a framework for all yourpoems.TK: Yeah the more of it, the better. Thisplace where I live now is 20 miles out in thecountry, and it's much quieter, and it’samazing what you can hear, if you taketime to listen. I'd like to perfect this thingthat some of these yogas do, in which youput your watch on a table—ticking—thenyou get back aways from it and see if youcan hear it, and then you keep going backand listening for it, and these guys can get50 feet away from their watches, and stillhear it ticking. That kind of sensibility, Ithink, would be wonderful.21—The Chicago Literary Review, Friday March 15, 1985. Put the pastin yourfuture!LIVE IN AN HISTORIC LANDMARKThoroughly renovated apartments offer the convenience ofcontemporary living space combined with all the best elementsof vintage design. 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Bl?GALA holds its weekly meetings at 9:00 pmevery Tuesday at 5615 S. Woodlawn. Meetingswill be followed by a social hour withrefreshments.THE MEDICI DELIVERSDaily from 4pm call667-7394.28—The Chicago Literary Review, Friday March 15, 1985The War of Vaslav NijinskyFrank BidartWatershed Tapes53 minutesNo Bells to BelieveRichard HugoWatershed Tapes55 minutesIf part of poetry's purpose is too keepthe language alive, and if language’sroots lie in oral communication, then whena poet reads he or she is giving us ourwords back. This process has become evenmore vital today when common speech fillsin for content with “like” and “y’know”,and when visual and printed media havebecome a replacement for verbal commun¬ication. The Media relys on cliches becauselanguage for them is merely a devicewhich one uses; they promote changes onlyto streamline and simplify the device. Butfor poets the spoken word is the articula¬tion in the throat of what had beenthought in the brain. For them the interac¬tion between these two things transformseach one, and only through pursuing thisinteraction can language continue togrow.Not all modern American poets, howev¬er, have mastered the art of performingthat transformation in public. Some bur¬row down farther into the words, as ifwhat they had already accomplished inwriting the poem should be enough, butothers take the poem back into them¬selves and refind its language. A goodreader changes our understanding of awork by investing it with another power,that of the spoken word.The words that Frank Bidart speaks onhis recently released tape The War of Vas¬lav Nijinsky, are powerful when read, butmesmerizing when heard. The poem is al¬most scored for the voice, both structural¬ly and grammatically with its many voiceand various typefaces. An omniscient nar¬rator opens and closes the poem, frag¬ments from diaries and other books areworked in, and the gifted, neurotic, har¬rowing voice of the great dancer holds thewhole work together. Listening to FrankBidart, these scraps come together andcome alive, and we cannot help feelinghow closely tied to this character the poetis. This tape captures one of America’sbest poets performing one of his bestpoems, and the effect is exhilarating.On the quieter second side Bidart readssome of his smaller poems, and thoughthey do not communicate with the dramat-Watenhet? Tape*The War OfVaslavRr Nijinsky*■■ vfrankBIDARTPhoto offflpnksy by Emily Otto Hoppe Richard Hugoic fervor of the first poem they have theirown secrets to share. The final lines on thetape ring with sad truth as Bidart states:The love I’ve knownis the love of two peoplestaring, not at each otherbut in the same direction.Richard Hugo’s recording, No Bells to Be¬lieve, may interest those familiar with thepoet’s poems, but as a work on its own itfails to draw us into the great midwesternpoet’s world. When Hugo writes well hejuxtaposes lyrical rhythms with a tough,commanding diction, but when he reads hisflat midwestern accent drawals on, nei¬ther lyrical or natural. It is odd that thepoet who studied with Theodore Roethke,and incorporates much of the older poet’smusical cadence, did not also learn thetransformative power of a subtle reading.There seems to be an apology implied inhis voice; it is as if he felt his poems lackedthe music of other poets and wanted toshow that he too was crafting his lan¬guage. But his language is lyrical, and thesad undercurrent of his best poems needno emphasis. Perhaps it is better to read astanza like the one that opens “The Ladyin Kicking Horse Reservoir” to ourselveswithout insisting that the poet understandit as we do.Not my hands but green across younow.Green tons hold you down, and tenbass curveteasing in your hair. Summer slimewill pile deep on your breast. Fourmonths of icewill keep you firm. I hope eachspringto find you tangled in those padspulled not quite loose by the spillwaypour,stars in dead reflection off yourteeth.—D.S.Lives of the PoetsE. L. DoctrowRandom House, 1984145 pages, $14.95There is something strange going on inE.L. Doctrow’s latest work Lives of thePoets. The book consists of a novella andsix short stories, which in itself is not sostrange, but something about thosestories made me feel like drawing theshades. I usually disappear when I’mreading, but not this time. These storiesmade me feel quite visible, and in verysharp focus.Somewhere in the mirk of seventh gradecreative writing classes, all buddingyoung writers are told never to addressthe reader directly. It makes the readeruncomfortable, and that’s a cardinal sin.It’s not a rule I ever understood very well,but I think it has something to do with tele¬vision and modern audiences’ prefrencefor passivity. Lives of the Poets brilliantlyshatters that rule.‘The Hunter’, the fourth story in thebook and the first of two not in the firstperson, is about a young school teacher ina small town. Her class is made up of fif¬teen children and is the only class in alarge, empty school building. The storyends when she calls in a photographer tophotograph the class. He complains thatthe children aren’t dressed properly tohave their picture taken. Suddenly angry,she pulls her hair from it’s neat barretteand kneels in front of the children, gather¬ing them around her.Take it, she says in a fierce whisper.Take is as we are. We are looking atyou.Take it.Suddenly the young woman we've beenwatching so casually, is looking us dead inthe eye. Disconcerting, and altogether ex-hilerating. You can’t read these storieswithout being implicated, you are some¬how accnmplire to thornThere is something else lost when the BOOKS IN REVIEWwall of reader passivity falls. That is theclear understanding of what is real andwhat is fiction. We generally interpretstories differently than we do events inour lives. The most mundane event, whenwritten into a story, becomes a signifier,it’s supposed to mean something, and weexpect explanations, answers. Even if theanswer is that nothing means anything.But in these stories I found myself uncer¬tain what system of expectations was re-levent.“Take is as we are.” the young, un¬named woman demands, and the demandis an accusation. The reader is accused ofexpecting her, as a character, to be finerthan she really is. Implicit in that accusa¬tion is the assumption that she is in fact, insome way, real. The result is that two setsof expectations blend, and we accept therealism of the unformal, fickle unfoldingof events, while inferring on them somekind of deeper meaning. Could it be thatlife is as meaningful as fiction?This blend of the real and fiction isbrought to a head in the novella. This finalpiece, which is entitled “Lives of thePoets,” is about a writer writing the bookLives of the Poets? It’s as if the stories arethe ‘ inside’ and the novella is the ‘out¬side’, the context in which the stories in¬cubated. The reader learns about the writ¬er’s work space, his friends and his family,his political beliefs. You even see him en¬counter some of the details which havesince been worked into the stories youhave just read. It’s almost as if the authorwere saying, “OK. So the stories weren’treally real, just stories after all. But nowI’m just talking to you. This is real, so itgives a context in which the stories can bereal.”The hitch is that the writer in the novellagoes by the name of Jonathan, and ‘Jon¬athan’ is not E.L. Doctrow. So maybe it’sall made up after all, just fiction. Ormaybe E.L. used a pseudonym out of some Venus and the RainMedbh McGuckianOxford University Press, 198455 pages, $8.95with any choiceI’d double-back to the dullest blue of Mars.Thus ends “Venus and the Sun,” the firstpoem in Medbh McGuckian’s collection ofpoems Venus and the Pain. Published onlytwo years after her award winning TheFlower Master, this volume contains forty-five poems on subjects ranging fromhuman relations to planetal relations.The most striking aspects of McGuck-■an's style are the vivid images and lyricalrhythms of her poems. She draws on colorsto create emotions in a world whereplants, oceans and ideas have lives oftheir own. The poem “On Not Being YourLover” begins:Your eyes were ever brown, thecolourOf time's submissiveness. LovenervesOr a heart, beat in their world ofPriviledge, I had not yet kissed youOn the mouth.and proceeds to describe aspects of theescaped relationship. Through this poemand many in this volume runs a theme ofpower: in shaping interiors, controlling re¬lations, building structures, and embodyi¬ng metaphors from natural physics.McGuckian uses formal poetic devicessparingly, relying instead on the physicalstructure of her poems. This structuring oflines and stanzas is subtle however. Inmost of these poems the physical poem iscarefully laid out, but the reader is leftwith the impression that the ideas andimages shaped the poem. This gives aflowing lyrical quality to McGuckian’spoems; one idea or image slides into thenext, and the reader flows along with it.The Younger Generation, 1892, by Jan Toorop from Venus and the Ratnsense of modesty. If you can’t tell, does itmake any difference?Layer behind layer, the reader searchesfor meaning in the story behind the story.Doctrow invites you in behind the scene,only to let you discover that you’re whereyou started, not behind the story, not out¬side passively reading, but right in themiddle of it. The implication is that mean¬ing lies in the story itself, and in you, thereader. That the poets of the title are notthe writer and the friends he discusses inthe novella, but the all too real charactersof the stories, and again, you, as reader.Lives of the Poets E.L. Doctrow's latestwork, is thoroughly engaging, but beprepared to get involved. —E.B.-C. This aspect of McGuckian’s style is bothher strength and weakness. At timesMcGuckian makes connections which, toput it kindly, are obscure. She loses thereader in her own personal metaphorswhich, although beautifully put. meannothing. In “Venus and the Rain,” McGuck¬ian speaks in a voice presumably belong¬ing to the planet Venus:White on white, I can never beviewedAgainst a heavy sky — my gibbousvoicePasses from leaf to leaf, retelling thestorycontinued on page 30The Chicago Literary Review. Friday March 15, 1985—29continued from page 29Of its own provocative fractures, tillTheir facing coasts might almost filleach otherAnd they ask me in reply if I'veDecided to stop trying to makediamonds.The reader could free associate and createsome meaning from this, but the effort isnot worth the trouble.One of the best, and clearest poems ofthe collection is “The Sitting’’ whichbegins:My half-sister comes to me to bepainted:She is posing furtively, like a letterbeingPushed under a door, making a tun¬nelwith herHands over her dull-rose dress....McGuckian goes on to skillfully create theemotional and physical ambience of the af¬ternoon, and leaves the reader with afeeling for the character of the half-sisterand the painter. She ends the poem:she prefersMy sea studies and will not sit for meAgain, something half-opened, rarerThan railroads, a soiled red-letterday.On the whole Venus and the Rain is anexcellent collection. At her worst shewrites beautiful lyrical gibberish; at herbest, Medbh McGuckian jolts the imagina¬tion with startling connections of colors,relations and emotions.-K.M.K.The Graywolf Annual: Short StoriesScott Walker, ed.The Graywolf Press, 1985175 pages, $6.00The 1985 edition of the Graywolfannual short story series is in fact the firstedition of the series inspired by a re¬newed interest in short stories by bothreaders and writers alike. The collectionconsists of works by twelve comtempo-rary American writers: Elizabeth Tallent,Andre Dubus, Daniel Menauer, AliceAdams. Francis Phelan, Richard Ford. EllenGilchrist. Elizabeth Cox, Rick Demarinis,Margaret Atwood, Tobias Wolff, and Bob¬bie Ann Mason The collection lives up tothe expectations raised by its roll call, it isa respectable comfortable read. Nothingtoo crass or banal. Noth.ng too risky.Comfortable may scund condescending,but I mean by it that none of the twelvestones iet me dowr Not one of the storieswas boring or a’chly inaccessible. Thebook was enjoyabfe reading fom cover tccover and mat’- hard to come by In annu¬al short story Elections. Sometimes con-fortable is a gr od thing.One of the things that pleased me aboutthe collect) n was that the stories werenot set p’adominantly along the east orwest coaA. So frequently In comtempo-ary lue ature America exists only alongits coastlines. In Alice Adams’ “Time inSanta Fe” a strained, but hopeful meetingbetween two old friends takes place in thesun and dried mud of Santa Fe. The narra¬tor. the one who’s just visiting, getsserved: some greenish Mexican glop thatf don’t much like, but I appreciate his ef¬fort, of course.’’ •. no - ; -In Francis Pheian’s “The Battle of Boil¬ing Water’’ a young boy in Pittsburghwatches the Bonus Army prepare to marchon Washington while he struggles to recon¬cile his rising sexuality with his fierce reli¬gion.in Richard Ford’s “Winterkill’’ a layed-off miner kills time in a small town in Mon¬tana. Elizabeth Cox’s “A SoundingBrass''tells of a young mother, newly wi¬dowed, watching the light that seems torise from the ground of a Georgia forest,while in Rick Demarinis’ “Under theWheat"’, a young engineer makes therounds between yet to be filled MX silos inthe fields of North Dakota, keeping the ..W^P „ Psump pumps functional and waiting for the E ships are seen as corresponding to theweather to touch down. Bobbie Ann Mason over-zealous nearsightedness of theof course takes us to Kentucky in her story American with the tape recorder in the‘Hunktown’ about a woman whose lakf-off p0em “The Natural and Social Sciences”,husband decides to try and make the big who asks:time with his country music. , "***“What was the name of that lastBOOKS IN REVIEWPhoto of Michael Donaghy by Maddy PaxmanSliversMichael DonaghyThompson Hill, 198560 pages, $6.95Michael Donaghy, who won last issue’spoetry award for “Interviews”, has writ¬ten a first book whose range and tech¬nique reflect a deep commitment to thework of poetry. The poems in Slivers arenot overworked, but brought to comple¬tion so that each one balances betweencommon speech and careful craft. This isthe hardest task, to use all the devices andploys of poetry while speaking plainly.When done well this balance provides theframework from which the poet’s imagina¬tion soars.In the poem that opens the volume, “Ma¬chines”, this notion is embodied in the com¬parison between a Schwinn twelve 3peedb»ke and a harpsicord by Purcell. Each oneis a complex device that when used per¬fectly disappears, “The cycHst, not thecycle, steers” Donaghy says. “So thistalk,” he continues, “or touch if I wasthere,/ Should work its effortless gad-getry of love.” Though the poet does notalways live up to his ideal, his sell-mock¬ing voice and sharply etched images enliv¬en even those attempts which fail.The mock translation called “SevenPoems from the Welsh’’ is too slight tobuild into anything larger than Insights,but each Insight is perfectly rendered inits thirty syllable vignette.The moment you touch the world ofmy earWith the tip of your tongueIs a gold dome over itself.So is the moment after.In another poem in this series he writes“Patience is cold soup/ And salt in thesugar bowl,” and it is this ability to matchup an absolutely common experience witha revelation of what that experiencemeans to us, that make these poems strikehome.Michael Donaghy’s humor often stemsfrom a Juxtaposition of people’s actionsand divergent thoughts, or of the ironicexchanges between cultures. Reiation-The main characters of most of thesestories are young people, late twenties tolate forties The exceptions are EllenGilchrist’s ““The Young Man” which opens;“This is a story about an old woman whoordered a young man from an L.L Bean ca¬talog ”, and Francis Phelan’s story aboutthe boy Though a secondary characterthere is an old man in Elizabeth Cox’s “ASounding Brass” who moves through thestory with an almost mystical stillnessAnd Bobble Ann Mason, doing what shedoes so well, bends categories of genera¬tion back into themselves by telling astory which is almosl a romance about awoman who is a grandmother, though stillquite young.Though the Graywolf annual collectionof short stories for 1985 is uhilkefy totake your breath away, it is a collectionthat can be trusted. The time spent read¬ing these stories is time well spent. one?”The piper shrugs and points to thedark corner.Ask my father.”The American writes “Ask My Fa-The same insights that drive this humoralso drive the more serious work in thebook, for the poet is always trying tomake connections, both with us, and be¬tween the diverse images of a givenpoem. When these elements are kept atthe proper distance the tensions that holdthem together vibrate with memorable in¬tensity. The test of a poet is how much dis¬tance he or she can cover and still makethe work resonate When the associationsare too limp no shock of recognition runsthrough us, but when they connect, as inthe title poem, wa ara exhilarated by the James GlavinGod’s MistressJames GalvinHarper & Row, 198477 pages, $6.95I’m going to tell you a name I want youto remember. If you’ve ever been west ofthe Mississippi, and especially if youhaven’t, remember this name; James Gal¬vin.So who is the man? Only a poet, a Co¬lorado poet. You’ve probably never heardof such a thing, a Colorado poet, but that’sprecisely the point.The people of America are regional peo¬ple whose lives are shaped in part by thelandscape and climate in which they live.You don’t have to live in Chicago very longto get to understand wind and the de¬mands it makes on your lifestyie. Butthere are fifty states in the United Statesof America, and in each state a multitudeof cultures and landscapes. This may notseem important, and maybe it wouldn’tbe, except that we assume some kind ofbasic cultural coherence. We’re all Ameri¬can aren’t we?Every night, from coast to coast, news¬casters report the news in a learned, mid-western accent. Commercial airline pilotswelcome passengers aboard in tones aslong and slow as the roll of the prairie. It’sobvious that there is no single Americanaccent, and it shouldn’t surprise you tohear some variation from the mouth ofyour anchorman, but it probably would.The assumed flatness of voice is sup¬posed to be comforting, and perhaps it is ifyour own accent happens to be just as flat.You can calm yourself into believing thatall true Americans are just like you. Thisaccent-free accent is also supposed to rep¬resent education; so that it’s perfectlysafe to write off anyone who speaks withan accent, as not knowing what he's talk¬ing about, not being trustworthy.This system of judgement refuses toadmit that many Americans do not speakin a midwestern voice. It is not safe simplynot to hear them. The differences are im¬portant, because they go much deeperthan :he tonal quality of the voice. Howcan anyone who fives within spitting dis¬tance of an ocean, or a great lake, or theMississippi or Missouri, understand howprecious water is to anyone in Colorado.It’s a tension even the city people know. InDenver a lawn simply won't grow unlessit’s watered. And by city ordinance youcan only water once every three days ac¬cording to the last two digits of your ad¬dress. And who in Illinois would thinktwice before flushing? That’s ten preciousgallons In one flush. In Colorado you feelthose ten gallons. There Isn’t any water towaste. It affects the way you think aboutthings.That’s why the different voices ofAmerica are important, why it’s importantto listen to them, if we are, in fact, allAmerican, then it’s important to knowwhat that means;^B| IWiwThat's why the name of James Galvin isimportant. Colorado is not a very literarystate, outside of the politicians and thetravel agents, there aren’t many spokes¬men for Colorado James Galvin is one. Iact of balance. In “Slivers” he sees “Cun¬ning men hunch windward who know bybone/ By sextant or the lodestone or theplanets, to plot,/ To give bearings.” Butthe poet interrupts his own vision with astartling leap into his present situation.Across the wide lot glint glasssliversFrom the splintered windshields ofstripped cars.In this place without water, in thishour of awe, ,I grip these gifts which only look likestarsAnd draw vague lines across un¬crafted seas,And map by these.When Michael Donaghy trusts these intu¬itions the poems soar beyond the frame¬work of melts words. —D.S.People Live Hereby Louis SimpsonBoa Editions, 1983215 pages. $7.95Louis Simpson was born in Jamaica ot European parents. He emigrated to the Unit¬ed States after he had travelled extensi¬vely throughout the world, gatheringdiverse experiences and a thoroughknowledge of people. Simpson has gar¬nered many awards, including a PulitzerPrize. His new book, People Live Here,contains selections from nine of his earlierpoems and a few more recent pieces. Hispoems sharply etch a variety of peopleand landscapes, but all are unified by thecommon theme of individuals toughenedand shaped by their environments, in “Inthe Suburbs” he expresses the futility ofan existence that merely perpetuates it¬self instead of progressing.There's no way out. • JtYou were born to waste your life.You were born to this middleclass '%%Lvy '"jAs others before you V - - \ (%Were bom to walk in processionTo the temple, singing.Simpson often relates these reflectionson people with a dry wit that takes us inand provokes us to laugh at ourselves. £“The Custom of the World” describes a ***** labeled him a Colorado poet, but Itender love affair with which the author wouldn’t call his work Colorado poetry Itpokes fun at the rest of us:For though this nakedness was good,God knows,The custom of the world is wearingclothes. fHis lyrics often employ a biting rhythm,regardless of the subject matter Some¬times the beat undercuts the content, butmore often it reinforces it. In “The Bird” aboy wants to fly across the sea, but in¬stead becomes an officer of the ThirdReich The child-like rhyming is totally ap¬propriate.A dog howled in its kennel,He thought of Hans and cried.The stars looked down from heaven.The day the children died.Simpson paints vivid images of peopleand the often hypocritical actions of theirlives. In doing so he never forgets to re¬mind us that no matter how impersonal theencompassing social framework, individu¬als who fight for their beliefs and laugh atthemselves still matter. —S.U.by Wendy Norris first and foremost, poetry, in otherwords, not the kind of thing you’d find in acattle magazine, slipped in beside an addtor Dr. Dan’s mentholated bag balm. Theyare clean, vivid poems. Sophisticated andaccessible. They are fine poems, spoken ina Colorado voice, and the highest recom¬mendation i can leave you with is a pas¬sage from his latest book God’s Mistress;I could say I understandwhat goes on underground:why all old men are minersand children turn to gold-fleckedwater,-I could explain the weather,like when the wind comes out of the***» mmwmMiniuand meets the simple rain.The wind is strong.The rain has slender shoulders.The rain can’t saywhat it really meansIn the presence of childrenor strangers. ,30—The Chicago Literary Review, Friday March 15,1985TENSE NERVOUSANXIOUS?If so, you may qualify fo receive freafment foryour anxiefy at the University of ChicagoMedical Center. Treatment will be free ofcharge in return for participating in a 3-weekevaluation of medication preference. The pur¬pose of this study is to examine the effectsvarious drugs have on mood and determinewhich drugs people choose to take. 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ALL PETITIONS DUE BY MARCH 22. FOR MORE INFORMATION CALL BRAD SMITH 667-1915. LANGUAGE COURSESare offered to all graduate students throughthe Chicago Cluster o* Theological Schools atLutheran School of Theology in FRENCH,GERMAN, LATIN, and SPANISH. Profes¬sional instruction by experienced teachersand/or native speakers. For further informa-tion or to register, call Deborah Andersen.Language Course Coordinator, or call theteacher. See specific ads.GERMANthrough CCTS at Lutheran School of Theology.BEGINNING READING (Part 2), Mon 6-8 pm,rm 203; FEE: $120; beg April 1. ADVANCEDREADING: Mon 8-10pm, rm 203; FEE $120,beg April 1. For more info/registration, callGerlinde Miller 363-1384 LSTC 753-0764.BEGINNING CONVERSATION: Mon 6-8pm,rm 205; FEE: $120; beg April. ADVANCEDCONVERSATION: Mon 8-10 pm, rm 205;FEE: $120; beg April 1. For more in-fo/registre*ion, call Rainer Schwarzkopff 493-7163or LSTC. 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SAT 9:30-7 -SUN 12-5The Chicago Literary Review, Friday March 15, 1985—31remainGone to gravity,to distance,the time fight takesto travelanywhere.The flight that took younowhere,nto nowhere,no¬whereit doesn’t mean anythingIf any two bodies attract,this is what we knowby your absence;the panicof gravity up the road a spellfor Art Boilhoefer1959-1985displacedhow far from here to merer as mireaches out to touch the man on the moon takingone small step from God's finger to Adam’s hand,that distance; Kansas to OzAshes asheswe all faildownThe highway is fiat.On either sidedesert wi.ngs unfurl.I believe they will carry mewherever they will.—the living,displaced living,waving pink kleenexSome gesture.Tour ashesrattlelike chips of slate,bits of bonedried to honeycomb;carbon, calcium,it isn’t you,rattiing m the soft, ;firost-bladed grass. But! am not afraid.I have watched the earth ascendtowards the biue of late afternoon,and I have watched the sky’s plummetinto black,and I am not afraid of heights.A good hour since,we passed the last signdeclaring “Last Chance.”The road and I are travellingto the place where it Is cool,lean see it just ahead;it wavers where the lines convergeWe don’t knowthe words toHt griefinto,so how do we bid you>afe-journey? if? The man selling maps saidwhen I get thereI’ll be right where I am.You left us as threeholding handsin a frozen field, Elizabeth Sames-Claytonto wailsmywm#