Simon Armitage - a while ago - did a documentary on Weldon Kees for the BBC. The
documentary contained a lots of information about Kees, but a seemed a little
flat, and a bit strange in that Armitage seemed not to want to do parts of it. I
bought the collected on the back of it, though.
I always thought the Robinson poems the pick of the litter. Strange little poems.
For example, from "Aspects of Robinson":
Robinson walking in the park, admiring the elephant.
Robinson buying the Tribune, Robinson buying the Times.
Robinson
Saying,"Helloo. Yes, this is Robinson. Sunday
At five? I'd love to. Pretty well. And you?"
Robinson alone at Longchamps, staring at the wall.
F&F do a collected in the UK.
----- Original Message -----
From: Frederick Pollack <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 02 July 2000 03:25
Subject: Lost or Neglected Poets
> I'd like to recommend Weldon Kees, one of my great favorites. Americans
> on this list will probably know of him; others may not. A poet's poet,
> never canonized, doesn't fit neatly into any schools of 1935-55 - some
> resemblance to the English Apocalyptics, but also to pre-modernist
> Americans like E. A. Robinson and Trumbull Stickney. Fascinating life -
> capable jazz musician, abstract painter, reviewer, short-story writer
> and (once) novelist. Got into, bored with, and out of every scene from
> New York to San Francisco before anyone discovered it; even during his
> lifetime the phrase about him was "ten minutes too early." And a noted
> depressive. In '55 his car was found in the parking lot on the Marin
> side of the Golden Gate Bridge, but his body was never found. In
> previous weeks he'd talked to some people about suicide, to others
> about pulling an Ambrose Bierce and disappearing into Mexico. Which is
> why to this day there are Kees sightings and poems about him. But not
> just a Romantic figure, a good poet. Collected Poems, ed. Donald
> Justice, Bison paperback. See also collected letters (some of the best,
> and nastiest, American literary gossip of the century), U. Nebraska
> Press, and selected reviews, U. Michigan Press.
>
>
>
> FOR MY DAUGHTER
>
> Looking into my daughter's eyes I read
> Beneath the innocence of morning flesh
> Concealed, hintings of death she does not heed.
> Coldest of winds have blown this hair, and mesh
> Of seaweed snarled these miniatures of hands;
> The night's slow poison, tolerant and bland,
> Has moved her blood. Parched years that I have seen
> That may be hers appear: foul, lingering
> Death in certain war, the slim legs green.
> Or, fed on hate, she relishes the sting
> Of others' agony; perhaps the cruel
> Bride of a syphilitic or a fool.
> These speculations sour in the sun.
> I have no daughter. I desire none.
>
>
> SMALL PRAYER
>
> Change, move, dead clock, that this fresh day
> May break with dazzling light to these sick eyes.
> Burn, glare, old sun, so long unseen,
> That time may find its sound again, and cleanse
> What ever it is that a wound remembers
> After the healing ends.
>
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