A beautiful poem, Max. I am quite a fan of James Wright.
dave
On 7 February 2015 at 21:46, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Should the condemned drug-crims be let off by the Indonesian president,
> Kinsella can feel part of the campaign…
>
> Coincidentally. I have joined a poetry group near me in Seattle, and the
> convener has passed round various poems from Shaks to now.
> This by James Wright was no doubt celebrated for a time, but I’d missed
> out on it.
> What incited it seems so atrocious - though googling the US army officer
> turns up
> angles not hinted at in the ‘Notes’ below the poem.
> Curious about it all - then and now…
> Doug will surely have an informed response.
> [not that the Kinsella and the Wright are similar poems just occasioned by
> bad news]
>
> A Mad Fight Song for William S. Carpenter, 1966
> BY JAMES WRIGHT
> Varus, varus, gib mir meine Legionen wieder
>
> Quick on my feet in those Novembers of my loneliness,
> I tossed a short pass,
> Almost the instant I got the ball, right over the head
> Of Barrel Terry before he knocked me cold.
>
> When I woke, I found myself crying out
> Latin conjugations, and the new snow falling
> At the edge of a green field.
>
> Lemoyne Crone had caught the pass, while I lay
> Unconscious and raging
> Alone with the fire ghost of Catullus, the contemptuous graces tossing
> Garlands and hendecasyllabics over the head
> Of Cornelius Nepos the mastodon,
> The huge volume.
>
> At the edges of Southeast Asia this afternoon
> The quarterbacks and the lines are beginning to fall,
> A spring snow,
>
> And terrified young men
> Quick on their feet
> Lob one another’s skulls across
> Wings of strange birds that are burning
> Themselves alive.
> NOTES: (Note: Carpenter, a West Pointer, called for his own troops to be
> napalmed rather than have them surrender. General Westmoreland called him
> “hero” and made him his aide, and President Johnson awarded him a Silver
> Star for courage.)
>
> James Wright, “A Mad Fight Song for William S. Carpenter, 1966” from Above
> the River: The Complete Poems and Selected Prose. Copyright © 1990 by James
> Wright. Reprinted by permission of Wesleyan University Press.
>
> [I’d add a note on Varus - the general who lost legions to German warriors
> (and suicided) leaving Augustus to cry out to him - in German!
> And Carpenter had been a top footballer at West Point.]
> Max
>
>
>
>
>
> On Feb 7, 2015, at 13:29, David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
> > Well said, and writ, Mr Kinsella
> >
> >
> > djb
> >
> > On 7 February 2015 at 16:39, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
> >
> >> and then there’s the comments…
> >>
> >> but I’m afraid the pen won’t be mightier here…
> >>
> >> Doug
> >> On Feb 6, 2015, at 1:20 PM, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >>
> >>>
> >>
> http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/06/nothing-is-made-new-my-poem-and-plea-that-clemency-be-granted-to-sukumaran-and-chan
> >>>
> >>> Dear President Joko Widodo,
> >>>
> >>> I am the Australian poet, writer and academic, John Kinsella.
>
--
David Joseph Bircumshaw
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