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POETRYETC  2005

POETRYETC 2005

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Subject:

Re: Poems by others: Hilda Morley (?), "Xmas"

From:

Stephen Vincent <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Poetryetc provides a venue for a dialogue relating to poetry and poetics <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Mon, 17 Jan 2005 10:55:43 -0800

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

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text/plain (111 lines)

This is a lovely story, Hal, about discovering the Hilda Moreley poem. I
have always been taken by the way the poem or novel may be brought either
freshly back into light, or first discovered, in contexts that are not
aligned with "where I usually do my reading." (Kitchen table, living room
table, or this often godforsaken iMac Monitor - where,ironically, it's a
delight to read the Hilda Morley poem and your note!). I suspect each of us
could write small histories of discovering poems in unexpected places. I
always hated reading novels in college - the pressures, etc. - and I was a
very slow reader. But I remember the great pleasure of reading Faulkner's
Light in August while hitchhiking around Crete in August of 1972. There were
probably 5 cars and 10 trucks on Crete then! Sitting on my backpack for long
periods in the August heat were entirely compatible with reading Faulkner's
prose. I will never forget it.
Or then, recently, finding a copy of William Carlos Williams' ND Selected
Shorter Poems on the street, apparently dumped, the acid-filled paper a
lunch bag brown, taking it home and reading it aloud in the kitchen to
Sandy, my partner, my voice felt like I was rescuing those wonderful poems
back from the dead.
When Momo's Press went out of business in the mid-eighties, and I had lots
of inventory, as some kind of odd, populist missionary, I would occasionally
place books on benches and ledges and sidewalks through out the City -
hoping that other folks might have a similar sense of surprise, taking joy
or some kind of mystery in reading a poem by someone, say, - Victor Cruz, or
Jessica Hagedorn or myself - of whom most had probably had never heard - as
such would still be true of 99% of those who write contemporary poems with
usually such small readerships, no matter intense our immediate communities
of attention.

Thanks again, Hal.

Stephen V
Blog: http://stephenvincent.durationpress.com






> Xmas
>
> Down Fifth Avenue in a taxi,
> 2 weeks before Xmas,
>                                   my heart is
> gone,     gone away,
>                                far away
>                                               There are
> stars, lights, illuminated
> frosting all over the fronts of
> buildings,
>               everything is
> an offering
>                   (  for us,   to buy   )
> But even alone now,
>                                a rising excitement
> possesses me,
>                        exhilaration,
> warmth   & I can remember when it was
> all celebration for us,
>                                both of us Jewish
> but an excitement possessed us,
>                                                 those years
> of your health,
>                              years of our striding
> about the city together
>                                  choosing,
> thinking: a gift for this one or that one
>                                  & you spent hours
> inventing red & green scribbles
> to cover your cards with:
>                                       declarations [of]
> love & joy in friendship
>                                    & branches
> of green & holly were hung in the house
>                                    & what
> I miss now,            the sound of your voice
>                                your laughter
>
>                                          [love from Hilda
>                                           December 25, 1982]
>
>
> Note: A day or two ago, Lynda and I visited (once
> again) the Strand, over on Broadway and came home
> lugging books. In one of mine (*Ironwood* 20, found
> on one of the outdoor $1 shelves and purchased to
> replace my long-lost copy) was a twice-folded sheet
> of 8 1/2 x 11 paper upon which the poem above was
> typed, the bracketed portions written in in ink. At the
> top center of the page is a piece of scotch tape that
> looks like it may have been used to hang the poem up
> somewhere, since there's nothing at the bottom of the
> page to suggest it was used as a seal. At the bottom
> left of the inside cover of the magazine, written in ink,
> is "Christmas 1982" over "NYC," and in the right-
> hand bottom corner the name Judy Epstein.
>
> I don't know if this poem was ever published, but it
> might be one of a series of elegies Morley wrote for
> her husband Stefan Wolpe, who had died in 1972.
> Any information would be appreciated.
>
> 1/17/05
>
> Hal
>
> Halvard Johnson
> ===============
> email: [log in to unmask]
> website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard
> blog: http://entropyandme.blogspot.com/

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