I confess that Wright is not a poet whose work I know well. This is certainly an interesting poem, & powerful in its assertion. The poet against that war I read were Duncan, Levertov…& occasionally others (always aware that too often rhetoric took over from poetry; which here I think has not happened).
Doug
On Feb 8, 2015, at 5:40 PM, David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 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
> Website and A Chide's Alphabet
> http://www.staplednapkin.org.uk
> The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
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>
Douglas Barbour
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Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuation 2 (UofAPress).
Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
that we are only
as we find out we are
Charles Olson
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