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107 pages

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Every poem an epitaph, every poem a ticket to ride, from Sappho’s “bittersweet” eroticism to the “wild civility” of Robert Herrick. Martin Corless-Smith is a poet, painter, and translator of canonical poems, and each of these vocations is on view in this memorable defense of poetry as he reads from Virgil to Notley in sight of the impossible blue of Bellini’s Doge Leonardo Loredan and Piranesi’s otherworldly Pyramid of Cestius while contemplating the paradoxes of the finite body of the poet dreaming immortal poetry. —Keith Tuma
Querying the embodiment of poetry, Corless-Smith begins in the body of the poet—living and/or dead—and passes from there through the body of the reader in order to argue the mutual construction of the body of a poem as a shared body and a new commons, which, like all things vital to survival—air, water, hope—must be maintained as open and available to all. These succinct, elegant essays perform this maintenance and, in the process, return us to all poetry charged with the energy and insight necessary to continue that maintenance ourselves. —Cole Swensen

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Publié par	Parlor Press, LLC
Date de parution	23 avril 2020
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781643171777
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0025€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

THE POET’S TOMB MARTIN CORLESSSMITH

THE POET’S TOMB

Illuminations: A Series on American Poetics Seies Edio: Jon Tompson

Illuminationsfocuses on e poeics and poeic pacices of e con-empoay momen in e USA. Te seies is paiculaly keen o pomoe a se of eﬂecive woks a include, bu go beyond, a-diional academic pose, so we ake Wale Benjamin’s ic, poeic essays publised unde e ile ofIlluminationsas an example of e kind of appoac we mos value. Collecively, e iles publised in is seies aim o engage vaious audiences in a dialogue a will eimagine e ﬁeld of conempoay Ameican poeics. Fo moe abou e seies, please visi is websie a palopess.com/ illuminaions.

Books in the Series

The Poet’s Tombby Main Coless-Smi () Vestiges: Notes, Responses, and Essays 1988–2018by Eic Pankey (19) Sudden Edenby Donald Revell (19) Prose Poetry and the Cityby Donna Sonecipe (17)

THE POET’S TOMB

THE MATERIAL SOUL OF POETRY

Martin CorlessSmith

Parlor Press Anderson, South Carolina www.parlorpress.com

Palo Pess LLC, Andeson, Sou Caolina, USA © 20 by Palo Pess All igs eseved. Pined in e Unied Saes of Ameica on acid-ree pape. S A N:  5 4 - 8 8 7 9

Libay of Congess Caaloging-in-Publicaion Daa on File

978-1-64317-176- (papeback) 978-1-64317-177-7 (pdf) 978-1-64317-178-4 (epub)

Illuminaions: A Seies on Ameican Poeics Seies Edio: Jon Tompson

Cove a: “Te Goo of Posillipo a Naples”by Anonie Sminck Piloo. 86. Oil on canvas. Rijksmuseum, Amsedam, Neelands. Public domain: p://dl.andle.ne/934/RM.COLLECT.5465 Ineio and cove design: David Blakesley

Palo Pess, LLC is an independen publise of scolaly and ade iles in pin and mulimedia fomas. Tis book is available in pape, clo and eBook fomas rom Palo Pess on e Wold Wide Web a p://www.palopess.com o oug online and bick-and-moa booksoes. Fo submission infomaion o o ﬁnd ou abou Palo Pess publicaions, wie o Palo Pess, 315 Backenbey Dive, Andeson, Sou Caolina, 961, o email edio@palopess.com.

Contents

Introduction: The Poem’s Soulvii The raving mouth—or why the muse ain’t moribundxi Prologue: Living on the Edge, the Bittersweet Place of Poetry.3 1 Leopardi’s Material Inﬁnite13 2 The Poet’s Tomb25 3 Herrick’s Wild Civility75 Postscript: On Sublimity87 About the Author93

Introduction: The Poem’s Soul

ese essays ave as ei focus a few mosly well-known T poems by a few mosly famous poes (wi a few pilo-sopical exs, a novel, a memoi and awoks employed ee and ee), bu my main concen eally is wi being, and in paicula wi e uncanny ole a poems play in e isoy of consciousness, in making i and mapping i. Peaps in e end wa I am ineesed in doing is skecing some sadows of e soul, glimpsed in passing, and I see e poem as e geaes mio of a paicula invisibiliy. My eadings ae subjec o divesions and eddies (because o a ceain degee eal po-ems esis eading), bu I ope a in ying o ead e woks included ee, and in following ei leads, i becomes clea a I am examining and exibiing e ways in wic eading a poem is an ineacive excange of exaodinay poduciviy, dawing e eade ino e ongoing specacle of e isoy of being. Reading is a ﬂouising communion of sos. A single line is seed o a foes. Tese essays ae all bon rom suc fe-ile oos. Te fuss and angles in my essays ae evidence of my ean usbandy, of my being, of my aving been. I mig be agued a any isoy of poey is also a isoy of e soul’s developmen, and a e impoan me-apos in gea poems give us e ways and means of unde- sanding ou own being . Reading a poem is an invesmen of fai, a giving ove. I is in is giving ove a we encoun-e ouselves in oeness, as oeness. Wiou is ooug encoune of language, wiou eading poems, we easily slip back ino a docile, inaiculae pefomance of being. Wiou e eﬀos of woking oug a poem’s diﬃculy, we do no coss e nea and fa of being. And we neve ﬁnis eading unil we ﬁnis being. Tese essays ae paial eadings, and as suc, ey ae ials wi incomplee judgmens, eﬀos, angens: ee ies and ou. If ee is any u, i lies in ei eing.

. Te meaning of “soul” is obviously a moo poin ee. Te same is ue fopoetry.

v ii

Te pologue examines Anne Cason’sEros the Bitter-sweet, and ses up a poposal of poey as an oiginaing even of viii uman self-consciousness: Sappo’s wodbittersweet is ead as an exemplay sie wee exclusive elemens ae eld in combi-naion. Tis becomes ou ﬁs model of consciousness. In Leopadi’sL’inînitoI y o sow e mind and body of poey, in poey, using e iny “inﬁniy” as a key fo un-locking is ideas of e soul in is epicZibaldone. INTRODUCTIOeNcenal essay of e book is a omp oug e gave mae of poes and ei ombs. Saing wi Vigil’s ep-iap, e essay sows a developmen of vaiaions on e poem as memoial. I ends up wi Alice Noley undoing Vigil, ea-ing up e monumen, and uning all e goss loose. Finally, I ead Heick’sHesperidesas a poeic Acady, an Englis gaden planed wi evey eiloom seed nuued o vaious golden ruis. Like Sappo’sbittersweet, e paadoxical “wild civility” of Heick’s poems povide e necessay risson of self and oe a opens ou ino e space of conscious-ness: e playful aena of is gea book is iself an asseion and aiculaion of poey as a ealm of being. Te sakes fo addessing e soul in poey mig seem esoeic and even indulgenly ielevan given oday’s ugly poliical climae, and e anxieies abounding wi egad o climae and culue. Bu a eading of poey is opefully in-sucive, and a focus on is connecion o self seems always imely. Any descipion of e soul is no meely a meapoical disacion, i is a deﬁniive aiculaion of e mos pofound poliical gound of all: selhood. My pedominanly maeialis view does no dispense wi “soul” as some eeeal fanasy, i opes o see a e pysical and maeial is wee e penomenon of being is en-couneed, muc like Spinoza agues in isEthics. Te pin-ed body of a poem ouses e penomenon of is poweful and spell-binding auoiy: Poey, e loties of uman endeav-os, always comes back o e body. And no jus o e body of e poe (a cenal concen fo ese essays). Te poem is no simply a pesevaion of in-dividualiy (is ee suc a ing?), o even individual alen

(oug i is evidence of a), i is an oﬀeing of communi-y, of someing essenial beyond e individual. Jus as e self does no bask in isolaedsui generisgloy, bu opens up only in excange, I see e poem as a common gound, as an alena-ive body ohouse of beingwee we mig, as wi anoe pe-son, encoune evidence of oug and memoy. Wen we face a poem, wen we agee o ead and lis-en, we ae acceping i as a voiced, willed oeness, ae an jus mee wods (even if avoiceemains absac o un-inelligible, if i is a poem i mus cay e aua of uman in-en). And we engage wi a poem in ways simila o e ways we engage wi oe people. Toug language, ou common gound, we acknowledge e sange, lisen fo one, gauge inen, and as wi oe people, we noice ou diﬀeences— we y o access a wic a ﬁs seems inacable, o lean is meaning, o undesand someing of is essence. And in so doing we lean o become uman. We slowly make up a self only in is way. Reading a poem is no a suogae fo oe uman in-eacions, bu i is pay o em. Te cenal pupose of ead-ing poey is no o elec a canon, (oug in an isoical/po-liical wold dominaed by suc pacices a as become e common appoac) bu o engage inimaely wi oeness. We mig see is engagemen as a bale of wis, a pefomance of aeseics, a git of u, an excange of love, o as a wi-nessing of isoy; bu above all ose, we mig see i as a, o eventhe, model aciviy of being uman. And a ing a we ecognize in e face of anoe, a vey essenial ai-bue a plays ove e feaues a we callsoul, ee is a sim-ila penomenon a enlivens e wods of a poem, some-ing a allows us o ead em as umanly signiﬁcan. And we mig call a uncanny pesence of e uman, caied in 2 e wods of e poem,Poetry.

. Ealy in isBiographia Literaria,suggess a “[o]u Coleidge genuine admiaion of a gea poe is a coninuous unde-cuen of feeling; i is eveywee pesen, bu seldom anywee as a sepaae exciemen.” His descipion of is unde-cuen beas efeence o conempoay descipions of e elaion beween mind and bain.

INTRODUCTION