Dreams of Ondaatje (2)

7 or 8 THINGS I KNOW ABOUT HER - A STOLEN BIOGRAPHY

The Father's Guns

After her father died they found nine guns in the house. Two in his clothing drawers, one under the bed, one in the glove compartment of the car, etc. Her brother took their mother out onto the prairie with a revolver and taught her to shoot.

The Bird

For a while in Topeka parrots were very popular. Her father was given one in lieu of a payment and kept it with him at all times because it was the fashion. It swung above him in the law office and drove back with him in the car at night. At parties friends would bring their parrots and make them perform what they had been taught: the first line from Twelfth Night, a bit of Italian opera, cowboy songs, or a surprisingly good rendition of Russ Colombo singing "Prisoner of Love". Her father's parrot could only imitate the office typewriter, along with the ching at the end of each line. Later it broke its neck crashing into a bookcase.

The Bread

Four miles out of Topeka on the highway - the largest electrical billboard in the State of Kansas. The envy of all Missouri. It advertised bread and the electrical image of a knife cut slice after slice. These curled off endlessly. "Meet you at the bread," "See you at the loaf," were common phrases. Aroused couples would park there under the stars on the open night prairie. Virtue was lost, "kissed all over by every boy in Wichita". Poets, the inevitable visiting writers, were taken to see it, and it hummed over the seductions in cars, over the nightmares of girls in bed. Slice after slice fell towards the earth. A feeding of the multitude in this parched land on the way to Dorrance, Kansas.

First Criticism

She is two weeks old, her mother takes her for a drive. At the gas station the mechanic is cleaning the windshield and watches them through the glass. Wiping his hands he puts his head in the side window and says, "Excuse me for saying this but I know what I'm talking about - that child has a heart condition."

Listening In

Overhear her in the bathroom, talking to a bug: "I don't want you on me, honey." 8 a.m.

Self Criticism

"For a while there was something about me that had a dubious quality. Dogs would not take meat out of my hand. The town bully kept handcuffing me to the trees."

Fantasies

Always one fantasy. To be traveling down the street and a man in a clean white suit (the detail of "clean" impresses me) leaps into her path holding flowers and sings to her while an invisible orchestra accompanies his solo. All her life she has waited for this and it never happens.

Reprise

In 1956 the electric billboard in Kansas caught fire and smoke plumed into a wild sunset. Bread on fire, broken glass. Birds flew towards it above the cars that circled round to watch. And last night, past midnight, her excited phone call. Her home town is having a marathon to benefit the symphony. She pays $4 to participate. A tuxedoed gentleman begins the race with a clash of cymbals and she takes off. Along her route at frequent intervals are quartets who play for her. When they stop for water a violinist performs a solo. So here she comes. And there I go, stepping forward in my white suit, with a song in my heart.



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The poem above is by Michael Ondaatje, one of my favorite writers. I'm sorry it took me so long to get back to Ondaatje - I talked about him here over a year ago, and meant to say more. Life moves in, and takes up space. Welcome, life, you say, then turn around and find it's been a year since you last thought about answering a question you'd meant to shed light on the day before. What I mean is Michael Ondaatje, and how instructive he is. How he keeps out of the poems by being so in them, unquestionable. I'm tired, can you tell? I want to say more but can't, Rudyard Kipling is next to my desk stomping around, demanding to be read for tomorrow I'll say that this poem is one of my favorites of his. He's coming to Houston next Monday and I'm deeply deeply excited and am going to dorkily bring all of the books I have of his to be signed. Is that terrible? I'm going to do it. Maybe not. But I'd like to. I'd like to have him sign along the line of the veins in my wrist.


On a side note, my poetfriend Chuck Carlise has a new chapbook out, called A Broken Elevator Still Isn't the Stairs. It's $10.00 and it's incredibly, incredibly beautiful.

Dreams of Ondaatje (1)

I want you to think about this:

Bearhug
by Michael Ondaatje

Griffin calls to come and kiss him goodnight
I yell ok. Finish something I'm doing,
then something else, walk slowly round
the corner to my son's room.
He is standing arms outstretched
waiting for a bearhug. Grinning.

Why do I give my emotion an animal's name,
give it that dark squeeze of death?
This is the hug which collects
all his small bones and his warm neck against me.
The thin tough body under the pyjamas
locks to me like a magnet of blood.

How long was he standing there
like that, before I came?



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(it feels, almost, as if I shouldn't write anything after this poem - I don't want to topple it - all that quiet Ondaatje sets up, all that daily real somehow both broadened & shattered by the movements & questions of this poem. I mean, fuck. This isn't typical of Ondaatje, this type of daily. There's one other poem I can think of, To A Sad Daughter, that carries anything close to this sense of the casual. Ondaatje's work is usually lush, lyrical, sensual. He's one of my very favorite authors & I (believe that I) have avoided writing about him here since there's simply too much to say. Let's call this post Dreams of Ondaatje, #1, in which we're simply to notice how sensitively & deliberately Ondaatje is balanced within the spectrum of emotion. The spectrum of emotion is an idea that came from Terrance Hayes - we were talking about some poems I'd shown him that discussed a difficult matter. He pointed out places where my adjectives tipped the poem towards sentimental, which is one side of the spectrum of emotion, the other side being, perhaps, cynicism. Now Ondaatje's poem is a parent's poem, any parent, maybe every parent. It's also specifically a father & son poem (if you're in the mood for a tangent, go look at Roethke's My Papa's Waltz & think about how poetry gives fathers & sons a new way to understand their physical relationship. Or something like that.) Back to the point, the question - How is it that Ondaatje doesn't make this a poem we roll our eyes at? How does he lead it away from sentimentality i.e. how does he manage to find conflict & questions within a situation as innocuous as bedtime? ... I have my own theories. #1 is : because he's fucking brilliant. #2 is a great deal longer. But these questions are for you, chickadees. Some questions for your brains to munch on. As for me, it's back to packing up my apartment. Beginning my drive to Houston on Tuesday. Stay tuned for Dreams of Ondaatje #2...

some summer recommendations

Fiction: In a letter to his two eldest sons, Henry James Sr. wrote that "the natural inheritance of any one who is capable of spiritual life is an unsubdued forest where the wolf howls and the obscene bird of night chatters." It is from this quote that Jose Donoso lifted the title for his stammering, labyrinthian novel The Obscene Bird of Night, which I am currently reading & recommend. A very disturbing read, but provocative & of worth if only as a study in unreliable/multiple narratives in a single voice.

Poetry: While reading Yusef Komunyakaa's Neon Vernacular, I thought immediately of Michael Ondaantje's Coming Through Slaughter,which if you have never read, you should buy, immediately. Ondaatje & Komunyakaa both possess an innate sense of musicality, & although their subject matter may not always hold conversation, their rhythms will. Some readers inexperienced with Ondaatje, will find thwarted their expectations regarding "normal" forms of fiction. However, if these imaginary readers are poets, then perhaps they'll be as delighted as I. Komunyakaa, although I've read his work before, continues to surprise & teach me; this time around, I find him to be a much more surreal author than before, particularly in poems such as "Looking a Mad Dog Dead In the Eye."

Music: I have been obsessed with Johnny Cash records & with nearly obscure 1960's girl groups & personalities like Evie Sands

Film: The other night I saw Youth Without Youth, a film by Francis Ford Coppola based on a novella by Mircea Eliade the late University of Chicago professor, philosopher & historian. Eliade's theories have been useful & illuminating to me in the past, but I've never read one of his novels, much less seen a movie based on one of his novels. The film was gorgeous - just enough magic & heartache - &, in my opinion, a damn interesting story, even for a slightly heavy lean on metaphysics. But hey, you gotta give Coppola some credit: it's hard to film metaphysics.

Visual Art: Despite getting slammed by notable voices such as The New York Times, the 55th Carnegie International exhibition is really quite wonderful. Works by artists such as Cao Fei and Friedrich Kunath give the show an element of necessary whimsy... actually, the prevalence of whimsical gestures at the exhibition overall struck an almost political chord regarding things like routine, rules, regulations & procedures. A worthwhile show which will be up until November. I think I'll go again.

Movement: Swimming.
Food: Watermelon.
Sleeping: Not so much.