The Iowa Review
Volume 13
Issue 1 Winter
Article 9
1982
Fact Has Two Faces: An Interview with W.S.
Merwin
W. S. Merwin
Ed Folsom
Cary Nelson
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Recommended Citation
Merwin, W. S.; Ed Folsom; and Cary Nelson. "Fact Has Two Faces: An Interview with W.S. Merwin." The Iowa Review 13.1 (1982):
30-66. Web.
Available at: http://ir.uiowa.edu/iowareview/vol13/iss1/9
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"Fact Has
Merwin
Two
Faces":
Ed Folsom
An
Interview
with
W.S.
and Cary Nelson1
EF: You
have rarely done interviews. Why?
a
I
WSM:
about six years ago, with
gave one in Los Angeles
couple of
to do one, but
students who wanted
I
hadn't
they
prepared
anything.
are
it. If the interviewers
think that's one of the reasons for distrusting
or the
are remote, you have to
a
questions
give
unprepared
monologue
to save
Then
the risk is self-indulgence.
interviews
The
I
in
started
with
those
Paris
about
well,
Review,
suppose,
it became a very
years ago. Then
twenty-five
popular form, and I think
sorts of
for
it's been a happy hunting
all
both
ground
self-indulgence,
a
in the making
and in the reading.
It's often
for really
substitute
a
to say
about
and
It can
coherent.
thinking
trying
problem
something
be spontaneous,
but sometimes
it's just louder, given more
seriousness
and attention
than it probably
deserves.
we
CN:
the occasion.
know
I think
interview
the last detailed
published
interviews
in The Sullen
Art
I've seen with
are the 1961
and
with
in Shenandoah
in 1970.
published
and
Both were a long time ago?ten
different.
doing
something
the
you
interview
Frank
MacShane
WSM:
we're
EF: You
Grass
were
twenty
years,
but
us
that you have been reading
recently
telling
I'm curious about what you find there now.
again.
WSM:
I've always had mixed
to
in my
teens,
reading him
American
Poet. At the time,
feelings
having
about Whitman.
him
from
thrust
at me
I assume
Leaves
of
go back
They
as the Great
own
and
provincial
with
Culture
unliterary
overly
utterly
background,
impressed
a
so the barbaric yawp didn't
to me
(with
particularly
appeal
capital C)
is an age when
it is
I was eighteen, which
when
to, nor did
supposed
an American.
I feel that this was the great book written
I've
tried over
by
but I don't think I've ever
the years to come to terms with Whitman,
I've had again and again the experience
of starting to
really succeeded.
a page or two, then
I find
for
the
read him,
book.
reading
shutting
.
.
.
Yet
and
the
and the
power
passages of incredible
beauty.
positivism
me.
to the romantic
I can
American
side of
disturb
optimism
respond
coming
I was
my
as the voice of
he presents
himself
when
but even
Whitman,
feeling,
a
or
a
sense.
not
in
that
musical
then it's
intellectual
poetry
develops
on and take a
It doesn't move
form?it
repeats and finds more
growing
30
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and more
detail.
insistence
on an
That
but
in
it's his rhetorical
particular
can
as a
be quite wonderful
stance, which
optimistic
statement of momentary
but as a world view and as a program
emotion,
existence
it bothered me when
for confronting
I was
and
eighteen
me
me
now.
Itmakes
bothers
he talks about the
uneasy when
extremely
bothers
me,
the feeling
of manifest
in a voice of
destiny
the
the
about
buffalo,
Indians, and about
keep thinking
are
the species
extinct. Whitman's
that
rendered
momentary,
being
were
view just wipes
rather sentimental
these things out as
though they
a cultural and what you
a
of no importance. There's
call
might
specietal
chauvinism
involved. The Whitmanite
enthusiasm
troubles me for the
American
I
same
reasons;
about
it seems
I don't
Whitman.
reason
and
expansion
wonder.
to
me in
partake of the very things that bother
how to say it better than this, which
is one
to you about it. I'm not sure I'm very clear about
know
I didn't write
it.
this morning
very clear about it.We were
talking
a Collected Poems,
in putting
about the problems
inherent
espe
together
individual
books so clearly and
cially for you, since you have developed
with
such integrity.
follow your writing
I think,
People who
closely,
conceive
of your career in terms of the various books, moreso
perhaps
than in terms of individual
poems. The books are each organic wholes,
and each is a separate and clear step in your
with growth
development,
EF:
I think
you're
an
in evidence.
and change
Each marks
shift.
important
evolutionary
a
on
on
one
is
the other hand,
insisted
book
Whitman,
poet who
writing
over a lifetime,
and that's part of the reason for the uncomfortable
starts out with
that pervades
his work,
isn't it? He
this
positivism
is rampant in the mid-century,
incredible positivism which
in the 1850s,
which
grows
about America
out
of his
as a
his career developed,
life?the
Civil War
persona
that he had
sense of exhilaration
ceaselessly
growing
the two
though,
and the
major
of
closing
taken on with
about manifest
field of unified
historical
destiny,
contrarieties.
As
events
of his adult
the frontier?destroyed
such burgeoning
enthusiasm.
the
Conse
one
a burden
to him in
the book?his
book?became
growing
quently
away. He could not contradict
new
the book because he was not
writing
the old one. I'm wondering
ones; he was adding on to and readjusting
inWhitman
is there because he refused ever
if some of that positivism
to set his
past aside and begin again?
sees
WSM:
Several times Whitman
essential about the Amer
something
ican situation.
F.O. Matthiessen
describes
it too: in a democracy
one of
31
the danger points is rhetoric, public rhetoric.
I think now,
looking back,
that he is also describing
his own weakness.
Both Whitman's
strength
a rhetorical
is that he is
and his weakness
poet. And he's
basically
not
sense that all
rhetorical
is rhetorical,
but
poetry
only in the obvious
sense
as
on
a
in the
stance and then
of rhetoric
public speech: you decide
to
out
to
in
to your
material
flesh
that
details
stance,
you bring
give
one of the
me uneasy about Whit
is
This
that
makes
position.
things
man. The
stance is
of the poetry
there; and much
basically
simply adds
to
moments
it. So many
inWhitman
detail
of the
that I really love are
to this. Yet
to my mind,
occur far too
these exceptions
exceptions
a
Most of the time he's
The
whole
Leaves
infrequently.
making
speech.
a sense is a
a
in
Grass
It's
of
emotional
about
of
piece
speech.
propaganda
an emotional
to a historical
moment.
set up in a
It's
almost
approach
to
it
or to reflect
for it to
way which makes
impossible
deepen,
develop,
on itself and come out with
sudden new perspectives.
EF: What
about some of the poems of the "Drum Taps"
period like the
"Wound Dresser"?
some o? my favorite
because his
passages, you know,
They're
to what
won't
him
He's
there.
attention
support
theory
simply paying
sees
in front of him.
I find those poems
he
both sharper and more
in
other
than
Whitman.
many
moving
things
WSM:
EF: But
of
of
lost in that vast programmed
structure
o? Leaves
inciting
the bird
. . .
He
WSM:
tend to get
they
Grass
freedom
allows
to
soar
himself
to get
lost in it, insisting
on
. . .
in those poems in which
he is depressed by what he sees and
in dealing with
his difficulty
it?rather
than announcing
it yet
as an
same
occasion
for
his
enthusiasm?some
of
the
appropriate
again
role as the representative
for
the
the
role
of
the
country,
speaker
speaker
to
the
collective
continues
condition
of
be
fore
America,
voicing
mere
less
with
less
thea
oracular
rhetoric,
though perhaps
grounded,
CN:
Even
admits
tricality.
not to be unfair
to him.
WSM:
I'm very anxious
I'm not altogether
as
must
stance, but there's
convinced,
you
guess, by the deliberate
a wonderful
and
human
behind
it, and a quite
generous
obviously
being
and original gift,
incredible power. But those misgiv
incredible
equally
now for all these years, so I guess I'm
ings have been quite consistent
to have to live with
them.
going
EF: Do you conceive
of your own writing,
your own career, as the
creation of one large book?
32
is one large book, because there is amore
Well,
your whole work
or less audible voice
At least Iwould
like
running
through everything.
a coherent
to think that one's work
becomes
that
project eventually,
no
are
not
in the whole.
But
with
poems
disparate pieces
merely
place
WSM:
I don't
to construct
a
of deliberately
trying
single book the way
to do with Leaves
I
Grass.
don't think of that
trying
of
I never set out to write The Lice,
in terms of the separate books.
conceive
was
Whitman
even
or to write
wrote
until at a particular
of Ladders, but
point
to be
On what
terms, or on the basis of
complete.
something
Iwouldn't
be able to say, any more
what assumptions,
than Iwould with
to
a
is
be
able
that
finished."
say "Ah,
poem
single poem
The Carrier
seemed
EF: You
have
said that when
Ameri
go back to nineteenth-century
turn
it's not Whitman
to, but
influence,
you
you
for a sustaining
a lot of
people
can writers
I think
throw Whitman
and Thoreau
together
as part of the American
Transcendental
and Romantic
tradition. What
that doesn't draw you toWhitman?
draws you to Thoreau
in which
I suppose
WSM:
he meant
is the
the way
"In wildness
one
of the world"
for
that the
preservation
thing. Or the recognition
Thoreau.
in a natural void; whatever
the
independently
feel from the natural world, we are not in fact
so we cannot base our
on that difference.
alienated,
self-righteousness
whole
And
the
We're
ofthat
way Thoreau,
very differently
part
thing.
even
own
in a
takes
his
from Whitman,
and
perception
paragraph
it into a deeper and deeper way of seeing
actual
something?the
develops
human
can
alienation
not
exist
is that we
is one of the things that draws me to him. I think
in a way
it was
that nobody
had quite seen before;
in that sense. I don't know
ifWilliams
talks about Thoreau,
seeing in Thoreau
saw
that Thoreau
American
liked to hear what Williams
had to say about Tho
to see, even
is more
Williams'
great sympathy
capacity
though
toward Whitman.
Indeed I've suspected for a long time that an Ameri
can
or toward
tend to go either toward Whitman
poet's sympathy would
but
I would
have
reau's
not
Thoreau,
about Thoreau,
is rather snippy
both. Gary Snyder at this point
so
he's
and
forth.
That's a way
very uptight, WASP,
says
as his lack of any
of describing
Thoreau's
weaknesses
all right?such
automatic
for
his
fellow
human
spontaneous
sympathy
beings. Thoreau
is not
toward
in Thoreau
of hawky
puts off the
thing
itself, the great Whitmanite
hugs of feeling,
fellow man."
if
you really are there you
Perhaps
The
all-embracing.
of enthusiasm
enthusiasts
kind
the lovers, "I love my
have to say it so often
don't
and
so
loudly.
Dana
recently
has been
33
reading
James
James
anything
and getting
very
impatient with
Henry
James and Thoreau
and saying, "You know,
for
and reading a passage of Thoreau
never
is
the window."
There's
the natural world
scenery outside
he sees it, it's alive,
when
alive out there. And for Thoreau,
alive, not a detail in a piece of rhetoric. And he leaves open
completely
he's
is. He realizes
that the intensity with which
its
what
significance
an
see
to
is
immense
This
it is its significance.
able
gesture of wisdom
inWhitman.
wonderful
Whitman's
in Thoreau
that I miss
expansive
isn't there in Thoreau,
enthusiasm
though he has things of equal beauty
one of the most beautiful
is certainly
and power. The last page o? Waiden
ever written,
that Whitman
himself
and of a kind of elevation
things
was
to reach all the time.
trying
does tend to dwell a bit too long on "cameraderie,"
EF: Yes, Whitman
as if it's
he's trying to invoke rather than to describe. I think
something
at the heart of Whitman.
in that sense there's a real loneliness
WSM:
There
obvious
is at the heart
in Thoreau,
he makes
of both
no bones
of
those writers,
it. There's
about
but it's quite
that wonderful
to my fellow human
he says, I don't pay enough attention
passage where
take enough
about them, I don't
I don't feel strongly
enough
beings,
about that: these people
interest in them, and I'm going to do something
to walk closer to them and
on the
down here working
bridge, I'm going
were
see if I can't think of them as
they
though
groundhogs.
often?
you read Thoreau
I keep him in the John. He's been there for years. So I go
Well,
is an incredible
book.
back and read things over again. I think Waiden
to Thoreau
Yet
I see
in a way. He's been a companion.
I feel grateful
it
is
that
makes
him
whatever
Thoreau's
too, including
limitations,
out
onto
sentence
one
sentence
of notebooks,
another
write
by tacking
It's a strange way of writing,
them together.
and putting
though he's
to write
not the first person
in history
that way,
after all.
EF: Do
WSM:
translations
suggest all kinds of affinities for you from
myriad
are
writers
besides Thoreau
but
there other American
outside America,
that
would
call sustaining
that you find yourself
to,
you
returning
influences?
is really the main one that I go back to. There's
WSM:
Thoreau
nobody
was a time when
I used to read Mark
There
Thoreau.
before
really
I love, I find that
Twain
for fun, but apart from Huckleberry Finn, which
EF: Your
I don't even find him very funny anymore.
last very well.
an
It's amazing how
I
then
read
And
early book, his book about Hawaii.
was
in that generation.
there
racism and John Wayne-ism
much
he doesn't
34
some of
the prose that you've written
are
and your past, which
your family
writing
recently?
a
certain
different
from
but
there's
about
his,
very
topics
humility
existence
I see both in Thoreau
in these pieces
that
and
phenomenal
from your new prose book, Unframed Originals.
I hadn't thought ofthat, Cary; that's interesting. Maybe
WSM:
so, who
CN:
Has
Thoreau
been
behind
about
You're
knows?
in when
you put yourself
you buy the old
at the end ofthat one
essay,
autobiographical
so far, not
into
of
that
house
called "Hotel"?the
moving
position
only
to clear the floor and put panes in the windows
and paint the
wanting
a
a
on
cot?is
but rather only lie there
walls,
very Thoreau-like
simple
EF: Certainly
that position
abandoned house in France
and half-wild.
half-cultivated
It's like his bean-field:
position.
Iwas talking about a minute
Yes. I guess that's part of what
WSM:
ago.
a wonderful
of putting
That's
before
the
it, too?his
way
humility
world.
If you don't accept
the genuine
chairness
of the
phenomenal
a
as
it
is
in the
for
if
it's
all
chair,
great many
just background,
people
world?first
the separation from the natural world,
then
contemporary
to be seen
terms of
in
tend
from the phenomenal
only
world?things
can serve. If the
their uses, or in terms of what
abstraction
reality
they
of the unreal objects cannot be accepted as an infinite thing in them, you
see counters
in a game
You only
that is of very
can't see anything.
doubtful
value.
CN:
over
a real wariness
about rhetorical
pieces
in a very delicate
and lucid way and not to
about your
mode of thinking
be aWhitmanesque
in your recent
a wish
to write
I feel
statement,
fall into what
might
terms about it if
to
but
past,
possible.
speak in simple and direct
to tell you
I don't have
that you're
WSM:
of course
Well,
always
to avoid
in a rhetoric of one kind or another, but I am working
writing
a kind of rhetoric which
screen that
as much
as
is an emotional
possible
own
to look at. That's
trying
something
seeing what you're
to do. And I also realized, part way
since one of the
through,
I
I was not able to know, what
themes of the book is what
from
keeps you
I did want
the main
ever find out, the
I couldn't meet,
that reticence was one
people
was
it was a very reticent
I
Indeed
about.
writing
things
I
anything
family. But I felt if I could take any detail, any moment,
act like a kind
to it, itwould
could clearly see, and pay enough attention
in
that
of hologram.
I'd be able to see the whole
story
single detail?just
couldn't
of
the main
the way,
if you
could
really
pay attention
to a dream,
the dream would
35
to know
tell you everything
for that time and
you needed
probably
were
at that
But
rhetoric
any exaggerated
you
obviously
place.
using
sense of
an emotional
in
the
in
front
of
the
point,
waving
flag
thing
that from happening.
itself, would
prevent
I have been trying to
L tween the way your poetry of
distinguish
last twenty years makes me
think about
and the rather
language
view of
I detect
in
that
different
language
Unframed Originals. At least
CN:
the
The Moving Target on, it seems you felt
as the present conditions
of the world
from
it
necessary?if
to write
you were
to write?to
required you
to let
it would,
let language do to you what
in effect have its
language
a
recent
sense
new
In
with
these
I
wariness
about
you.
way
prose pieces
a
to
not
desire
let language have its way.
I'm wondering
whether
that,
some
sense
that rings true at all, or even whether
have
that the
you
recent
in a
different mode,
that
prose pieces are written
significantly
a real
to words?
in your
they show7
change
relationship
aware of it when
Itmust be, but Iwasn't
WSM:
it was
And
happening.
to connect
to
that with what we were just saying, when
you're
trying
a different
avoid that one kind of rhetoric, of course you're
developing
to write
I had a
kind of rhetoric.
of
in
what
years ago
trying
feeling
as a kind of classical way,
I suppose I would
have described
in which
was in the service of but
the form of the prose, the form of the writing,
not swallowed
formed
up by the subject, so you were
really deliberately
were
The
the
ordered
what
you
language.
through
language
seeing,
a very different
a stream
alternative,
I'm unaware of some of the other differences.
to choose
unlike,
style. Yet
want
to
of consciousness
I
don't
certainly
as
it
what
I've
done
and
if
feels
I'm
before,
keep doing
though
want
to
I've done before
I don't
then obviously
just doing
something
be doing it. But I don't very often have some deliberate,
conscious
notion
I want
to move
I started off to write
those
in; when
to handle
to
to
that
it
material,
down,
put
pieces
be the clearest and sharpest possible form, but I didn't
give itwhat would
know how to go about it, and
finished
the book, I would
still
having
feel I didn't know how to go about it, and don't know now. I don't think
of what
direction
I knew
I know how
write
that Iwanted
to write
anything,
but particularly
36
know
your
prose feels
how
to
prose.
EF: Certainly
there is a dramatic
shift in the way
to
The Miner's Pale Children
Unframed Originals.
How
WSM:
do you see the difference?
EF:
I don't
I see
the difference
corresponding
to the difference
between
from
the
most
recent poems. The
change of
poems from that period and your
in the
further
and moves
voice in your most recent poems is surprising,
Your
more
Flower.
of
The
of
the
direction
Compass
language
colloquial
a much more
into them
recent poems are
language
colloquial
allowing
a kind of clear narrative
selves than I've heard before. They're
allowing
of the ones you read
that they have not had before?one
development
as I told you,
"Plot of
reminded me of Williams'
the other night,
in many
of
that is first evident
It seems to me a movement
Ground."
to
less
seemed
the poems o? Compass Flower. The language
grow
gnomic
more
in tone, much more
relaxed, and I
inviting. The voice became
sense the same
in the recent prose. As I'm describing
this, I realize
thing
senses
same
almost
I'm not saying the
is?Cary
something
thing Cary
. . .But
a
to this in the recent prose, a reticence
and
tightening.
opposite
we would
is a book which
both agree that The Miner s Pale Children
goes
more
the period of The Lice and The Carrier of Ladders than
pieces. Do you feel that?
You're
WSM:
But I don't think there's a contradiction.
saying different
I think it's possible for both of these things to be happening
things, but
at the same time. I
that
the prose to handle material
certainly wanted
much
these
with
recent
as
and directly
and to do it as plainly
before,
possible.
is the thing you are both saying is involved
here.
Plainness
have been immensely
for you
CN: It seems that it would
dissatisfying
s
matter
to write about this
in the style of The Miner
Pale Children
subject
it never
had
or Houses
and Travellers.
in the direction
I also think
there's been an impulse
of
a
it
time.
and
It's
been
back
far.
for
goes
growing,
quite
long
plainness
and
what's
I've seen some critical commentary
been
confusing
plainness
But
WSM:
I don't know
if they really are quiet
called the quietness o? the poems.
seem
or not.
to me
But
don't
there are not so many
They
obviously.
quiet
are
as
in
there
has moments
decibels
of
Whitman,
though Whitman
another
me
kind
to have
of power. A line
least as much
at
like "A woman
emotional
waits
for me"
seems
to
as "I hear America
power
I don't care if he hears America
know,
singing"?you
waits
for me."
when
he says "A woman
singing;
I do care
at least in The Lice and The Carrier
there are moments,
of
one
is some
when
Ladders,
say you hear America
might
dying. There
in a
way for the culture,
representative
thing of that role of speaking
not with Whitman's
but
with
the same
enthusiasm,
obviously
virtually
reverse.
on
in
Were
times
in
there
the
American
say,
energy
working,
CN:
But
37
on
of Ladders and
felt
you
yourself
a very
with
message,
in The Carrier
sequence
in The Lice, when
horror
with
a very
different
some
of
the poems
inWhitman's
different
of
position
real
but
tone?
WSM:
not
yes. One of the things that I found happening,
Very much,
as I tried to write
at
American
those
different
times,
poems
deliberately,
don't think it's possible for me to see or to
again and again?I
approach
never has been?without
that subject?it
the feeling
that Ed was describ
as we drove across the country
this feeling of
ing
yesterday,
inhabiting
a
we are not
However
the
culture
have
left,
may
palimpsest.
long
just
on a
or
Insofar as there is any historical
sitting here
Sunday afternoon.
at all, that
involves
these many
continuity
temporal continuity
layers,
at all from
of them invisible,
and they are not different
the
many
our own
and
of
And
if
repressed, pressed,
forgotten
layers
experience.
we
are so dishonest
so mutilated
we
sense
and
that
can't make any
really
of the world,
and
or come
truncated
lives
physical
and
years
very
to any terms with
accordingly?our
too. You know
them,
imaginative
I've felt various
then our
lives
lives are maimed
and
probably
about that over
our
the
things
the rage that you, Ed, said that your father felt
to the soil of this
can
when
he saw what was
country?I
happening
it about the soil, too. For awhile
I used to think of it
imagine
feeling
two Western
one of them the
in terms of two
of
myths,
myths,
myth
Orpheus
ing with
often
obviously?the
the animals
important
thing there is that Orpheus
one can
all around him listening?and
is sing
take that
as a
or as a
of arrogation
of harmony.
It's both, you know,
myth
myth
it is homocentric
but it's also inclusive,
and everything
is there in the
act of
is
And
the
other
the myth of Phaethon, who
says "Daddy,
singing.
. . . and the
to drive those horses,"
a holocaust
Iwant
and ends up with
as that, but at one
of racism. It's probably not as
beginning
point
simple
terms of those two
I
it
in
But
the American
poems.
kept seeing
myths.
Let me
them in another way.
approach
as I remember,
F.O. Matthiessen,
about the
years ago was
talking
a number of American
an
to
of
writers
American
find
of
attempt
myth
at
Howard
that wonderful
the begin
passsage
quotes
history; Richard
his title comes, Alone with America. You
ning of his book, from which
one
can
see
to
the great phoney myth
of the
know,
differently
begin
was
of theWest"?it
It was heroic,
the destruction of theWest.
"winning
but it was heroic
in an incredibly
vicious
and
way. People did
cramped
were
suffer and were
but
also
broken
and cruel, and
they
magnificent,
in the long run incredibly
destructive. What
destructive,
irreversibly
38
done
we've
species
is
to this continent
could
And
have
done
this is our
sitting.
about, this is what
is what our words
this
unbelievable?to
something
in a hundred
years. Right
lives. This
is not
think
where
to have
that one
we're
an
opinion
something
live with,
this is our bodies and our minds,
this
come out of, and we should know.
we
EF: Cary was suggesting
that in The Lice and The Carrier of Ladders you
in a kind of negative way.
sometimes
take on the voice of the culture
too the voice in those books is not that of
if sometimes
I'm wondering
is not in part
if your desire throughout
your work
is both
that is,
and absolutely
necessary,
impossible
to those creatures
to the voiceless
to
cannot
voice
that
give
beings,
speak
their rage. Do you at times feel your voice coming not from the human
the other
animals,
to
what
accomplish
culture
but instead from
the silent herds being
destroyed
by that human
culture?
to agree to that, but insofar as
It would
be very presumptuous
or anyone else, I think it's very
to suggest a formula
for myself
to welcome
to remain open to that
it, and to evoke
important
possibility,
WSM:
I dare
it if
possible.
an
Otherwise,
historical,
ego-bound,
ment. One can't
perceive
what
else
culturally
anything
is there? Otherwise,
one
is there
in
limited mo
brainwashed,
incredibly
because one has no perspective
at all.
to what
nearest
I can imagine
I would
think
thing
opposite?the
existence
and
attitude
toward
of as a sound or even healthy
approach
as a whole
the
endless separation of the human
distinct
from
species
(as
the one at the expense
that leads to evaluating
from the rest of existence
The
of the
be Blake's
"How do you know but ev'ry Bird that
other)?would
an immense world of
cuts the
clos'd to your senses
airy way,/Is
delight,
five?" It works
both ways, one both can be and can never be the bird.
EF: I think of "For a Coming
the voice shifts a great
where
Extinction,"
aware of the fiction
to
to
the
whale
while
deal, trying
gray
being
speak
us
can
at
and then
the end of the poem
that the gray whale
hear
anyway,
are
it is we who
"Tell him/that
the voice o? the culture:
"
occur
most
voice
in
ironic
lines
when
The
your poems
your
important.
of
for the culture.
shifts into that mode
speaking
I hadn't
WSM:
thought of that.
becoming
the voice seems least ironic and the most enraged, it seems
to be
that one cannot name, that is not within
speaking from somewhere
our culture.
It is not a voice speaking from within,
but a voice that has
to dismiss
itself from the culture for a time in order to speak the rage.
News
WSM:
Like "Avoiding
by the River."
EF: And when
39
EF: Yes.
it seems to me, to decide what voice
It's more difficult,
in the passage right before that in "For a Coming
Extinction":
er what you will find in the black
its court/The
garden/And
is speaking
"Consid
the Great
countless/
CN:
Auks
the gorillas/The
as stars/Our
And
fore-ordaining
there's an extraordinary
irreplaceable
sacrifices."
I think,
At
powerfully
sea cows
ranged
first in that passage
sense of
unresolvable
. . .
anger
Iwas
WSM:
the pride
Yes.
to say, even when
you read it, that all I hear is the
it was written.
It overrides
these other distinctions.
going
which
anger with
EF: But there's
of
and,
hosts
a clear
double-voice
o? the destructive
there:
"Our
sacrifices"
carries
all
culture.
WSM:
yet it comes out sounding
angry because we know
incredibly
that is really speaking
this poem and mouthing
those
that the voice
is not emerging
from the source that would
those
words
words
speak
EF: And
with
CN:
pride.
One also hears
a certain
even,
contempt
earned.
in the West,
I've thought
and
Yes,
know,
driving
see
in
Hawaii
it
and
these things: you
remembered
afterwards,
watching
drive along and you see some pile of ditched cars, or a little place where
serve
fried food, or something
like that, and you think,
they
trash?deep
sent off to die
in order to bring this about dozens of young men were
or
hundreds
of Indians and thousands
of leprosy in the leper colonies,
WSM:
and you
of buffalo were
the whole
for years
place has been poisoned
in terms
this
little
of
shit.
And
it's
described
bring
pile
What
kind of impossible
lie is this that
of the triumph of civilization.
to?
we're
all subscribing
Extinction"
CN: I have a poster version of "For a Coming
upstairs that
in that room. It's a more
I see each time Iwalk
immediate
and continu
in order
killed
to
and
about
a poem in a book.
than one can easily have with
Every
ing relationship
I enter
into a cluster
time I read the poem
of remarkably
divided
emotions.
fractured
and sustained by
Each stanza seems simultaneously
at
first our lust for
contradiction.
"The End/That
great god" suggests
for a kind of demonically
extinction,
a sense of transcendence
also enters
a
To
"great god."
the gray whale,
is a certain beauty
on
40
the extent
hieratic
into
narrative
the reference
conclusion.
to "The End"
a static
Yet
as
that the poem confers
immortality
it too participates
in that act of "sending."
There
a
in these animal
"hosts ranged countless,"
beauty
a sense of loss or
status as a collective
by
by their
are
at the numerical
If we
of human
indictment
history.
appalled
of slaughtered
accumulation
animals, we are also in awe of the "irre
two
are inex
hosts" now ranged before us. These
impulses
placeable
it
becomes
fascinated
with
that
the
poem;
tricably linked by
miraculously
and thus puts forward a far more
awful achievement
radically compro
not cancelled
either
voice
than anger alone would
permit.
a poem out of
and very rare to make
be very difficult
are
or
out
Even
love
of
seldom made
pure anything.
poems
pure anger,
so all of the
out of words,
out of pure love.
made
Actually,
they're
come
are
it.
Pure
into
that
built into any phrase
anger would
paradoxes
a scream.
be
just
those people who at
EF: And there can't help but be a fascination with
You can despise
the end of the poem say "It is we who are important."
a
with
and
fascination
those people, but there's
them,
you have to come
to terms with
the layer of the world
them because
they've constructed
on
now.
on and
we're
dying
right
living
that
WSM:
Yes, you have to come to terms with
them; that doesn't mean
to
have
it's
say
you
okay.
CN: No, but there are texts of more unqualified
anger about this kind
not
in your work but elsewhere
in contem
of subject matter,
necessarily
a
to
is
I
that
if
forces
think
you,
you want
yours
poem
porary poetry.
to think
own
motivations.
It
read the poem carefully,
through your
let you off being convinced
that
doesn't
let you away easily. It doesn't
in this pattern. You may already be part of it.
continue
you won't
mised
WSM:
It would
even more
what
apparent probably?from
aspect of it is
or
to it with
told
whether
me,
they've
responded
pleasure
people
was
that
that
last
with
year.
poem
annoyance?in
published
pineapple
find that they're being got at in different points in the
People obviously
poem, and don't like the attack.
EF: That reminds me of another poem from The Lice, "A Scale inMay,"
WSM:
That
have
is central. The "I" in this poem seems
this issue of a double-voice
where
to be able to identify
of human
the problem
simulta
arrogance while
own
in
his
that
arrogance.
participation
neously
recognizing
A
Now
I am
On
all my
trying
the void
Scale
teachers
in May2
are dead
to read what
silence
except
the five poplars are writing
41
Of
To
to man
the beasts
all
alone
death
brings
except
for
justice
I desire
But
in a doorway
kneel
empty
Strapped
time
also its fools
provided
in watches
and with
ballots for
Crossing
the frontiers
Who
made
To
succeed
Deem
consider
yourself
find you
If you
of
what
inevitable
no
longer
invisible
is as
and
the song
their
choices
kingdoms
though
take credit
believe
it were
enlarge
past
it
for
the temple
stars
the day the nameless
Through
keep passing
That have come all that way out of death
Without
questions
of light shudder and an owl wakes
call upon words
sun goes away to set elsewhere
The
the door
walls
in the heart
I cannot
The
Before
And
colorless
nightfall
the shadows
At
ancestors
their
Recall
the end of
petals
blow
in the house
its procession
through
under
beyond
the door
death
the stone
Falling
The
Looking
poem?
WSM:
water
back
remembers
on
42
it now, what
to remember
laugh
can you
tell us about
the voice
in this
the poem was written,
and
exactly when
sometime
in the 60s, in the
spring. I'm
to embed it in a
in any case I don't want
theory that
it was written
out
with
the whole
thing worked
intellectually
I'm trying
I can't. Obviously
not a theorist and
implies
to
it was written
I think I see that certain
in hindsight
things I've been
to say for years seem to have been converging
the way along.
all
trying
I see quite a number of them in that poem. But I'd better say something
the middle
the progression;
first about
third, and
second,
part?the
But
in advance.
can be taken either
set up in ways which
straight
to be taken both ways.
been
them
like
They've
ironically,
as
from both points of view,
written
about, in criticism,
though each
the intention. And, as Ed has pointed
the other, and that wasn't
excluded
fourth
sections?are
or
and Iwould
to possess the world
is part
in a
the use of language
particular way
a
to
be very dangerous
human arrogance,
Ifelt, much
of my life,
of what
as
no one is exempt
one which
from?we're
here
part of that
sitting
to us, that
not
to
We
that
do
ourselves
arrogance.
arrogate
things
belong
as
a
to
to
I don't want
kind of ethical
that
don't belong
develop
anybody.
matter
should solve the ecological
and say how I think we
problems,
out,
the other night, I think that the first
and so on. As I suggested
pollution,
in
simply caring about those things.
begins
hope of mankind
to try to say
The thing that I do want
about, as a basis for
something
the poems of that time, and probably all of the poems IVe
talking about
first?I
written
used to feel that it was
since, is that?to
put it personally
a terrible
fault
of character
not
to be able
to come
to clear
resolutions
two sides of
about things, that I would
always be seeing
course that is a fault of character,
but."
Of
and
"Yes,
saying
something,
but at the same time the character does use a left and right hand, the heart
and decisions
I've come to believe
that existence?and
beat both ways. And
by
as a whole?
Imean
existence
that I don't mean just human existence,
is relative,
these two aspects to it, one which
has always got, basically,
at
not
is
relative
all. The
and the other which
second, of course, is the
does
is not dead, the world
of silence. But that's also the world
comes from
can't
call
words.
The arrogance
you
upon
saying
of course in
doesn't exist or is of no importance, when
that that world
teacher who
in which
their real life. It also allows
that gives words
it's that world
my view
to
illuminate
and
the world, which
them to be luminous,
transparent,
in itself is transparent and luminous. Arrogance
and an attempt to possess
to
as
is absolutely
which
solid and can belong
that world
something
that whole
dimension
of existence,
and
nullifies
completely
senses.
it
its
it
existence
of
kind
of
and
of
sense,
any
deprives
deprives
sense of smell is the first, most
us of our own senses. The
It
deprives
somebody,
one; we've
that as a basic note
obvious
almost
lost it; it's going away from us. If you
I think itwill help make
the poem
to the poem,
take
ring
43
I don't
think that idea is a very difficult
it's
one, though
a difficult
to come to terms with. And very little of our
feeling
probably
our
and
historical
in the time that
social,
experience,
experience
public,
we live in, fits us for
terms with
to
we're
it;
coming
being shunted away
from it all the time, and it is very uncomfortable,
until we accept it.
I think it is the
Then
the
only comforting
thing there is. That's why
clear. And
water
EF:
remembers
I'm curious
to
laugh.
about what
you might
to say about the form that
stanza which
a
three-line
becomes
have
you used in this particular
poem?a
form you return to quite often: in Asian Figures, in Feathers from the Hill.
are all
In this poem these varying
in those three
perceptions
captured
attracts you to that form?
line moments.
What
are poems
it goes farther back than that. There
in The
are
a
in
wrote
that form, and I
number of poems
Moving Target which
most of them. A little later
in the form at that time, but I didn't
publish
I tried to
I was
and figure out what
develop
doing. One of the things
.
.
.
to
I wanted
find
you know, when
say "I don't understand
people
or "I don't understand
mean
modern
any poet," sometimes
poetry"
they
WSM:
Well,
in
intention
and subject and so on, but
they have difficulty
apprehending
a
to grasp an unfamiliar
I think that sometimes
it's
temporary
inability
sense of
a new
can be
of
how
recognition
completeness,
things
complete.
to see what
it was that made a poem
And at one point Iwanted
complete
as a small, if not the smallest, unit; it was a way of
what
discovering
was the
to a
that
would
stand
I
itself.
by
Why
single thing
gravitated
to me
three-line
form I don't know,
but that seemed
the ideal small
form. And in Asian Figures I really was trying to see just what was the
to stay there, but I wanted
to
smallest form, not that I wanted
explore
start
com
this idea of completeness.
And then when
these
you
putting
see
as
or
to
do
in
them
relation
each
you
separate
plete things together,
a
I think,
other?
It's
that art is always
this is
question,
suggesting:
at
same
to
is
its
the
what
relation
time,
yet
complete,
everything?
to the
EF: Returning
for a moment
in this
irony, the double-voice,
extent does the "I" separate itself from the world
what
of
poem?to
fools?
WSM:
much
a
answer: how
that has a double
question
asking
about my
intention
of the poem, and what do I
can answer it from. I think that was
is the only
I
place
Well,
you're
do I remember
feel now, which
left up in the air because
the "I" is not separate
deliberately
on
a kind of human
the other hand, the "I" is judging
fools;
44
from
action,
the
a
human
I have
thing
absolute
to be separate from. Of course we're
all fools;
in my
it
don't
have
The
foolish
(I
pocket
strapped on).
we have made
as the real, total,
is to take that world
which
gesture,
a watch
it wants
ours. You know,
final world,
and say we have it?it's
I doubt
one
can
come
a
to
whether
that resembles
moral
anything
judgment
to be outside
it.
without
On
the
other
can't altogeth
hand,
you
seeming
er make one without
the person you're judg
yourself with
identifying
or
see it if
not.
it
You
whether
know
don't
you
ing,
you're
totally
an
mean
But
it.
action
from
doesn't necessarily
that
separate
deploring
one is
us. If you see someone
a
"It's
them"?it's
saying
beating
dog, and
can
there's nothing
do
about
feel
it,
you
you
angry, but part
stopping
is bound up with
of your anger probably
the fact that somewhere
inside
a
not
to
think,
you, you're
stop
dog. But you may
capable of beating
to stop the
"Is it me? Am I being
You want
self-righteous?"
beating of
to stop
the dog. I want
"them"
the
the
Northwest,
destroying
killing
sense
in
them
both
the
of
unim
that
salmon, killing
thinking
they're
sense of
the
both of them
rivers;
portant, and in the physical
polluting
are
same
the
really
thing.
But I can't
any close or absolute accuracy what
really remember with
to do in this poem. And, you know,
I was
not be an
it would
trying
were
authentic
if the intellectual intention
the real, final
poem
guiding
in
is another way
the poem. This
of recognizing
that other
a
comes
out
I
think
real
of
You
what
don't
know.
dimension;
you
poem
source is what you don't
it with what you know, but
write
its
finally
a passage where Thoreau
know. There's
says, "How can someone find
his ignorance
if he has to use his knowledge
all the time?" The arro
would
be
the
that
what
gance
you know has some kind of
assumption
final value and you can depend upon it, and it will
get rid of a whole
never
world which
will
which
it. . . . Both
informs
know,
you
really
are
in my view,
of these worlds,
without
there is absolutely
meaning;
no
sense
comes from
in
but
the
the
of
world
of
relation
either,
meaning
force
them
nonetheless.
we
get to The Compass Flower, the ecological
in The Lice seem
and devastations
that I feel everywhere
EF: When
dramatically.
a tone like
rage and ironies
to have
changed
in The Compass Flower tend to have
sadness at what's
about to be gone
it is that the trees have offered.
It's a very
The ecological
poems
that of "The Trees"?a
and a recollection
of what
tone from
that in The Lice.
you could not remain
Obviously
at the
at
in
had
arrived
it seems to me that
The
where
Lice,
point you
. . .
were
on
not
at
the
of
all
you
verge
poems
writing
different
45
WSM:
Absolutely
I
Lice
really
think
most of the time that Iwas
The
right. In fact
writing
was
I had pretty well
because
there
given up writing,
in it. For different
reasons?much
the same way
that I
thought
no
point
some writers
of continental
Europe felt late in the Second World
and after, that there was really no point in going on writing;
what
was
that
just terrible beyond
they had experienced
anything
language
and there was no point in even trying, and there was
could deal with,
War
no one
can
it for either, for very
easily be
long. That
as
I think it may not be just despair?it
may be
despair, but
a dumb vision,
a kind of
can
vision:
I
and
don't
think
you
stay
searing
to go on
there if you're going
living.
EF: Your books since The Lice form a clear and
record of how
eloquent
probably
described
come
you have
interested
to
in your
to write
on
going
to write
that despair, and moved
it. But I'm
grips with
beyond
own
version of how you came to terms with
personal
to the rage and the
after The Lice. What
happened
and
the despair?
some
I think they're
all still there, but I suppose
Oh,
lucky
one was
the
that the anger itself could destroy
recognition
thing that
was to try to
angry in defense of, and that the important
thing
keep what
as
before phenomenal
Cary described
humility
things: the fact that that
anger
WSM:
tomorrow
is no
chair may be destroyed
it this afternoon,
you know. The world
reason
to pay attention
to
is still around us, and there is
that aspect of other human beings which
has not been solely destructive,
one is
in debt, and which
and to which
involves
the
constantly
simply
to look and see the trees, the
of existing
able
together,
being
pleasure
cat
in and out of the room. The answer to even one's anger is
walking
in the way one can see those things, the way that one can live with
them.
Not very often, perhaps for no more
than a few seconds at a time. Even
so, one
CN:
lives
I have
second
by
not
second.
been
the past few days and
reading The Compass Flower
to the four books
its
it. From The
thinking
relationship
preceding
an
to
your
Moving
Target through Writings
Unfinished Accompaniment,
words
like
silence,
darkness,
special vocabulary?including
emptiness?
a
is taken up by historical
feel
circumstances,
by
permeated
particular
to many
our culture's
time
it
that
about
seemed
of
destiny. During
ing
about
us
that our
unarguable
was
destiny
In The Compass
culture's
ways.
very different poetry,
including
returns to haunt you. In writing
46
out in very visible
and
being played
Flower you are often trying to write
love poetry, yet this vocabulary
in away
the poetry
of The Compass
Flower was
to deal
it a
that were
colored by a different
again with words
struggle
sense of
or at least words
to
to the
that seemed decisively
history,
belong
world
and its power to enter into and transform our private lives?
public
are words
I think so. They
WSM:
that I used with
caution,
increasing
can become counters.
can
because they can become habitual,
they
They
can become
obscures
their real emptiness;
have an emptiness which
they
can
indeed in that way. They
become
one's own
sentimental
simply
are habitual. That's
that
really self-defeating.
signatures
I would
in
CN:
become
habitual
say that some of those same words
a
Indeed
it's
risk for many
like that
Kinnell.
poets?a
vocabulary
so much
a
write
of
the
that
instinc
becomes
it's
way
part
they
merely
tive.
to try to never, never use
I'm not going
obviously
I use them with
deliberate
self-conscious
increasing,
a kind of self-consciousness
Iwouldn't
If I use them now it's with
had using them fifteen or twenty years ago.
In the period of The Lice the self-consciousness
would
have gotten
Yes. Well,
but
those words,
WSM:
ness.
have
CN:
in the way.
That's
is now, when
you're both talking
thing
right. The funny
a
I
is
realize
that
there
small
of
from
the
that,
group
poems
ones?in
of this year?new
which
the kind of magma
that
beginning
WSM:
about
out the same
Lice suddenly
insisted on writing,
bringing
produced The
vein again, just before
the inauguration
of Reagan.
to have more occasions
CN: Well,
we're
like that. The history
going
or
that's there in The Lice has hardly
that wrote The Lice
left us.
so. I didn't
set out to write
those poems. Several poems
out with more
of
that
than I knew was going
suddenly
quality
to be there.
I felt a great deal
of
the
this
year particularly,
Just
beginning
was up to, and
in
what
of that: the British
Ireland,
presence
Reagan
return
to
and seeing what
the result of the new
Watt,
my
Pennsylvania
was there?total
devastation.
policies
EF: Those most recent poems surprise me somewhat.
I feel in them the
same anger that was in The Lice, the same rage, but what
is different
is
are direct and clear. The allusions
are not
allusions
that the historical
WSM:
I think
came
in The Lice. In The Lice,
for the reader, as often happens
an
about
the name of who was
be
but
assassination,
you may
talking
not be a direct or
assassinated
does not appear, and in fact there would
defamiliarized
clear
WSM:
before
to any of the actual events of the assassination.
both of the assassination
poems in The Lice were
Actually
the assassinations.
allusion
written
47
. . .
So they really were not historical
poems
WSM:
The one was written
assassina
very shortly before the Kennedy
one
the
other
three days?before
Lu
Martin
tion;
very shortly?about
EF:
I better not write
ther King was killed.
of them.
any more
to say the poems
I think it's difficult
in The Lice are not historical
a core of
poems. The process at work for a reader is one in which
precise
even blurred,
historical
uncertain
becomes
and unstable,
referentiality
in the poem. Yet in a way
the poem's historicity
becomes more
repre
as a result. The
a
sentative
more
poem presents
history
potentially
of us and where we are in time. The
to erode
possessive
specificity
begins
as the poem
proceeds.
a reference
I have a recent poem with
to the IRA
WSM:
strike,
hunger
CN:
but
I'm uncertain
about
that passage, and I'm
out of the poem.
of
taking the
I
very much
extremely
specific
Although
it to be in there when
Iwrote
wanted
the poem,
I'm not sure it
belongs
there. I don't think it strengthens
the poem, or even serves the reasons
thinking
reference
for having
that specific passage there in the first
place.
EF: This
talk of referentiality
ties in with your
of how you
description
came to deal with
at
after
the
wordless
poetry
writing
arriving
position
seems to be a
in upon
Lice.
The
There
you were
completing
gradual
is still here, that you could still be attentive
that the world
were
to the
that
around
the feeling
that I
you?that's
things
certainly
sense
book by book after The Lice. A striking example
of this
growing
new
a
is "St. Vincent's"
in
is
The
Flower.
This
poem that
Compass
feeling
a new kind of attentiveness,
to me marks
a new kind of use of
language,
as I've said, in your
that I find more
and more,
prose
autobiographical
to
senses
have that same concern with wanting
the
pieces. We
keep
seems to be a
in this poem that there's been a
open?there
feeling
place
there for a long time that has been part of your common
experience;
never seen it. You've
never
you see it every day, and yet you've
paid
realization
to it, never
at it. "I consider
that I have lived
really looked
ears
to
and
and
hear/these
open
years across from St.
daily
with/eyes
in the poem,
Vincent's
And what happens
then, is a kind of
Hospital."
of the eyes and ears to the sights and sounds one has learned
opening
attention
to dull one's
senses
to, so that "long/ago
turn to back
stop/they
I learned not
to hear
them/even
stay to look/
passers-by
to
and neither do I." So there's a sense now o? staying to look, staying
to
on
be
what
the
record, staying
imagine
going
might
beyond
things
that one can see and hear if one is attentive
enough. And then the poem
when
48
the sirens
in/few
"who was St. Vincent":
question,
that one has lived across from all the
thing
the name
a
ends with
to the
given
take it that the
time?I
does ask for an answer, who
was St. Vincent,
and I think of St.
question
to
attention
in
Vincent
those elements
who defined his life by paying
a
one
to.
no
attention
is
this
about
else
that
too,
So,
poem
society
paid
to pay attention,
it seems to me, to things that one has learned
learning
to
not to pay attention
to, by custom,
by habit, and then learning
overcome
that.
the other night, you said that you
you read "The Last One"
so
that no one would
become
wished
that the poem would
untopical
itwas about, a comment
that I found appealingly
know what
subversive.
a
more
or
is
is poem whose
less inescapa
"St. Vincent's"
referentiality
CN: Before
if you are
that it, too, had a quality
to link it with
merely
I don't feel
WSM:
No,
was written
in January,
many
years across the
ble: Iwonder
comfortable
with
that, or do you
of undecidable
sometimes
plurality, making
and that structure.
that building
that; I'm very fond of that building.
I think
wish
impossible
The poem
I've had an apartment
for
so that's the
St. Vincent's
Hospital,
it was
street from
it
1975.
to do
I suppose, a
it was,
and place of it. And
attempt
particular
were
we
to
the
honor
that thing
very specific historic
talking about,
to make
out of that. The
the poem directly
immediate
circumstance,
to
was
a
to the
closer
deliberate
poem
attempt
practice
something
One
I
of the things that envy about
andWhitman.
tradition ofWilliams
time
is the ease of address, the immediacy
of the use
that tradition sometimes
I
sometimes
which
would
of historical
much
like
circumstance,
very
to have been able to use more
But
I
can't
familiarly
myself.
obviously
to be in the center ofthat
I don't
believe
that I'm ever going
tradition;
to me that
It
has
seemed
share any of the original
assumptions.
fact has
two faces, too. Fact is in the world
of relation?one
sees all the facts from
at the outside of facts. One
to be on the inside until one is
going
of course you don't see the inside; there
inside of you and the inside of what you're
was St. Vincent"
remains a
thing. "Who
never
it's the question
that one goes on asking;
the world
of history and the world
them and oneself.
between
There's
life
a moment
that he'd
been
in St. Vincent's
living
and went
caught
is no
is always
the outside.
looking
One
is
up in the relation, then
the
separation between
the same
They're
and it's a question
question,
that asks what
the relation
is
looking
that's
biography
to live with
at.
shared. And
between
when
he gave up the
the poor whom
he'd
49
because he felt that what he'd been doing was
inadequate
to this terrible
the first night of introduction
squalor, with
and misery
and
and the lives falling
people beating each other
hunger
in
he
the
woke
the
in
middle
of
tears,
up
apart,
night
saying, "Forgive
on. I didn't know
I did not know that this was
that
me, God,
going
went
this far. I didn't
realize that this was in the world."
suffering
been serving,
. . . and after
EF:
In "St. Vincent's"
we're
is very clear; it's all
the referentiality
the
we're
of
the context
given
hospital,
to let us know we 're in New York, we know
the name
book
given
of poems
what
the building
looks
like.
Is the original
St. Vincent's
there?
in the
exactly
still extant,
by the way?
It's still there, but, you know,
WSM:
like everything
else, it's changing.
out of part of it now, and
the
inside
the facade,
tearing
They're
keeping
is
the old part of it. But they're
which
I had
quite beautiful,
expanding.
was
a
met
I
when
the
who
said
that
poem
surprise
published.
somebody
they'd
found
been
over
there
to St. Vincent's
for medical
reasons, and they'd
I got a letter from
the poem pasted on the walls of the elevators.
are a lot of
in
relations who
said, "There
charge of public
in that poem, and if you'd really like them answered,
questions
please
come
the hospital,"
and I did, and had a
by and I'll take you through
. . .The
are still
whole
afternoon
going around St. Vincent's.
questions
the nun
unanswered.
are very different
from those in your
questions
I
for
of
"Before
That"
from
think,
poems.
example,
an
where
have
of
The Moving
"Cemeteries
you
Target,
image
sifting
see
windows."
Do
on/the
that
reader
will
the
you
your
anticipate
city's
at
that
described
the
other
about
you
your reading
referentiality
night,
the crosses being the white X's on the windows
of condemned
buildings,
or is that
that you remove from the realm of
in
something
referentiality
EF: But
the unanswered
earlier New
York
the poem, and only restore at the reading?
to be a historic
there is going
is
Well,
future, which
assuming
we make
we have no real reason to, one can't
an
that
but
assumption
are
to be known
which
of our historic circumstances
doubleguess
going
a hundred,
or matter
to
two hundred years, hence.
I'm
unsettled
people
as
to realize that as the natural world
of students
recedes, and
generations
WSM:
contact with
number
it, an enormous
grow up without
having had any
are
of really very basically
remote,
simple images
becoming
increasingly
an
in traditional
inaccessible,
poetry and in our own. There's
image in
a poem of mine
about flies in the middle
of the room going around a
50
statue of
and a poet came to visit me one day and was talking
nothing,
I
about my poetry being surrealist and used this image as an example;
a
to
room
I
and
took
him
"Come
and
the
door
and
on,"
said,
opened
a whole
lot of simple sensual experience
related
said, "Look." There's
a
to the natural world which
is
I
the
of
think
don't
past;
thing
becoming
see how we can exist in such an
I
this can continue
don't
indefinitely.
context.
and deprived
attenuated
a poem like "Before That,"
a poem that seems
CN: When
introduce
you
and unstably
and you
open and in some ways gnomic
suggestive,
or their occasion,
certain
their
lines
by identifying
seeming
gloss
object
a source and the
to
process a moment
grant the poem
thereby
writing
very
of origin, what do you feel you've
done to the text?
I feel that I've obscured
it. Because
I think
WSM:
that I probably
a
and
reads
who
with
The
the
distraction.
you
anyone
poem
provided
to
at
not
arrive
that insight
but
important
thing is
through referentiality
course there would
no
Now
of
be
without
response.
response
through
some kind of reference. But
I didn't feel that the poem should
obviously
have more
more
reference
"chat"
around
than it had when
it than
it to be a kind
Iwrote
it. And
in a sense
putting
then betrays it. Not
that Iwant for
or
it to present
like that. Iwant
anything
it had
of mystification,
a kind of
are not those of the habitual
in terms which
and
experience
is
It
which
exterior.
is
dulled
and
and
blunted
customary
referentiality
a cemetery,
a
a
not
not
it's
it's
lot of white
like
you know;
cemetery,
on a window.
is the sense of cemeteries
on
Is it just the pressure
to break
of a reading,
then, wanting
a
at least for
and make
accessible?
moment,
rhythm
things,
WSM:
It's a moment
of weakness
and friendliness.
the
things painted
windows.
Just
CN:
EF: This
whole
business.
Specific
are
And
its sense
that.
they
personal
that never become
matter
is tricky
historical
allusion,
referentiality,
can
in your poetry
references
be quite explicit when
or derive from a
References
like
personal experience.
of
to current events
in the way that references
"topical"
a
in
do. Topical
that
references
don't.
way
things fade
personal
a consistent
It has to do with
WSM:
about
and
poetry,
feeling
probably
is that
about my own poetry, which
about all of the arts, but certainly
no deliberate
a poem works. A poem
to be
for writing
program
begins
a poem when
a
starts
of words
off what
you might
sequence
giving
to have a life of its
it
describe as a kind of electric charge, when
begins
own that I sense the way
a shorted
I would
if I suddenly
up
picked
51
Iwould
wire.
If it doesn't have that, even if it's got what
very
as a poem. I suppose all poets
like it to have, then it's not working
or another,
in one way
in many
that way
of my
but I notice
work
a more deliberate
to what
want
to put in
they
contemporaries
approach
electric
much
it different,
/ and in ways
that I have never
their poems,
though they do
are
I would
been able to do it. There
about
like to write
many
things
or to include
in poems, but I've never been able to work
that way. The
life of the language
doesn't
happen
when
it's done
that way,
so I have
. . .
to wait.
I had a conversation
when
Orleans,
this room?"
eleven years ago, in New
Ginsberg
a poem about
how
would
said, "Okay,
you write
is that you assume,
I said, "Well, Allen,
the difference
with
Allen
Allen
And
a poem about this room
I guess, that you could write
just because you
I'm not sure I could
chose to, and I can't make
any such assumption.
write
be able to, though
about this room. Perhaps at some point Imight
start
start
It would
down
details."
Iwouldn't
by just jotting
necessarily
we
not agree about what
but
"the
with
the room, obviously,
might
was.
room"
It's a different
the whole
idea of how
way of approaching
a poem
sure that I can write
not
I
'm
poem.
just by deliberate
a
out to write
the sofa, or ... It's a
poem about, you know,
a
you write
ly setting
nice idea, but basically
there's a part of me that would
think, well,
could always do it as an exercise,
but if a certain extra dimension
of the exercise won't
the fact for very
there, the brilliance
disguise
This
seems
to me
so obvious
that I almost
you
isn't
long.
it for a doctrine,
but I
see it that way at all. I feel
take
that there are many
poets who don't
too. If I can't eventually
I'm reading poems,
find that
that way when
me.
bores
the
there,
poetry
quality
I 'm doing in my own
I think I 'm probably often deluded
about what
nearer and nearer to
I
that
I'm
because
getting
writing
keep thinking
an
talk about the
of historical
detail, and yet when
immediacy
people
realize
poems
thought
I realize
that
that may
I was
not be their
But then for years I
impression.
and
and more
and directly,
simply
were
more
more
and
difficult,
getting
more
writing
the poems
kept saying
opaque, harder to read.
with Whitman
and other Ameri
EF: We've
discussed your relationship
can writers,
but what poets do you feel the most natural affinity with?
as talismans,
are very
WSM:
favorite
poets, the two that I live with
My
even rather
remote
in
I would
in time and didn't write
feel
English.
people
diffident
52
about
naming
them,
both
out
of
superstition
and
awe:
and Dante?not
Fran?ois Villon
very far
I began
And
when
both medieval
poets.
some ofthat was due to
I
think
poetry.
I was
in
admiration
for Pound when
apart from each other in time,
Iwas fascinated with medieval
I had great
it; a
college.
partly
and I used
rebellious
stage, because almost no one else admired Pound,
a beard which
to walk
I grew just like Pound's. There's
around with
that we
Pound's
influence;
That was
all owe
the debt to his way of hearing. That
him,
ear runs
of the Cantos. I find them hard to read,
through much
are reason
not because of intellectual
but I
references, which
enough,
man
is saying, the stance, and that
the
irritated with what
keep getting
into. But my debt to him
he
that
cornball American
keeps lapsing
lingo
one
thing
incredible
began very
Whether
early.
the medieval
the affinity with
poets is as close as it was I
I have a debt, as I think everyone
don't know.
does whether
they know
as the best one can work
to oral literature
it or not, to Anonymous;
of possibilities
the real matrix
that's always
there. I
someone else
to stop
I
and
I'm
then
find
going
translating,
keep saying
to translate. There's
I want
still so much
that one hasn't
possibility
touched,
found, heard.
toward
EF:
it. That's
I'm curious
teaches and forms
translation work
your
or
voices
how much
voice
for your
your own poetic
poetry,
voice of your translations. When
Last
the
read
"The
you
predetermines
a creation
that you had in mind
the other night, you mentioned
One"
about
how
own
of the Moon,"
which
that the "Creation
you translated from
myth?is
A part of that translation
native
the Amazon
reads, "So the
original?
turn into/If
it would
it turned into water
head started to think what
on with
that repetitive
drink it . . ." and so on. Itmoves
line
they would
like "The Last One."
structure, and the feel of the poem is very much
I guess it
your translations modify
your own voice, or vice-versa?
. . .
can't help but work
both ways
I think it works
WSM:
both ways.
I'm very anxious not ever to
Yes,
on Cal Lowell's
comment
I don't mean
do that?and
this as a pejorative
Do
work
take
I never wanted
at all?but
the work
of
someone
else
to do what
to
he did; I never wanted
as
a
it
for
simply
springboard
I
for
the
sake
of
persuaded myself,
and use
poems of my own. And
providing
until
the late Sixties, and that first book of selected translations,
practice,
that I did keep them separate. There were various ways of
them
keeping
On
the
other
that
become
involved
with
hand,
you
separate.
something
as translation,
as
at it over a
if you're working
intimately
period of time,
53
as
as you do in
in which
you use words
deliberately
something
to
own
is
affect
bound
And
besides, what you
translation,
your
writing.
to translate
want
is already an indication
of an affinity
that you had
before you found that poem to translate. So Iwas not ever deliberately
and
that I could use as the
something
Yet
that particular
kind of move
point for poems of mine.
is an exam
line structure?that
you're describing
repetitive
in translation
around
looking
starting
ment?the
that provided
ple of something
a deliberate
allusion.
for
a
suggestion,
Iwanted
something
to echo,
to me
endlessly
and
but
imitated,
suggestive,
crudely
directly,
something
are not
as a reminder
that the possibilities
open to us at any moment
as
as
as limited
as we
not
is
The
world
suppose.
might
simple and
as
a
was.
even
conven
it
is
There
codified and conventional
you thought
tion that recurs in oral literature
in which
the consideration
of possibili
A
deal
great
of
ties becomes
her dead
for
a
Spanish ballad
girl has had
in the room, and she says, "If I tell my
In one
of form.
seven years
father, this will happen; if I tell my mother,
this will
brother,
fairy tales in which
my
seems
literature
to be
itself a kind
lover
oral
anonymous
as
not
happen,"
that happens.
and so on. And
this will happen; if I tell
you
can
I think
think
of many
that you find
that's something
than you do in oral literature. Eliot
at least once as I remember
in that way,
talked about tradition
it, in a
was
on
Dr. Johnson.
He
lecture
Marlowe
and Tennyson,
comparing
as the verse form
as literature
in a way
and
saying
developed,
developed,
it refined itself at the expense
In the earlier, apparently
of possibility.
kind of energy,
cruder way of doing
it, you have not only a different
much
less often
in written
literature
sense of
I think this is one of the
have a different
possibility.
verse form that was most
in
that
metrical
things
English?the
happens
at the time of Chaucer with an
in
traditional
importation
English
begins
into a
is
of the romance
form of iambic pentameter
language which
but you
already
amixture.
And
of course
the new meter
replaced
ism in Middle English, which Middle English
a basic
parallel
shared with Hebrew
a great deal of the
great deal of oral poetry, with
one of the
I think that
is
poetry of the Americas.
parallelism
probably
structure
of
the
basic
of
forms
basic
verse, and is
poetry, perhaps
deep
poetry
never
CN:
and with
really
. . .
is a poem that's always troubled me a bit, because
its energy and
it
and
before and, with
you
parallelism
a
murmur
a
of approval
and
it's
that often generates
poem
"The Last One"
I've heard
repetition,
54
lost.
a
read
an audience.
to suspect that
reaction,
positive
is
feel
that
the
them a
because
my guess
poem gives
though,
people
a poem that may
secure moral
or ethical vantage
seem to be
It's
point.
science fiction "revenge of the
simply in the mode of the conventional
satisfaction
from
I tend
earth on those who despoiled
it." Yet I don't think that's what
despoiled
to
the poem does. The poem begins "Well
they made up their minds
a
sense
in
in
and
be everywhere
because why
the
the
end
not,"
poem
to be
because why
makes
not; or at least the
up its mind
everywhere
to carry out a
in the voice and manner
of the shadow, proceeds
poem,
same
of
the
rhetorical
covering
appropriation
universalizing,
totalizing,
as the poem opens. And
motion
in that
that the possessors
begin with
at the kind of
I think the sense of pain and
sense?although
despair
is not undercut?what
tragedy that the poem communicates
ecological
it seems to me, is any secure moral
is undercut,
that we feel we
position
can take in the midst ofthat
same exaltation
the
Somewhat
catastrophe.
It Is Clear" from The Carrier of Ladders,
in power occurs again in "Now
iswhat
which
includes
the lines "As though Iwere a great wind/which
I pray for." The
in the poem, and the poem
in a way,
itself
speaker
as the second half of the poem moves
becomes
the great wind,
forward.
These formal and rhetorical co-optations
should force people to call their
own moral
at the same time the poems
into
certainty
question,
though
as
to
is immensely
that
leave that moral
desirable
certainty
something
us.
I'm so glad you said that, because my chief doubt about the poem
as
is precisely what
that it might
be understood
you have suggested,
a secure moral
are
from
that
those
vantage point,
simply saying,
people
not the poem, as I see it, and I think
doing such dreadful
things. That's
I mean
is in the last line?with
its suggestion
the index of what
that
is in the poem has been ignored,
the relation with what
the shadow
to me as the science
thrown away; that's quite as important
despised,
fiction aspect of the narrative.
I'm reminded
of the line in the psalm,
"Yea they despised the pleasant land." The pleasant land was themselves.
are a number
CN: There
ironies in that last line, "The
of irreducible
WSM:
ones with
their shadows." Are their personal
shadows uniquely
lucky
their own, as they (or we) might
like to believe;
i.e., are their shadows
the consuming,
unlike
shadow of the rest of the poem? Or
generalizing
do they each already carry within
the vestige,
themselves
the semblance,
shadow they hope they have escaped?
of that covering
two
WSM:
Both. When
stand together
and their shadows run
people
owns
is
whose
shadow
Who
the
shadow?
whose?
together,
55
CN: We've
about
talked
poems,
but more
things
that
generally
as you
happen
of words
coming
sequence
a first
step?
There's
can
initiate your own
help
are the first
do your poems start?What
to write?
Is it that sense of a certain
begin
a line or two come to mind
as
alive? Does
how
translations
how
that sort of excitement
Some
from somewhere.
coming
never
But
it's
somewhere
around.
I
yet;
just
or
more
far
from
that
less
about
away
got very
poetry,
spooky feeling
to do with
that it does have something
the muse's
you know,
presence,
as
it?some
used to describe
that
Berryman
really very ancient presence
WSM:
times
it's not even
in words
to and alluded
to and invoked
again and again in all talk about
It's talked about very foolishly
very often,
poetry up until very recently.
that presence what
the hell are
and very embarrassingly,
but without
an intellectual
we
to.Without
attention
it we're
game
paying
playing
is referred
and
are
there
some
world
at the moment,
matter
of
EF: You
when
importance.
mentioned
were
you
very brilliant
but among
the other
on in the
games going
it's a matter
of taste, not a
intellectual
games
day
something
Berryman
said
to you
. . .
nineteen
in a corner
said, "At this point I think you should get down
on your knees and pray to the muse,
it
and I mean
literally."
do you revise a lot?
the muse
has departed,
CN: Once
I don't know quite how to answer
WSM: Well,
that, Cary; in a sense,
a lot?if
I see that things have been
I look over a draft of a poem,
He
WSM:
scratched
do
really
out
out
I
scratched out, but actually what
a
as
on.
it
I'm
and
lot
very slowly,
going
change
to the final
at the
close
often getting
quite
thing right
and
scratched
and
is write
very
minute
it seems to
verbal adjustments
until
then making
beginning,
once it reaches a certain
come out
I
But
seldom
very
go back
point
right.
to throw it out or cut hunks out of it, see if
to it, except
either
maybe
it.
I can do with
less, see if I've overwritten
Although
CN:
WSM:
look
Do
you
I
keep
at them
save chunks
thinking
that didn't
I'm going
thing
56
It's not a very different kind
I can't write
anything
there.
in and use
to, but as amatter
again.
EF: Do you have this same "spooky"
a
prose
piece of prose? Or iswriting
than writing
poetry?
WSM:
fit
them
feeling when you're
a very different
kind
about
places?
seldom
to write
of act for you
of the same
something
I
because
know
don't
that,
of act. There's
without
other
of fact I very
imaginative
language
together. And writing
anything
it rather boring, wearisome,
and a rather depressing
process.
in
that there's not a great deal of labor involved
doesn't mean
I
I
in
and
find
find writing
very hard,
prose
writing
writing.
particular
to
this mass of writing
very hard. It takes a long time before
begins
an energy of its own that sustains it,
it
But
I
don't
generate
going.
keeps
a kind of
mean
it can be
either?sometimes
the plainer
baroque energy
it
is.
the stronger
an
sense when
or a
EF: At what
point do you
experience
feeling will
become a poem instead of a piece of prose? I'm curious about what draws
what
else,
That
else holds
I find
into prose for you and others into poetry.
experiences
or twelve years ago when
sure
not
WSM:
I'm
about that at all. Eleven
I wondered
about that
Iwas starting to write The Miner's Pale Children
start to write
as the one
a lot, and sometimes
Iwould
something
quite
I still don't know, yet
and I'd realize it was the other. The differences
about this, that the more passion
I've come to the conclusion,
thinking
or
it is prose or poetry,
whether
there is in a piece of writing,
intensity
it calls into question
In other
the writing's
the more
generic allegiance.
certain
a
more
it tends toward
the more
words,
piece of prose is, the
charged
or you
to
as
it
of poetry. Then you begin
the condition
describe
poetic,
to ask what
it from poetry. And oddly, I think
itwas that
separated
begin
that this happens with poetry too. The more charged poetry is, then the
more
it does some of the
it's driven to the point where
things that prose
to me the ideal poet is Dante,
I suppose I believe
that because
and
as
some of the most
in
Dante
Eliot
rather
are,
said,
passages
powerful
flat. At least they look rather flat, though you realize they are anything
but flat, but the plainness of Dante
leads you to think it's just like prose,
does.
it's utterly unlike prose.
except
in your career you were writing
CN: Earlier
poems about your family
in books. Now you're
and about your past, some of them never collected
same
about
the
prose pieces
writing
things.
WSM:
New
poems about them, too.
nature of the
EF: That's what
led me to think about that corresponding
new
some
as
of the
poems sound very much
prose and poetry, because
in poetry of these new prose pieces.
if they are the corollary
not
I don't know, of course, because
connections
WSM:
Those
they're
deliberate. As you notice them, or I notice them, then I can guess at what
are, but I don't really know. One doesn't
really know
so
are between
related
but
dis
the connections
closely
obviously
own
or
own
in
You
in
don't
life.
your
your
writing
things.
the connections
what
tinct
57
Is there a sense of return, circularity,
in coming
back
completion,
so many
after
years?
topics
a sense of it
but it's not utterly deliberate,
WSM:
There's
happening,
was
to
I
in
it
that wanted
deal with
deliberate
that family material
except
CN:
to those
in that book of prose, Unframed Originals.
IVe been waiting
for two or
I
it.
where
could
do
three years to get circumstances
My notes
together
so
were
in a warehouse
A lot
and I had no desk to work
and
forth.
on,
we
were
was
to
done in the house
that
of it
the
build, before
trying
in
it
would
show
the
I'd
down
when
up
go
carpenters
got light
morning.
ten o'clock,
until
then stop and start
and work
about
they arrived
the rest of the day. I never know how to
pieces of wood
hammering
answer those
about the connections
of different writings
of the
questions
so few of the connections
are
because
beforehand.
It's
like
past,
plotted
in your mind
connection
what's
the
between
different
parts of
saying,
a
can
terms
in
describe
them
of
the
and
you
poem,
poem?well,
maybe
as you went
it
but maybe
you set it out beforehand,
developed
along and
was both as you wrote
it and as you
the connection
then you saw what
look back on it. But a great deal of it is bound to be very subjective,
and
can
or
not
it's
articulate
describe yourself.
you
finally
something
EF: You've
mentioned
the differences
your
fondness
for Williams.
between
prose and poetry, Williams
literature who has worked with
figure in American
a bit.
lack of it?quite
WSM: Who
calls it constantly
into question.
it into
question.
As
you talk about
one
is certainly
that distinction?or
I think
that's
a measure
You don't wonder
of imaginative
about
richness, calling
it when
but
it
wonder
about
when
Lanier,
you
you're
reading Sidney
You wonder
it when
about
you're
you're
reading Melville.
reading
verse
isn't
but
whose
the power of the won
Thoreau,
very interesting,
is the power of poetry. The energy of the
in Waiden
derful passages
is as intense as anything
in nineteenth-century
poetry. You
language
for something
have to think of Keats or Hopkins
comparable.
EF: Do
WSM:
you go back toWilliams?
Yes. But not as a cult figure,
as some
I go back to him
people do.
do love Williams,
and I read
I really
and reverence.
great affection
over and over when
Iwas about twenty; I still read him. I go back
to him, how
It's the visual
of
shall I say it, as an engraver.
quality
not the
inWilliams:
of the long poem
individual moments
magnificence
I see as separate poems, or the
in Paterson, but passages in Paterson which
poems, Spring and All and that period. Or some of the very
early collected
with
him
late
58
poems.
EF: Pictures from Brueghel?
Yes. He's come back
WSM:
a wonderful
to that vein with
serenity by
such purity
of language. The
of Williams
element
that point. And
some of his admirers
like so much,
the "experimental"
which
element,
seems to be
matter
sometimes
around.
the
with
just fooling
Nothing
but
around,
fooling
Iwill
I imagine
I don't
continue
find myself
returning
to reread parts of Williams
to it
irresistibly.
with
fondness
But
and
gratitude.
EF: Do you
Less
WSM:
go back to the prose of Spring and All, or only the poems?
to the prose. I don't
as the poems
like his prose so much
but the prose there
that I'm fondest of. And I read the autobiography,
is often
limp.
EF:
In the American
WSM:
CN: Much
phrase
WSM:
Grain?
In the American
ofthat
by phrase.
Yes. Many
Grain
is a wonder?I
is beautifully
by sentence,
prose?sentence
composed
seem
the Williamsites
that.
to
of
ignore the element
most
in
the
that
and
book,
great
impressive
impos
composition
probably
wrote.
ing single book that he
CN: I reread parts of it every year.
in it like the
WSM:
There's
lyrics, but it's there
really exquisite
nothing
on the shelf with
the great American
It's on my
shelf.
single volumes.
EF: When
of
love
I think of Williams
and Williams
line. Whitman
of the poetic
so much
written
have
berg?all
theories about its origins, which
culminate
theories
I think of
and his experimentation,
course
about
they
in Olson's
and Olson
the poetic
all associate
line,
with
and Gins
and
all have
breath.
Verse."
probably
"Projective
the Whitman
line into three parts, coming
of dividing
the triadic line composed of three variable feet, and so on. What
The
Williams
talked
up with
are your
about the origin of the line in your own work? Where
does
thoughts
line
from?
your
emerge
I think the line is a matter
WSM:
of absolutely
essential
importance.
one
verse in the first
is
If the line is not that important, why
writing
One of the meanings
of verse after all is "a line." Yet one of the
place?
ironies of what
is that,
you just said about Whitman-Williams-Ginsberg
a
lot about the line, their tradition has been involved
though they talked
in the demise of the clarity of the line in a great deal of modern
and
contemporary
verse. There's
American
a
huge
verse.
amount
It's one
of
talent
of
the danger
around now,
signs
in recent
including
some
59
out of
but some of them
coming
really gifted young
colleges,
people
a line is. This
is obviously
bad for
have a very shaky sense of what
but it's also very bad for the possibility
of their
individual
poems,
as
or for the
a
of
poets
development
anything
resembling
development
or aWilliams
of an Olson
tradi
for the continuation
tradition?even
if you're not fairly clear about what a line
can't go anywhere
to say what
I think a line is,
is. Yet I'm not even sure that Iwant
though
I've thought about it. I'll describe how I've taught the topic, though that
tion. You
may prevent me
students
With
it again.
to try to
it was valuable
places I've thought
a line wTas. A year and a half
force them to figure out what
they thought
was at Oberlin,
I read a lot
I
where
the
students were very gifted.
ago
to do the
and said, "I'm not going
of manuscripts
workshop
thing of
over your papers and
I
little
don't
think
that's
suggestions.
going
making
most
really the
room and make
out what
They
from
doing
in certain
I'd like to do is go around the
thing. What
to be involved
in this try to
who wants
figure
we
two
is." After
hadn't got very far.
hours,
appropriate
everybody
a line of verse
realized
that they'd never
this is what
really
"I think
it.We
left it with
thought about
have to think about the next time
you
saying,
a line somewhere.
At
the
risk of losing a great deal of spontanei
stop
to
to
out what
in hell you
look
for
need
awhile, you
ty
figure
closely,
think you're doing: why you stop it after three syllables, why you stop
are you
it after two beats, or why you stop itwhere you do?what
doing?
or is
it
Are you just writing
'I
and
like
better
this
prose
way,'
saying,
my
you
there
really
far as
some
reason
for doing
it?"
in two hours,
these young
get spontaneously
they
a
in their own contemporaries,
read
but they
lot?mostly
people who'd
were
to poetry with
some seriousness?was
to
themselves
addressing
As
could
that a line was
realize
a unit
they couldn't
something
CN: Do line breaks seem
that one
WSM:
of
the things you
Both. And of course
of something.
agree on.
What
it was
a unit
of
was
to come
as you write,
to you
or is
naturally
to work with
to
change?
there are two things that a line is doing?it's
have
a
it does; and
of its own by means
of stopping where
rhythm
making
unless it's working
unless you're doing it wrong,
against you and you've
a
of movement
and making
lost it, lost this line, it's making
continuity
a
a
two
at the same
within
It's
those
continuity.
rhythm
doing
things
time. And this is something
that you don't see happening
very often in
one after the
little bits of prose?lines
these limp, unheard
just tacked
60
no real
is the continuity
of prose. There's
their continuity
reason
it should stop at any particular
why
place.
EF: Over
used many
different
the years you've
lines. Certainly
your
lines derive in part from your study of various traditions?I
suppose this
other.
And
is one
thing that takes you back
lines. But does line have
different
to Pound,
his
association
any
with
experimentation
with
breath for you?
think there's any necessary
think so. It can, but I don't
I think of stopping at a given point
where
and also as a gesture of meaning?because
WSM:
No,
connection.
I don't
the poem going,
denotative
meaning,
CN:
Your
control
both
of
gesture,
rhythmical
stop, if the rhythm
an effect
meaning.
line breaks
over a
long period
the uncanny
feeling
I pay a lot of attention
your work
yet I have
WSM:
you
on the
if
meaning,
particularly
to stop in such a way
it's important
that
to do with
It
impetus.
keeps the motion
in terms of rhythm,
sound, and in terms o?
to have
is going
working,
not
But
you're
punctuating.
the stop itself has something
is
of
as a
is clearly one of the real
strengths of
of time. It always seems minutely
perfect,
that it simply
to it.
comes
to you
instinctively.
I don't think you've ever talked about
punctuation.
use
to
for such a long period of time. It
your decision
punctuation
I can't imagine
the poetry with
seemed absolutely
has always
right.
out
the
but
have
and
the poetics of
worked
you
punctuation,
appeal
CN: You mentioned
not
punctuation?
abandoning
I don't know about
WSM:
led to that decision.
are various
its
appeal, but there
things that
at the end
I had virtually
poetry
stopped writing
I felt that I had come to the end of something
and
of the Fifties, because
want
to do it
that if I wrote
James Wright
again I'd
quite differently.
same
went
much
the
process, although we never conferred
through very
with each other to know that we had both reached that point at the same
Iwasn't writing,
Iwas
time. Of course during
the time when
thinking
a passage from Milosz's
The Captive Mind
about it. There's
about the
suddenness
with
on his face on
which
he had this moment
the cobbles with
machine
he was lying
bullets
gun
going around him
to
and thinking, what do I want
of crisis when
into trucks,
being herded
to me, what poetry do
what
has
been most
remember,
poetry
important
I want now,
I don't ever want
And I thought,
right now, this minute?
to write
to take with
to
Iwant
something
forget this about poetry again:
me at a bad time. Because we're
to have a bad time from now on.
going
and friends
One
of the corollaries
ofthat
is that there's
a lot you
really don't
need
61
see what
to pay attention
to
in poetry. You
have
their
things and
are
is. If there's really no function,
what
function
there?
they doing
are you
that includes
poetry
writing
Why
things you really don't need
of strengthen
there? This process of trying to see what was unnecessary,
to
of getting down
and intensifying,
what was really
ing by compressing
led me to write poetry that was farther and farther away from
essential,
structure.
stanzaic and metrical
conventional
so deliberate.
It was part of practice
quite
was
I
and
with
what
discontent
theory,
doing and wanting
to articulate
in which
I was going.
I recognized
I was
the direction
saw
stanzaic
I
also
farther
verse, but
away from
moving
myself moving
the point was of staying with prose
from prose. So I asked myself what
is there as a kind of manners
in prose, ar
Punctuation
punctuation.
it
but
doesn't
articulate
the mean
prose meaning,
necessarily
ticulating
verse. I saw that if I could use the movement
of
of
this
kind
of the
ing
verse
itself and the movement
of the line?the
actual weight
of the
as it moved?to
Iwould
do the punctuation,
both strengthen
language
of the poem
the texture of the experience
and also make
clear its
Of
more
course
none
of this was
than
One
from other kinds of writing.
to it in those terms. I also noticed
something
tion as I looked at it after that seemed to
distinction
be paying attention
right away. Punctua
to the page,
the
poem
staple
lifted itself right up off the page.
would
else
out the poem
staples
A poem then had a sense of integrity
and liberation
that it did not have
it a late echo of an oral tradition. All this
In a sense that made
before.
gave the poetry new rules, a new way o? being, and I haven't
really
to want
to
give that up.
enough
changed
Someone was asking me
the other day about what
they called my
was
I
it
the
"broken back"
line.
for a couple of
line,
two-part
writing
to
I
it
is
I would
and
would
still
like
feel
available.
Indeed
like
years,
to have it
in English.
You know, meter
is never
available
generally
absent. I think that line is related to the Middle
something
permanently
to me is the basic line of
o? Piers Plowman, which
line
English
English,
as I said earlier,
overlaid?we
talked about palimpsests?overlaid,
by the
But the caesura in the iambic pentameter
Italianate
iambic pentameter.
is like a
line asserting
itself all the time,
ghost of the old Middle
English
we hear in
saying I'm here all the time. I think it's there under what
And as the iambic pentameter
harder and
iambic pentameter.
becomes
in contemporary
I think
harder to hear or to stay awake through
poetry,
the deeper, older line is something
the other,
the slightest
one, with
be able to hear again.
effort, might
but if I took those
62
The
that line and
between
difference
a traditional
one.
Iambic
because
pentameter,
developed a flexibility which
iambic
I think, is
pentameter,
of the long tradition,
theMiddle English line never did. The
in iambic pentameter
of enjambment
became
incredi
qualities
so
themselves
that there's
out,
bly varied, but eventually
they played
a meter
at all. By the time you get to someone
there
like
Conrad
hardly
a kind of vers libre. But the
Aiken
essentially
you're writing
enjamb
flow-on
that way, didn't
last
line never developed
English
is like a continua
If you take up something
that
probably.
ment
of the Middle
long enough
tion of it, it seems a little stiff, but it can do things
ter
can't. And I don't even think ofthat
probably
that iambic
line with
as a strict meter
caesura
pentame
the heavy
of iambic
in the way Pope would
have thought
or
kind of pattern
pentameter,
paradigm.
EF: The caesura obviously
controls breath?when
you read a line, the
this has to do with what you were
line controls your breathing. Maybe
one
as a
verse"
saying the other day?that
problem with
"projective
but as a different
is not
theory
enough.
WSM:
But
that
it assigns
too much
importance
to breath,
but
not
the pauses of breath,
the pauses in verse are not necessarily
the pauses of
If the pauses of verse are exactly
else,
anything
to have its own pauses.
It
has
boring.
breathing.
it becomes
onto
but I never cottoned
poems very much,
verse
I remember
he
talks
about
it,
projective
to breath, but it seems to me
truistic:
the relation of
can
come
at
to
is
it
And
from
breath
absolute.
you
any angle you
poetry
want
to. He talks about it in a rather limited way?that
outbreathing
are a kind of metric.
in themselves
I think it's far more
and inbreathing
so I doubt that there's much
to be
in pursuing
that
gained
complicated,
I like
some of Olson's
that "projective
and its relation
verse."
As
argument.
particular
teaches you to breath in different ways. As you
poetry
a
to it. But I've never seen
learning process; you adjust
as
line
the equivalent
of a single breath.
any way of treating Olson's
one who
come closest
to
to
is
EF: Ginsberg
the
has
probably
trying
a
he
that
that's
that
breathes
line
and
when
his
true,
suggest
absolutely
to the next line.
breath is out he moves
CN:
read
CN:
Different
it there's
But
in public
it takes a tremendous
it's by no means
effort
to
easy to establish
he reads
pull that off, and when
in any literal
that relationship
way.
WSM:
Yes,
and that also rules out
something
which
is
inseparable
from
63
it and
in a sense more
both
listening,
that the body
separate. But
interior
or
inward?the
whole
role of hearing,
and in reading or listening. The Ear?the
fact
not
is the ear. Breathing
also is a way of hearing;
they're
if it's just physical
what
role do the ear and
breathing,
in writing
listening play?
EF: What's
formula?the
Head,
by way of the
physiological
to the Line. Part
the Heart,
Ear, to the Syllable;
by way of the Breath,
the ear has to do with,
of his idea, at any rate, is that the syllable is what
not the line. The
the breathing.
line has to do with
Olson's
see that at all, because
I think one of the
things that
one
is tension. There's
in verse, in poetry,
always
happens
or
not
In
it's metrical.
element
against another one, whether
playing
on the iambic pentame
verse the line ismade of variations
conventional
I don't
WSM:
all units
with
ter pattern,
each other,
so you have the pattern and
and the tension resulting?and
the variation
against
playing
that's one way of seeing the
I think this is true in every kind
in the line. And
vigor and the energy
it's
conventional
and regular or whether
whether
it's what
of metric,
are
to be two sorts of forces
you could call organic. There
always going
an
a
each
other:
and
either an answering,
expectation
against
playing
or a variant on the
sets
a
sense
The expectation
up
expectation.
refusing,
or you don't. That tension
of repetition. You either fulfill the repetition
runs
of lines or the making
of stanzaic paragraphs,
the making
through
for the whole
poem.
same pattern of
is also apparent
in
and variation
EF: That
expectation
the overall
one
single
as well. Has there been any
rhythm of each of your books
itself to you as a book, as a
of your books that has affirmed
or
more
do they all have a similar sense
than the others,
thing,
complete
of completion?
since The Drunk
WSM:
all do, particularly
They
in
Furnace?
the
The Drunk
EF: Including
in the Furnace.
in the Furnace. The first three seem to be
The Drunk
Including
more
the end of a phase.
but they too each finish with
gatherings,
course I don't feel that close to them now.
WSM:
much
Of
CN:
books.
Compass
WSM:
Poems?
64
in a collected
them all together
volume
idea of putting
I like them as separate objects, even the first four
inappropriate.
as The
But I certainly
don't want The Lice in the same volume
Still,
seems
the
Flower.
They're
I don't
really
separate books to me.
do you
either. What
think
about
a Selected
CN:
I can't
WSM:
Well,
separate books.
CN:
It may
of
period
of any
I've resisted
think
reason
to do
it, because
it.
not
I would
like
to undercut
the
the poetry and live through
the
be that if you grow with
a
have
the poet is actually writing
you
strong
books. Fifty years from now
toward the individual
loyalty
time when
of
feeling
most readers would
as well have a Collected Merwin. With
probably just
am
conscious
of
the huge differences
I
Yeats, although
among the books,
to
Poems.
have
the
collected
I'm perfectly
Collected
People who
happy
often prefer to read them in that form.
the separate volumes,
however,
in the only way
that it would
but Yeats has been collected
were
ever
sense
me.
to
want
Iwould
it done that
If I
collected
make any
as
aware
of
much
the
And
where
books
divisions.
very
way,
you're
to do that with Lowell
of
have
all
Cal's
too, you know, although
you'd
and
with
Notebooks
around
presents problems. Nonethe
History
fooling
WSM:
Yes,
less, you'd want his books very distinct?you
into
ry s Castle and Life Studies combined
wouldn't
want
something
like
Lord Wea
a Collected
Browning.
EF: One
a very separate
identity
thing that gives your books each
to
not
the name of a poem
tend
title
books
after
the titles. You
your
in the Furnace.
is in the book, although
you did with The Drunk
WSM:
"The Drunk
in the Furnace"
is really
the kind
that
of poem that is
I don't do that.
the book is about. Generally,
though,
everything
it in a conversation
I made
about
I guess
with
up my mind
a
not
time
for
I'm
this
Arrowsmith
ago.
proposing
everybody,
long
So that if you
for me a title should contribute
important.
something
about
are
Bill
but
took
a
be missing
The
title should
title away, it would
something.
poem's
course the relation between
a poem and
not
a redundancy.
be
Of
just
its title is far more specific and intimate than the relation between a book
a
still make
and its title, but the title of a book should
significant
contribution.
EF: Because
of the nature
of your book titles, the reader is forced to carry
of the title
and to allow the juxtaposition
the title
each poem,
awhile,
listening
in the days when
for one
through
of the book and any particular
poem to play itself out. The titles of your
the book as an interrelated
books force the reader to come to grips with
At what point do titles for your books come to you?
whole.
Sometimes
I think
WSM:
it's been different.
I've hung
around for
to come,
I was writing
for it. I had a superstition,
waiting
that
if I got my
title too soon,
plays,
65
I started to write,
that I'd never get
if I got the title before
especially
In any case, there's no point in rushing
it. I suppose
the play finished.
new
one reason I know
is
isn't
the
collection
finished
that I don't have
a title for
it yet.
title for The Lice came
The
in Heraclitus
out ofthat
passage
early. It jumped
on the poems. The
on
Moving Target,
working
that I 've got several pages of false
late. I know
fairly
Iwas
while
hand, came
at that title. Iwas
the other
also a time waiting
for the title to Writings
attempts
out what on earth is the
to
to an
trying
Unfinished Accompaniment,
figure
I had the title
The Compass Flower, however,
title of this collection. With
before
the book was finished.
CN:
Do
you
I keep
WSM:
wrote
in
save notes
all
for
titles
the drafts
now.
but
for
awhile
and drafts
of poems?
I still have some of
after
that
I
I
the old
things
things. Then
destroyed
college,
to save
and since then I have.
told me
everything
to come up with
the process you go through
EF: Can you reconstruct
a
to an Unfinished Accompaniment? Do you
title like Writings
retrospective
in some way?
the poems
think through
at all; I was
I wasn't
for the title.
WSM:
sitting and waiting
thinking
the chair and the room inMexico.
Of course Iwas doing
I can remember
but ten days went
before
other things as well,
the title came. When
by
are you
to
I got back to New York, Adrienne
"What
Rich
said,
going
new
call the
it, that's what
book," and I told her, and she said, "That's
were
we all want
to write'.'Those
happier days.
Graves
NOTES
1This
Some
interview
of
took place
the discussions
of
home in Champaign,
11, 1981, at Cary Nelson's
on Merwin's
build upon a symposium
poems
on
at Beloit
College
April 3-4, 1981. Slowik, Folsom,
on October
Illinois.
individual
poetry
Nelson,
of the Lively
Slowik and held
arranged by Mary
and Merwin
formed a panel to discuss Merwin's
poetry
in
Arts. Merwin
gave a poetry reading at Beloit
April,
in October,
of Illinois
1981.
and the University
2 From
Atheneum
66
The
Lice. Copyright
Publishers
1967
by W.S.
Merwin
as part of Beloit's
Festival
and readings at the University
and
reprinted
with
of
Iowa
the permission
of