Two Poems: Kenneth Koch and Louise Gluck

April is National Poetry Month and okay, it’s not a Philippine activity but let’s appropriate their holidays for better poetry appreciation, yeah? I’ll be posting two poems every weekend of the month, with a personal commentary about my views towards the poems and as a way to showcase how reading good poetry doesn’t have to be academic in order to be worthwhile.

That being said, I will put a disclaimer here. Many of the things I will write are extremely subjective. Poetry is something I’m passionate about, but it’s an n00b’s brand of love–I do not use the correct terminologies and I may be severely uninformed. For those who would want to correct me though, feel welcome to do so. There’s nothing more stimulating than a good discussion.

First, let’s start off with a love poem:

To You
by Kenneth Koch

I love you as a sheriff searches for a walnut
That will solve a murder case unsolved for years
Because the murderer left it in the snow beside a window
Through which he saw her head, connecting with
Her shoulders by a neck, and laid a red
Roof in her heart. For this we live a thousand years;
For this we love, and we live because we love, we are not
Inside a bottle, thank goodness! I love you as a
Kid searches for a goat; I am crazier than shirttails
In the wind, when you’re near, a wind that blows from
The big blue sea, so shiny so deep and so unlike us;
I think I am bicycling across an Africa of green and white fields
Always, to be near you, even in my heart
When I’m awake, which swims, and also that I believe that you
Are trustworthy as the sidewalk which leads me to
The place where I think of you, a new
Harmony of thoughts! I love you as the sunlight leads the prow
Of a ship which sails from Hartford to Miami, and I love you
Best at dawn, when even before I am awake the sun
Receives me in the questions which you always pose.

This will be a central theme for most of the poetry I will post, eheh. The other is also about love, but a mournful one, and something that is told in quiet, distilled verses. But for simple love declarations, I find that I’m partial to rambly, extremely naive poems like this one and Having a Coke with You by Frank O’Hara. There is, of course, a danger in it, because it can so easily sound uh, retarded. And admittedly “To You” has less of the musicality I search for in poetry, but I’ve forgiven lesser poems than this in the face of one kick-ass metaphor. This poem has more than five. My favorites are the first line (of course), “I am crazier than shirttails / In the wind, when you’re near,”"I think I am / bicycling across an Africa of green and white fields / Always, to be near you.” I have read that Hartford is actually landlocked and so his analogy is absurd in this way, LOL. But it’s exactly the way we are at love, I feel, because trivial things like geography can easily be overlooked.

Kenneth Koch was associated with the New York School. Here is an interview talking about John Ashberry and Frank O’Hara. Also, I’m sad to discover that he’s dead.

The New York School and the Beat Generation of San Francisco are indispensable if you want vibrant, witty poems that never run out of odd images and similes. Other favorites that write on the same vein are Lawrence Ferlighetti (still alive! :o), Kenneth Rexroth and Gregory Corso. I find Allen Ginsberg (especially the latter poems) and Jack Kerouac highly overrated, sry. :/

The Triumph Of Achilles
by Louise Glück

In the story of Patroclus
no one survives, not even Achilles
who was nearly a god.
Patroclus resembled him; they wore
the same armor.

Always in these friendships
one serves the other, one is less than the other:
the hierarchy
is always apparent, though the legends
cannot be trusted–
their source is the survivor,
the one who has been abandoned.

What were the Greek ships on fire
compared to this loss?

In his tent, Achilles
grieved with his whole being
and the gods saw
he was a man already dead, a victim
of the part that loved,
the part that was mortal.

I’m sorry for not having a lot of things to say for this poem, because I’ve read it more than a dozen times and it still leaves me speechless. I’ll say though that my favorite part is this: “though the legends / cannot be trusted — their source is the survivor,/ the one who has been abandoned.” I may be horribly misreading this line, but it feels to me like the very act of ‘tribute’ or ‘remembrance’ will always say something more about the grieving one than the actual dead person. The way that Patroclus comes down in history as “friend of Achilles” and not the other way around also layers their relationship in terms of the equality(?) between them. It’s also interesting to note how the title contains the word “triumph” yet the body of poem describes Achilles grieving.

Glück has a knack for fleshing out mythological figures into flawed but still super-human characters. Her latest poetry collection, Averno, uses the Hades and Persephone myth to talk about the shadows of love, marriage, and possession.

Last 5 posts by giyenah

Column: Nabokov's Last Novel Almost Burned and Thoughts on Lost Books - June 30th, 2008
Name! That! Shakespeare! LOLCAT! - October 20th, 2007
Biglang Kambyo--Poetry Time! - September 27th, 2007
Sounding off on Philippine Fiction - September 24th, 2007
September 2007 Reading List: Crime Novels - September 15th, 2007

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April 6, 2008 Written by: giyenah | Filed Under Reviews

Comments

One Response to “Two Poems: Kenneth Koch and Louise Gluck”

gus reininger on April 7th, 2008 5:17 am

Good to mention Corso, pure poet.

Would you consider linking to the film about him.

www.corsothefilm.com

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  Good to mention Corso, pure poet. Would you consider linking to the film about him. www.corsothefilm.com
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