April 2016
A native of Johnstown, NY, I've taught writing and literature and writing at Ripon College in Wisconsin since 1987.
I've published six collections of poetry, including Stutter Monk and Second Wind; I also co-edited (with Kate Sontag) the essay anthology After Confession: Poetry as Confession. Essays, reviews, and individual poems have appeared widely, both in print and online. In recent years I've spent nearly as much time on photography as poetry. A gallery of my work is online here: http://instagram.com/doctorjazz
I've published six collections of poetry, including Stutter Monk and Second Wind; I also co-edited (with Kate Sontag) the essay anthology After Confession: Poetry as Confession. Essays, reviews, and individual poems have appeared widely, both in print and online. In recent years I've spent nearly as much time on photography as poetry. A gallery of my work is online here: http://instagram.com/doctorjazz
Ode to the Odes of Pablo Neruda
Book after book,
every poem
shaped
just like Chile,
skinny and long
stretching
down the page
like cats
on a piano,
from the lofty
peaks
of Peru
to the windy
desolation
of Tierra del Fuego,
page
after page
of ocean spraying
against rock,
mountains rising
across the eastern sky,
and countless
old women
and men walking
rocky paths
to market,
their heads full
of your songs
as I imagine it,
and most of them
wearing
your socks,
all headed
for Casa de Isla Negra
along the road
called
Poeta Neruda,
all of them humming
with sun
and showing the earth
their rough hands,
each woman weary,
each man stubborn:
peasants in their dark hats
and slow stutters,
headed for
your bar room
with its fish
mounted
on the wall,
its shells and
fishing tackle,
sea birds caught in flight,
shelves of clay jugs
and worn goblets,
every inch
of that room
full of teapots, jockeys,
mandalas,
lanterns, old
wooden boxes
full of coins,
and a small portrait
of six dark-coated
gentlemen
with big plans
for the glorious
past
that is yet to come,
and of course,
leaning
from its chains
on one wall,
a ship's figurehead,
a gorgeous,
half-size woman
in flowing blue dress,
her paint faded, wood
chipped,
but who can't wait
to arrive
exactly here.
On The Reported Death Of Poetry
. . . it was during the 1950's that poetry last had this religious aura.
--Joseph Epstein, "Who Killed Poetry?"
Look, I've brought a little gift for you,
Poetry—bit of seashell worn smooth
as a lip; and more to come, lint
on a windowsill, soundings
of woodthrush at dusk, lawnmowers
distant as the music of the spheres. . . .
Poetry, only you can tie such bootlaces,
only you witness mudflakes
shaken off by the dog, snatch of Bach
fading under the announcer's
cheerful catastrophes.
I bring you the swish of a nightgown
to the floor, cool drift of cloud
over one grave, the moment when
a boy's liquid nattering
first coalesces into a sentence.
I bring you valediction
and animal blurt, I commend
you to God in a whirlwind
and the squirrel-chitter rhythms
of Thelonious Monk: Nutty, Blue
Sphere, and Ugly Beauty above all.
Poetry, you've died so many times,
each age preceded by a better, giants
of utterance walking profligate earth.
You would think we'd tire
of the visionary funeral, but here
we come to the wake in our shiny
black suits, now we loosen our ties
and, as the first fire of scotch
warms our throats, begin again
the old stories, fruit-heavy bough
and golden stranger at the door.
Against Poetic Diction
Never say legerdemain. Say magic. Say I don't know.
Say boots and sandals, never footwear. When clouds
darken and let go, never say precipitation,
never think probability or frontal boundary.
Think wet collar and puddle splash.
Say who-weee and stomp the doormat.
Never say lovemaking except when it is.
If it's a screw or a fuck say so,
and even enjoy breathing the word
in her ear. You can say love
when you mean it, and nothing wrong
with meaning it often. Don't be afraid
of soul, beauty, or truth. They're
as real as your cornflakes. Revive nice
and OK, neat and sharp--all
perfectly good things to mean and say.
But never say the lateness of the hour
or in light of current budgetary realities.
Flat broke and paid in full will do nicely.
Follow this advice except when it's stupid to do so.
You'll know when that is, when it's best
to let some luscious hothouse extravaganza
bloom amid the thistle and milkweed.
Some continental gavotte. Some serendipity.
Depressed by a Book of Bad Poetry,
I Reach for an Old Poem by James Wright
I'd invite the insects to join me, James,
but it's winter. I've let the book slip
gently into powder snow
just off the trail, where last year
I found a dead doe, then watched
earth claim her with its seasons.
This time next year
not just the book
but the author's name will be gone
like loaves of snow cradled
in the branches of an oak.
All our names are writ in water,
James, as I guess you knew
well before you died young,
and your own books began to slip away
like melt water, following
the other laureates of ice and grass
back into earth, as we all do,
some sooner, some later,
and yes,
we both know which is more likely.
"Nothing is Learned Once That Does Not Need Learning Again"
-Donald Hall, "Poetry and Ambition"
Some masters advise waiting for the poem to come to you.
When it fails to appear, empty yourself further. Wait some more.
Well, fine. I rather like going for a long walk, peering at new buds
on the apple trees, fresh mud in the gutter after last night's rain,
and, finding no poem in such fleeting and lowly sights,
writing one anyway. "Words are also actions," wrote Emerson.
©2016 David Graham