August 2018
David Graham
grahamd@ripon.edu
grahamd@ripon.edu
Author's Note: In Kenneth Clark’s classic book of art history, The Naked and the Nude, he remarks “To be naked is to be deprived of our clothes, and the word implies some of the embarrassment most of us feel in that condition. The word ‘nude,’ on the other hand, carries, in educated usage, no uncomfortable overtone. The vague image it projects into the mind is not of a huddled and defenseless body, but of a balanced, prosperous, and confident body: the body re-formed.”
This may be stretching it a bit, but I see some connection between these definitions and both my poems and my Poetic License column this month. The wonderful Canadian poet Alden Nowlan wrote so directly, so apparently artlessly, that some readers have found his work more naked than nude. In my column I attempt to convince you that his poems are re-formed into a balanced and confident kind of art. My own autobiographical poems look at clothing in a couple different ways, but it is my hope that they too are not uncomfortably naked, but rather nude in Clark’s sense.
This may be stretching it a bit, but I see some connection between these definitions and both my poems and my Poetic License column this month. The wonderful Canadian poet Alden Nowlan wrote so directly, so apparently artlessly, that some readers have found his work more naked than nude. In my column I attempt to convince you that his poems are re-formed into a balanced and confident kind of art. My own autobiographical poems look at clothing in a couple different ways, but it is my hope that they too are not uncomfortably naked, but rather nude in Clark’s sense.
Homage To Sadie Bosheers
Sadie, you gave me this shirt on my back,
tested my wayward seams and tugged my buttons
long before I knew I would clothe myself
in your care. So I wanted you to know
I keep your cryptic message, "Inspected
By Sadie Bosheers," in a little teak box
on my desk, along with a Canadian coin
and one of my dog's puppy teeth.
I save it as oracle, this slip of paper
no bigger than my favorite
cookie fortune: "You are doomed
to be happy in wedlock." It's true
I'm doomed, Sadie, and I like to think
you might still find me happy enough,
though my elbows have begun to poke
through sleeves you certified so long ago.
Your signature is printed, not handwritten,
which to me just increases
your impartial grace. You had no need
to boast or qualify, just put down
one firm line to say that Sadie Bosheers
was here, on the job, living the life.
It's no statement about the honor
of hard toil, no suave calling card,
no complaint I read in your message.
Still, I accept the odd opaque blessing
of Sadie Bosheers—you step out calmly,
robed only in your own name, and meet
my dumb gaze. I pronounce that name,
and feel our separate dooms merge
in common air, both duly inspected,
both found somehow acceptable on this earth.
Originally published in Stutter Monk (Flume Press, 2000).
Burning & Shining
Here they come in their silk shirts and flimsy
spangled gowns, high schoolers out for pizza
before the Saturday dance. Harvest Ball, probably.
It's right nippy tonight, sun burning low
over the picked corn fields, the trailer parks
and travel marts lit up like cities against the night.
How lovely the bare hunched shoulders of these
shivering girls teetering across the parking lot
in their tight squad, and the crane-awkward pride
of their boyfriends strutting after, not knowing
where to rest their hands or their eyes tonight.
No one needs or especially wants any pizza.
How to be sated and hungry all at once—
I dimly remember that, sitting here in my booth
like a big yellow moon lit by their light tonight.
Miniskirts, high heels, dresses tight as shrink wrap—
these girls are the flames the boys flutter around,
full of wisecracks and sidelong drift, and they're
just as good as the boys at pretending not
to be burning, but merely shining tonight.
© 2018 David Graham
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to tell him or her. You might say what it is about the poem that moves you. Writing to the author is the beginning of community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -FF