Poems by Stephen Crane

Along with Isaac Babel, Stephen Crane is my favorite short story writer. (I could throw Trevor, McGahern and Salter in the mix, but then I start to sound wishy-washy.) In the story, "The Open Boat," Crane wrote my favorite opening line; he wrote my favorite ending in "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky." Crane also wrote poems, strange little poems that remind me, no so much in their language or themes as in the way they get where they are going, of Emily Dickinson. Here are three. They have no titles, so I'll just number them. In #1, I like "gardens/ lying at impossible distances." Feels very precisely like life. In #2, I hear the first voice as some lying, hyperbolic evangelist in Ocean Grove, NJ, the revival town near where Crane grew up. The second voice, ironically, sounds like a truth-teller. In poem #3, I like the craving for hope and, of course, "...hence with your red sword of virtue."

1

There was set before me a mighty hill,

And long days I climbed

Through regions of snow.

When I had before me the summit-view,

It seemed that my labor

Had been to see gardens

Lying at impossible distances.

2

"Truth," said a traveller,

"Is a rock, a mighty fortress;

Often have I been to it,

Even to its highest tower,

From whence the world looks back."

"Truth," said a traveller,

"Is a breath, a wind,

A shadow, a phantom;

Long have I pursued it,

But never have I touched

The hem of its garment."

And I believed the second traveller;

For truth was to me

A breath, a wind,

A shadow, a phantom;

And never had I touched

The hem of its garment.

3

Supposing that I should have the courage

To let a red sword of virtue

Plunge into my heart,

Letting to the weeds of the ground

My sinful blood,

What can you offer me?

A gardened castle?

A flowery kingdom?

What? A hope?

Then hence with your red sword of virtue.

Even in the Bitter Core the Seed

If I should apply myself
tongue to skin -- but one should never
press too hard but only lightly
pass over until the object begins
to break down, lightly, so it barely knows
you're trying, until for your gentle persistence
it secrets its essence to you alone,
surrenders for having found finally
your subtle touch agreeable and true,

                                                             lightly,
because you must maintain your application
in duration, almost an apparition, so the taste
that stays sweet comes, leisurely and long,
lightly, so you'll recall that first bright smoothness
even as your (light) effort takes you
all the way to the core, so when you arrive --
and this is inevitable, you must believe it --
you will have come to understand
that even in the bitter core
lies the seed to which your long
and gentle plight has given light.

                                                 

                                                   - J. O'Brien

                                                       

Psychache in the Life of John Kennedy Toole

There's a new, interesting and sensitive biography of John Kennedy Toole out. It's called Butterfly in the Typewriter: The Short, Tragic Life of John Kennedy Toole and the Remarkable Story of A Confederacy of Dunces. Or coming out. Not sure if it's out yet. Toole wrote the great comic novel in the Sixties, while stationed at an Army base in Puerto Rico. It was never published in his lifetime. Cory MacLauchlin's book traces the labyrinthine path the manuscript took to publication and fame. Walker Percy enters the story late, but figures as a hero, along with the Toole's mother, for their roles in the novel's publication. Toole killed himself, and the author of the bio considers very realistically,  with insight and compassion, the possible causes of his suicide. Here he summarizes the conclusions of Edwin Schneidman, who studied suicide and those who commit it. It's an accurate elucidation of the conundrum of living with pain but no visible wound.

Foremost suicidologist Edwin Shneidman described suicide as an incredibly complex event. He coined the term "psychache" to express the intricate and complicated condition leading up to suicide. After years of studying suicides and interviewing people with suicidal tendencies, some of whom ultimately carried out the act despite his efforts to help then, Shneidman determined that suicide is not reactive, but rather "purposive." In his definition, it is a "concatenated, complicated, multi-dimensional, conscious, and unconscious 'choice' of the best possible practical solution to a perceived problem, dilemma, impasse, crisis or desperation." And before arriving at the decision to kill oneself, Shneidman argues, the person is in excruciating pain; the pain may have no physical manifestation but still relentlessly tortures the subject. To the person suffering from this "psychache," the pain is just as potent and troubling as the ghost pain riddling the body of an amputee. They cannot point to the wound they feel, but they feel it intensely. In this context, suicide is not a moment of weakness, but rather a final attempt to take control of the pain, regardless of its origin.

                                                                                                 - Cory MacLauchlin

                                                                                                   Butterfly in the Typewriter

Poem by Gevorg Emin

Seemingly simple, but does it describe the Armenian poet himself? Or what has become of someone he knew? Or a country? A people? All humanity? I feel like I was an exclamation point until about the age of 18. Question mark ever since.

The Question Mark

Poor thing. Poor crippled measure

of punctuation. Who would know,

who could imagine you used to be

an exclamation point?

What force bent you over?

Age, time and the vices

of this century?

Did you not once evoke,

call out and stress?

But you got weary of it all,

got wise, and turned like this.

                                 -Gevorg Emin

                                 Translated byDiana Der Hovanessian