THEODORE ENSLIN WOULD BE 100 TODAY ~

 

Little Wandering Snowflake

Ah, little wandering snowflakes are how I watch the day today, now ending March and the thin ice melting and refreezing each day on the pond in the back lot of the yard — ducks we found out there the other morning — a pair of mallards — just imagine the alert green head of the male, the brown muss of the hen hidden nearly in cattail stalks. Ted would. He would want to tramp out there with me to see, stay as long as he wanted, then perk a further walk off somewhere else. We did that one winter day when he visited from Maine. Maine is Ted’s home (largest of the New England states, occupied by more than 5000 rivers and streams, with a state motto Dirigo : I direct), so is New Mexico, Cape Cod, early spring in Philadelphia; early spring anywhere for that matter. Ted is a man at ground level, refurbished daily by the day, and it is clearly your own fortune to meet the man, find the poems and song that come forth from a living earned. Nothing special — and Ted wouldn’t want the undue excitement nor attention — but let’s not upset the magnificence of over one-hundred books of poetry, prose and literary chorales (ie., Forms, Synthesis, Ranger, Axis); and would it be unbelievable in this day and age of stroking champions and making such a fuss over some little big name in the poetry world that Ted would read his poetry across the United States in the old days traveling by bus, selling his books, making friends of dear strangers, recalling fondly those small mountain open towns in Nevada, then returning to his rural home and family, garden and woodcutting detail, tending to the cranberry and blueberry harvest, pressing apples, clamming, a supper table devoted from the land and the sea. The very utensil. It’d be easy to want to quote young Henry Thoreau when thinking of Ted — but why Henry, when we have Ted? —

And if he sings

                          with care,

he sings 

                   a new song

made of old

                     flints struck.

O.K. He sings his source.

and then some. Do yourself a favor and say hello.

                                                — Bob Arnold

       Bob Arnold & Theodore Enslin

Fort Atkinson, WI., 2003

  photo by Susan Arnold

L I N K   T O   T H E   R E A D I N G:

https://mville-edu.zoom.us/j/81912000037

also:

PENN SOUND

PHILIP WHALEN (BOLINAS, KYOTO, ZURICH) ~

TALKIN' CID CORMAN ~

Cid Corman in his Kyoto, Japan study
( avalanche )

Kelly Writers House pays host to two events celebrating the work of Cid Corman:

Yesterday U Penn showed a panel discussion and reading of Cid Corman. Many asked why I wasn't invited. They don't get that academics don't invite non-academics, unless, of course, they are famous and have a drawing card. In that situation even Cid wouldn't have been invited, and often he wasn't. One more irony in the road show of poetry in America. I made a link on the Birdhouse for this duo-event in case anyone wanted to watch the program. It had some fine moments.

BRONK-TO-CORMAN ~

william bronk

More correspondence (all Bronk) that has come my way on a typical circuitous route from some place in the US to someplace overseas and bounced back to Vermont. I don't mind, it gets here. The letters are one more essential back-feeder into the workings of William Bronk, a poet crucially still unknown to many readers.

As I wrote to my Cid Corman drug supplier (remember to chuckle people, laughter is good for you): 

Here, to my mind, via Bronk (who did write me a very brief letter once upon a time relating to Cid) is his core thinking at least on his poetry (1961): " I am after "the weight, the texture, the strength," not of words but of statements, something initially more static than you are, the shape of the rocks as they lie against each other not the sound they make as they tumble over together. What was breath in your metaphor becomes rocks in mine to your great disadvantage but this is my letter and I'll make the metaphors." I think of two poets — you and Joe Massey, who may, just may, over time be thought of two poets after Cid and Bronk who distilled both their mannerisms from their poetry into your own. A fine blend. . .

. . .Of course since early 1974 I went through with Cid his dismissal by Bronk. I can well understand why both men did what they did since they essentially acted on their own personalities, and these were largely different, but complimentary with intent. It's curious what we become. Bronk was a Dartmouth man (we took you to the town, remember the rocking chairs on the porch?) and Cid was anything but. Bronk was small town a wee bit west of New England but still very much of old New England stock. Once upon a time Susan and I went to Bronk's town, he was still alive, and walked down his street, found his large Victorian home, attractive front yard, wide berth porch, winding to disappear behind the house driveway, and looked around at the surroundings. In these letters when he gets up off the porch to take a walk, I know, somewhat, where he was walking. There was one used bookstore in town, a pretty good one, Bronk sold books from his personal library to the store and I found some of these and bought what I could find, they also interested me. In the back of the store was tucked away a magic shop. It was ideal for our purposes because it kept Carson enthralled for hours. Like my father, Bronk was involved in lumber and coal, which he mentions very little in his letters or writing. Cid was the champion of inclusion and thinking he knew best about people and for people (and he was often right), but when he was wrong (as he mishandled some of Bronk, certainly not all) he hit his thumb with his own hammer. Bronk admits that without Cid his poetry may never have been seen. Cid brought it by his persistence and desire to the eyes of Jim Weil and James Laughlin and other publishers watching the pulse of Origin.

[ BA ]

http://archive.emilydickinson.org/titanic/material/archive/bronkintro.html

http://archive.emilydickinson.org/titanic/material/archive/bronkletters.html

http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Bronk.php


http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Corman.php

photo by Lisa Mahoney

cid corman


Cid Corman passed away ten years ago, yesterday, March 12.
 Instead of recognizing the day, I thought to pay attention to the next day, and the next.

Career

WMEX Radio, Boston, poetry broadcaster, 1949-51; Origin magazine and Origin Press, Ashland, MA, and Kyoto, Japan, editor, beginning 1951. Private teacher, Bari/Matera, Italy, 1956-57, Kyoto Joshidai, Japan, 1958-60, Kyoto, Japan, 1962-66, 1974-79. Sister City Tea House, Boston, owner, operator, teacher of poetry: forever.

To come out
after a
long day's work

into snow —
the latest
version of

nothingness
and all so
light
and crisp —

as if we're
the candles
on the cake.

CC

EARTH ~

RAY DI PALMA AT PennSound