SEE ALL AT ONCE ~

One evening, when nothing was planned — often the best way to spend a late summer

evening — and Susan was down with a bug & fever, so I read awhile up in the bedroom with

her, by the large windows looking to the river, reading by the tail end of the daylight until

there was no light and Susan had fallen asleep and I kept on reading this large and beautiful 

book, heavy on the lap, with its deep showcase of the New York School of Poets, both

generations, meaning Ashbury, O'Hara and Koch to Berrigan and them all, and while reading

I just happened to type in wanting to find on the Internet Aram Saroyan's two early books

of poems from Random House via a put-down newsman reading the poems on a major network at the time and although I couldn't find the reading I found Aram Saroyan, in bad lighting, and all the

more interesting because of his intriguing storytelling of the same time I was reading about

in this large art book and I recommend everyone listening to Aram talking, reading his poems,

laughing softly and recalling and actually hearing him read his own one word gems and later

fielding questions from a friendly room.

[ BA ]

MURDER ~

L I V E S      M A T T E R

                                              to Emmett Till

Laquan McDonald (black)

what a fine and dignified name

isn’t even 18 years old

and dead

murdered by

Jason Van Dyke (white)

a policeman

on a busy Chicago street

in plain view

execution-style

millions have died

a natural death

since Laquan McDonald

was born

but he isn’t

one of them

___________________

Bob Arnold

28 aug 2016

M O R E





U P D A T E ~ !

GARDEN TIME ~

A U T U M N      E Q U I N O X

One time I was almost ready to be born

before I had begun to remember

the palms of my hands had not yet unfurled

on the one tree of the whole of darkness

the tree before waiting the hearing tree

the left hand had not yet told the right hand

This is our time our season is now

the only time and you must wake and begin

to remember and to know who you are

you will come to remember but forgetting

comes on its own and you will try to tell what cannot be

told and you will have only

the old words and will try to use them

for the first time but the beginning

has gone from the words and there is no way

now to bring it back to them again

the right hand learns but the left hand is the prophet

Pain was waiting that time with her one key

long before the first daylight had appeared

______________________

W S     M E R W I N

Garden Time

Copper Canyon 2016

OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK ~

M O R E

go get 'em

WORKING CLASS HERO ~

C.P. CAVAFY ~

House With Garden (1917)





I wanted to have a home in the country

with a very large garden — not so much

for the flowers, the trees, and the greenery

(certainly there will be that, too; it's so lovely)

but for me to have animals. Ah to have animals!

Seven cats at least — two completely black,

and, for contrast, two as white as snow.

A parrot, quite substantial, so I can listen to him

saying things with emphasis and conviction.

As for dogs, I do believe that three will be enough.

I should like two horses, too (ponies are nice).

And absolutely three or four of those remarkable,

those genial animals, donkeys,

to sit around lazily, to rejoice in their well-being.



______________________


C.P Cavafy
COLLECTED POEMS
translated from the Greek by Daniel Mendelsohn
Knopf, 2009

BEAUTY ~

Beauty

Traveling by car

On the interstate

North, along with many

Others, the beauty

Of the day is a farmer

And his team of work

Horses — across the median

And the other highway —

Gallantly plowing a field,

And neither seeing or

Caring if we see how good

Some of us still live

Grain

Two farm boys hike

Into a high pasture

Lit by rain clouds,

Scaled of singing birds,

And call out the names or

Favorite expressions of the

Dozen cows grazing who stomp

At a run uphill where

Boys and cows gather

In a circle of affection —

Tails twitching, hands slapping

Hide — all heads spilled to

A scattered pail of grain

Can You Imagine

Can you imagine this

Being your life at six

Years old walking out

The woodshed door as

A blue heron lifts up

From our old truck

And you run inside

Even though you

May be late for

School to tell us

About the bird this

Big (arms can’t spread

Yet big enough) as

We look into your

Expression loving that

Bird we missed

A Gift for the Living

We heard them —

But it was a moment

Before we saw them

Clear the trees —

I counted 66 or more

And he was still

Counting, his hand

To the sun, as

                                           Geese flew over

                                                              

                                                              

________________________

B O B     A R N O L D

Once In Vermont

Gnomon

NONTHINKING MEETS NONFEELING ~

FAIRFIELD PORTER (LETTERS) ~

F A I R F I E L D     P O R  T E R

L  E  T  T  E  R  S

a book that fell between the cracks

slender, tidy, and a compass

to the artist

DESTRUCTION AND SORROW BENEATH THE HEAVENS ~

 "It is important to know that, in the Confucian tradition,
morality was an aesthetic criterion: for Confucius, a work was
beautiful that taught one the good. In contrast, contemporary
art is floundering in various muddied formal objectives, and as
far as I can judge, in Europe the situation is the same. As if it
were possible to elevate, among the most fundamental factors 
of these works, one of them — the aesthetic — and simply 
renounce the others, the most essential: the criterion of morality.
In my opinion, this is partially the reason for the general trend
by which the readership of high literature has radically dropped.
And this is also the reason for poetry having lost its leading role.

   So that, well, now I would simply finish what I have to say by
repeating, and emphasizing, that the work of the artist is to find
his own relation to his own culture. The artist of today should
be the same as they were in the days of old: in order to bring forth
their works, they must withdraw from the world, they must keep
a great distance from it and they must create a completely individual
way of life. An artist cannot be identical with a member of society.
His role, his significance is extraordinary — if he loses it, nothing
will come in its place."


XIAO HAI speaks with LASZLO KRASZNAHORAKI

Destruction and Sorrow Beneath the Heavens
Seagull Books

GERARD BELLAART ~

G E R A R D     B E L L A A R T

When I look at Gerard Bellaart's artworks, I see three separate but integrated aspects of his mastery: the large paintings that bring a dream world out of hiding; the drawings and etchings that range in emotion from intense frenzy to delicate contemplation both in subject matter and technique; and the inked printings of various kinds -- such as the "fragmentations" and "stenciled texts," as he calls them -- which strike the eye with brilliant motifs based on ideas taken from literary sources. 

With an artist as prolific as Bellaart, it is easy to lose sight of what he is best at or what he himself may consider the summit of his achievement. From the sheer number and size of his most recent paintings, it would be reasonable to say they are his most important works not only because he has devoted so much energy to them but because they are the most ambitious. The paintings of the last dozen years or so deepen and broaden themes that have persisted from the beginning. They recapitulate and summarize on a more elaborate scale his vision of a cryptic world already recognizable in many of the smaller works going as far back as his etchings of the 1970s. 

Bellaart's drawings look spontaneous, and I have no doubt that many of them are, but you can be sure they are supported by years of preparation. His explorations evolve from one to another with a freewheeling ease that could only come from the exacting skill of a draughtsman who has been deeply trained. And while the subterranean creatures of his paintings may differ in magnitude and degree of abstraction from the figures in his drawings, their similarity is obvious.

If I had to single out what I find most appealing in Bellaart’s work, a difficult if not impossible task, it is his portraiture. The portraits capture their subjects with a psychic acuity that brings their interior moods to the surface. It seems to me each one is a reflection of Bellaart himself, not in their likenesses (which are in fact tellingly accurate), but in their modes of expression. For example, the portrait of Willem de Kooning, whom Bellaart reveres, is drawn with a line as sensitive as a poem by Keats. The dual portraits of William S. Burroughs exhibit polar sides of Burroughs’s personality -- one demonic, the other pensive -- with opposing techniques suggesting brutal cruelty and thoughtful reflection.

The portrait of Roger Blin, a favorite of mine, personifies a freely flowing exuberance that is at the same time deadly serious, a description also applicable to Bellaart. But the most mysterious portrait is the one that he drew of himself in 2013. He calls it “a furtive self portrait,” indicating something oblique about it. What it suggests to me in its surprising but subtle likeness is a secret identity that dates back centuries, perhaps to the 15th-century Dutch printer-artist Jacob Bellaert from whom he is descended.

Bellaart has never wanted to be famous. One could even say the protean nature of his output has helped keep it that way by muddling his artistic identity. But, in fact, he has always appreciated being unknown, taking as his credo what the 19th-century Belgian printmaker and artist Felicien Rops said: “The idea of being known repels me. I value my obscurity; I have turned it into a trait.” And so it remains.

Jan Herman New York 4 XII 2015

JOHN LE CARRE ~

J O H N     L E     C A R R E

I didn't want this brambly book to end — brambly because we end up everywhere this spy master in his memoir and essays and asides-of-a- sort takes us. Deep into Russia, of course, and Palestine, Israel, forever Germany. Spies just love Germany to this day, it must be the weather, the aura, the type of cities, the names of the cities. As Walter Benjamin would remind us, "More quickly than Moscow itself, one gets to know Berlin through Moscow." And le Carre, master of espionage looks like a spy, even though he claims he has been out of that business since he was about 30, showing forth with his third novel and most known The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963) . When he comes to America it is Hollywood. He writes that of all the films made from his good books, his favorite films were the ones that were almost made from his books. It takes a long time to finish this book of just 300 pages because you are going to be sent into every corner. The author's father was a con man, or a saint, depending. His mother never hugged him, the con man (saint) did. He writes well of spies, betrayal, the degree of research into his books which takes him into dangerous places where I bet Philip Roth has never been. There is almost a medical precision to every piece even though the author looks comfortable and casual in his suit without a tie, sitting in a simple chair, on concrete against a concrete wall, arms and legs crossed, a pinkie ring on one hand while awaiting interrogation. It could have been a more normal and long-winded and gallant book. That it comes brambly may mean the author isn't giving away all the secrets.

[ BA ]

Viking ~ 2016