Indignant

Here's a fragment of another long poem by Cashberg, written in the mid 50s.  You can see that Ashbery's style of the md-seventies is heavily indebted to Cashberg's:


As we sifted through the hotel archives of past indignations

the white hot edges of them burned through our memory,

though the root causes were forgotten: the way the word demotic

does not belong, itself, to any vernacular, and thus was misunderstood

by those to whom it was directed. They were right to be insulted,

perhaps.  So too, the prize designed for the undiscovered village crank

genius went, as always, to the Princeton professor du jour.  Are you getting this down?

Are you taking notes quickly enough, ma cherie? I thought not.

My sprezzetura was taken as simple carelessness, but to correct the mistake

would have made it all the worse, limping into twilight-burnished

corridors, under cover of stale leaves...





  

In the Wreckage

In the wreckage

of yesterday

I try

to find today's

meat and potatoes

How to Surrealism

Cashberg's other masterpiece of the early 70 is How to Surrealism.  This long poem goes for the opposite effect attained by the semantic saturation of Brackishness Scruple.  It aims instead of the semantic diffuseness and non-repetition. He said that his aim was to avoid the development of any thematic threads, but that has not prevented critics from reducing it to a kind of quest narrative, in which the poet-hero makes his way through a labyrinthine landscape in search of the perfect musical phrase.  I offer a brief sampling of this 700 page poem:



Arrest. Hysterocommuncal. Brackish. Mudlip. Froggish. Imp.  Stereoderivative.

Greenlight. Densehouse. Immune. Ity.  Foreigneity.  Garage. Toadfill. The.

Asteriskite.  How? Mumblebirds. Championkite. No. Isthmus.  Isthmus.

Sur. To. Tainment.  Brockstyle. Fandom. Austerishity. Sheepishtude.

Hunger. Hattrick. Mysteriousheit.  Under. Mambo.

Ach!  Moonbroom. Fingerscale.  Fingerclaw.  Ugh.

Peninsularlarlar.  Umpteenth. Clinging.

Howitzer. Tulane. Surfeit.  Howitzer. Tulane. Surfeit.

Howitzer. Tulane. Surfeit.  Howitzer. Tulane. Surfeit.

Arugula. Impress. Naturaleza.  Zippified.

Mustardine.  Goateesimilitude.

Why. Bitters. Turpentudinous.

Derive.

Ascot. Benjaminish. Restitude. Amore. Puck. Margarine. Awe. Mainline. Lagging. Hurt. Flog.

Asterdine. Mug. Hantine. Lake.

Howitzer. Tulane. Surfeit.  Howitzer. Tulane. Surfeit.

Never. Impactifullness.

Haste.

Deterioration. Binding. Differential. Genius. Sacred.

Missment. Thole. Snifter.  Banal.

Mugrunt. In.

However. Twostep. Surgeon. Aggress.

Hypnotonormativity. Whether.

Vista. Masculinitad.  Obviate. Osteoneurosis.  Illfit.  

BRACKISHNESS SCRUPLE

Jack Cashberg's BRACKISHNESS SCRUPLE is one of the lost masterpieces of postmodern literature. Published by Black Sparrow Press in 1970s in a limited edition of 40 copies, numbered and signed by the author, this 500-page poem was never anthologized, due to the author's refusal to compromise the work's integrity. It is with some trepidation, then, that I offer this all too brief excerpt. To the critic who called the work "a tedious exercise in semantic saturation" he replied: "don't you think I know that, you fucking idiot." To the Freudian critic who associated brackishness with the id and scruple with the superego he was equally withering. Though often accused of copying Coolidge and Ashbery, he always maintained that his own Self-Portrait in a Bowler Hat was published 10 years before Ashbery's similarly titled work. 


Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Hindemith. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness

scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  So much depends. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness

scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Upon. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness

scruple. A. Brackishness scruple.  Red. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness

scruple.  So many. Brackishness scruple.  Wheel. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Ple. Barrow. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness

scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Hindemith. Glazed.

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple. With Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Rain. Brackishness scruple.  I had not thought death

had undone. Brackishness scruple.  Ish. Brackishness scruple.  Water. Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  So many Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.

Beside. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness scruple.  The. Brackishness stumble.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness stumble.  White. Among twenty snowy mountains. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness

scruple.  Brackishness scruple. Of Man's first disobedience. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness

scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Stumble. Brackishness

scruple.  Hindemith. Brackishness scruple.  Ish. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness stumble.  Brackishness scruple.  Hindemith. Brackishness

scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Ish. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness

scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  And the. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple. Brack. Back.

Ple. Ple. Ple Ple. Ness. Brackishness scruple.  Apple pie. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Hindemith. Brackishness

scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Fruit. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness

scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Of That. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness

scruple.  Brackishness scruple. Scruple stumble.  Scruple stumble.  Scruple stumble.  Scruple

stumble.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple. Ness.

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple. The only

moving thing. Brack. Brack. Ple. Ple. Ple Ple. Ness. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness scruple.  Hindemith. Glazed. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  With

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Rain.

Brackishness scruple.  I had not thought death had undone. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness

scruple.  Water. Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  So many

Brackishness scruple. Brackishness scruple. Beside.Hindemith stumble. Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.

Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple.  Brackishness scruple. Brack. Brack. Ple. Ple. Ple Ple.

Sincerity Kincade

SOFT DREAMS


I have soft dreams, the texture of ancient silk.

They take me to fragrant palm isles, billowing

and shimmering sheets of whiteness and bliss.

I awake from them rested and well-put-together

like an actress in a movie-scene awakening in utter felinity

and femininity.



...Others are coarse, delivered in strange packages on my doorstep.

But those will be discussed in their due time...

***

I've discovered this poem by Sincerity Kincade in the Spencer Library here at KU, written by hand in the margins of a book by a more prominent poet. I haven't authenticated the handwriting yet but the poem is signed by her and has her characteristic lightness of touch and ethereality.

Kincade has often been attacked by sexist critics for her unabashed celebrations of her own womanhood, or sentimentality, and for a certain preciosity. In fact, her poetry is a wily trap designed to expose this very sexism, according to some feminist critics. Others have celebrated it as the heartfelt confessions of a tragically misunderstood soul.

Flamenco Blues / Statement of poetics (two poems by Icarus Jonson)

FLAMENCO BLUES

Check the jails and the morgues
for my soul

¡Ay, madre!  

Check the bars
bars and hospitals
for it

¡Niña de mi corazón!

Check my usual places
haunts and homes
for my body

¡Ay, madre,
niña de mi corazón!  


***


STATEMENT OF POETICS FOR A NEVER-PUBLISHED ANTHOLOGY

There are few things on earth--softer

than--a hard-boiled egg--

if you think about it--

my heart--too--is soft--

underneath this hard shell--

my impregnable--poems.

HAUNTING BEAUTY

Phyllis Phyllis is often denigrated as a humorless disciple of Jorie Graham and Jack Cashberg, but the poem "Haunting Beauty" is certainly a masterpiece. Harold Bloom once called it "a poem of haunting beauty."

Haunting Beauty: In Memory of Jack Cashberg


I am haunted by beauty; it haunts me. It: strange sexless pronoun for it,
epicene like nothing else under the sun. What if I and you had a gender in English?
Then we would better know the identity of lovers
in old love letters! I sit down at my desk to pay the bills,
but what of the bills of more transcendent sort?
Who will pay them while iridescence dissipates in advance of the storm?
Out the window there is something that still lingers, haunts if you will,
(but what you are we talking about? the masculine you would ruin the mood
though you were masculine singular in life, to my feminine plural)
or is that only a figure of speechlessness,
an alabaster figurine amid my own haunting ruins.
I sigh awhile, reflecting on the loss of such a significant voice
in American poetry. Who could find a ghostly houserhyme for that?  

Given Name

I had to fight for my name

though I was given it

[with little right: Pa warn't no Daedalus

though handy with the jigsaw and the chainsaw

{¡Bulging Muscles! though saw the wild look to my eyes

and shirked away (then I knew I was crazier than Jesus






Icarus Jonson founded the hard-boiled school of American poetry sometime in the late 40s. He is known for his unconventional and expressive punctuation and unsentimental view of life, as well as his feuds with Jack Cashberg and Valance Fullerton. Biographical details are sketchy.

Phyllis Phyllis

I've decided to collect an anthology of six of my favorite undiscovered poets:

Jack Cashberg

Sincerity Kincade

Icarus Jonson

Chaplin O'Mallus

Phyllis Phyllis

Valance Fullerton

Stay tuned...

Each poet will be represented by 7 poems of variable length.  There are two male poets here, two female, and two whose gender I have little idea about.  I still need a title for the anthology, but the idea only occurred to me 10 minutes ago so don't rush me.