the year in poetry, part 4: jim harrison's IN SEARCH OF SMALL GODS

'friends'
by jim harrison

dogs, departed companions,
i told you that the sky would fall in
and it did.
how will we see each other again
when we're without eyes?
we'll figure it out
as we used to when you led me back
to the cabin in the forest in the dark.

the year in poetry, part 3: liam powell's A SERIES OF HYPOTHETICALS

'a series of hypotheticals'
by liam powell

we are lovers, a strange conflation

of odors and burrs

without narrative

the year in poetry, part 2: ben mazer's JANUARY 2008

(page 19)
by ben mazer

i hunt the houses where you left your mark
in wooden objects and paint surfaces
for him or her. the hesitating dark
unveils your love in words that never cease
illuminating rooms that we have left
or you left earlier, replaying scenes
where secrets whisper louder and arrest
the underground oblivion of our dreams.
because you put a gun to love my love
dies full of bullets under the plane tree.
you are laughing almost from above
at nothing really, what we choose to see
because you meant in doing what you did
the full extent of love before you died.

the year in poetry, part 1: aaron fagan's ECHO TRAIN

'delirium's elegance'
by aaron fagan

in paris,
in a life
before
this one,
i rode a
stationary
bicycle in
the cellar
of a salon
to keep
hairdryers
running
upstairs,
through
electricity
shortages,
just after
the war,
for dior.

new year's preparations

am going back out into it for the third winter in a row. predawns riding through boston on my bicycle, through the snow and sleet, to get home from work at the bar. the charles is icing over as always. it is more relaxing than i remember, getting intimate with all the seasons.

to the liquor store for madeira and blackstrap rum, for eggnog, for a party.
am considering making a little list--the year in poetry. the year in music is already on my ipod (johnny cash's last, tom petty's and josh rouse's and bettye lavette's and the national's and punch brothers' latest, martha wainwright's edith piaf revival (all french all live in NYC)). the year in poetry should be posted as one poem a piece from each collection i loved. will post in discerption over the course of the day.
we need to finishing repainting the bathroom. we need things to put on the walls...

sorry, we made a slight change in plans. for new year's eve, cheese and spumante, at home. for new year's day/night, eggnog with bacardi anejo and calvados, at friends'. the shopping is done, now my last poem of the year:
.
.
.
my body is far out
being rocked by the waves
waiting for me to find it
and set it straight

the small, wild creatures
that fell under my poetry
lifeandlimb
come back now
with strange faces
that call me
brother
father
friend
say
lend a hand

well, you can have it
my name
my wife and son
my late nights
under water

i wake up and
every bone
fiber of my flesh
has its own intention
we move
a herd
through the kitchen
and the blue shadows of morning
i smoke a cigarette
i drink a glass of whiskey
i wait for a song
to come

notes towards contemplating a pivot

nowadays, nothing really is unfashionable, though i think it should be said that a preponderance of our densest poetry relies on allusion and reference to cause its sinking feeling. [as readers] we've learned to hook on to words and phrases as our portals to intention, so what can we do with the naif who still insists on navigating with code and trope (which is to insist on originality, tropes being the bases of myths, and myths being the shibboleths of educations)? they are the basic remove from the vogelschreien that all our prettiest poets were once obsessed with imitating. ashbery is one such poet, building a referendum of birdcalls that have given up their sources, though he is decidedly diatonous, a song machine.
one answer is, to be the minor ashbery, meeting him halfway. pastiches with purpose. the difference here is human error, which ashbery has every-one believing he's somehow circumnavigated (that is the implicit claim that his detractors and augmentors routinely make). these qualified imitators are the preponderance of allusionists that have cut their own umbilical cords. it's a deadend, it seems to me. there's nowhere to go for the orpheus who is terrified of looking back. he can only sing the old songs, insisting on progress. he's cursed, haunted, by the thought of substance immemorial. when he finally gets torn to pieces, his head will spin in the current. and ashbery is a puny river to drown in, though time will be the better judge of that than i.
the poetry that insists on being read through is hermeneutic, wants to be known in toto. for the poet, this amounts to authority, remaking the self that is lost to time, a record of a second self suggested by the genius of the first. we should make our most fathoming thoughts mnemonic, and keep them to ourselves even as we commit them to paper and publishment. the reader, likewise, finds in the otherastext the possibility of a self.