New and Selected Poems 1974-2004 Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  New Poems

  Gravestones

  Heroic

  Socrates and I

  Manners

  Verona

  A Colleague Confesses

  In Paris

  Delphinium

  In the Coffee Shop

  Window Boxes

  The Next Life

  Our Death

  From a Practical Reader

  The Master of Metaphor

  Sensible Summers

  Manifesto

  World History

  The Actor

  Dream Theory

  Candles

  from A House of My Own (1974)

  Useful Advice

  Students

  Relatives

  Knots

  from ClimbingDown (1976)

  Ingratitude

  The Homeowner

  The Peaceable Kingdom

  Praise for My Heart

  Native Son

  from Signs andWonders (1979)

  Listeners

  Near Idaville

  Carpentry

  Snow

  The Tree

  Sunday

  Grandmother and I

  A Plea for More Time

  The Band

  from The Near World (1985)

  Hector’s Return

  At the Corner

  The Midlands

  Beauty Exposed

  Captain Cook

  At Home with Cézanne

  More Music

  What Has Become of Them

  Later

  Charity

  Time Heals All Wounds

  from The Outskirts of Troy (1988)

  Heinrich Schliemann

  The Promised Land

  Henry James and Hester Street

  Visiting a Friend Near Sagamon Hill

  Twenty Years

  Little League

  Fear of the Dark

  On the Soul

  At Becky’s Piano Recital

  The Circus

  On the Way to School

  from Meetings with Time (1992)

  The Photograph

  Defining Time

  My Guardians

  Tuesday at First Presbyterian

  The Window in Spring

  Haven

  Adventure

  The Bill of Rights

  The Invalid

  The Anthropic Cosmological Principle

  Unfinished Symphony

  Mildew

  Night Walk

  Infidel

  My Moses

  Delaware Park, 1990

  Spring Letter

  Invitation

  No Shame

  from Ranking the Wishes (1997)

  Loss

  Pendulum

  Days of Heaven

  To Reason

  Cedar Point

  The Great Day

  Seven Days

  Sarit Narai

  Aunt Celia, 1961

  All I’ve Wanted

  Integer

  Distinctions

  Two or Three Wishes

  Grace

  Bivouac Near Trenton

  Consolation

  Writing at Night

  As If

  Starry Night

  Still Life

  Your City

  from Practical Gods (2001)

  A Priest of Hermes

  Saint Francis and the Nun

  Department Store

  Not the Idle

  Gelati

  To a Pagan

  History

  School Days

  Prophet

  Delphi

  Pride

  On the Bus to Utica

  Jesus Freaks

  The Serpent to Adam

  View of Delft

  A Chance for the Soul

  Audience

  A Letter from Mary in the Tyrol

  Numbers

  The Fallen

  Eurydice

  The Lace Maker

  Progressive Health

  More Art

  Bashō

  Improbable Story

  Bishop Berkeley

  Sunrise

  Eternal Poetry

  In the Short Term

  Guardian Angel

  May Jen

  Eternal Life

  The God Who Loves You

  PENGUIN POETS

  Also by Carl Dennis

  POETRY

  A House of My Own

  Climbing Down

  Signs and Wonders

  The Near World

  The Outskirts of Troy

  Meetings with Time

  Ranking the Wishes

  Practical Gods

  PROSE

  Poetry as Persuasion

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published in Penguin Books 2004

  Copyright © Carl Dennis, 2004

  All rights reserved

  The selections from Ranking the Wishes and Practical Gods are

  Pages vii and viii constitute an extension of this copyright page.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA

  Dennis, Carl, 1939-

  [Poems. Selections]

  New and selected poems, 1974-2004 / Carl Dennis.

  p. cm.

  ISBN : 978-1-4406-5033-8

  I. Title.

  PS3554.E535N’.54—dc22 2003060720

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

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  Version_2

  For Thomas Centolella,

  Mark Halliday, and

  Tony Hoagland

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks are due to the editors of the following magazines, in which poems that were later published in book form first appeared:

  From NEW POEMS—American Scholar (“Socrates and I”), Atlanta Review (“Sensible Summers”), Hunger Mountain (“The Actor”), The Paris Review (“Our Death” and “Window Boxes”), Parnassus (“Dream Theory”), Poetry (“Candles,” “A Colleague Confesses,” “Delphinium,” “In Paris,” “The Master of Metaphor,” “The Next Life,” and “World History”), Poetry International (“Verona”), Salmagundi (“Gravestones,” “In the Coffee Shop,” and “Manners”), and Smartish Pace (“From a Practical Reader”)

  From A HOUSE OF MY OWN, ©1974 by Carl Dennis, originally published by George Braziller—Concerning Poetry (“Useful Advice”), Ktaadn (“Students�
��), Modern Poetry Studies (“Knots”), and The New Yorker (“Relatives”)

  From CLIMBING DOWN, ©1976 by Carl Dennis, originally published by George Braziller—Crazy Horse (“The Peaceable Kingdom”) and Poetry Northwest (“Native Son”)

  From SIGNS AND WONDERS, ©1979 by Carl Dennis, originally published by Princeton University Press—Concerning Poetry (“Carpentry”), Laurel Review (“Near Idaville”), The New Yorker (“Snow”), Salmagundi (“Grandmother and I”), South Dakota Review (“The Tree”), and Virginia Quarterly Review (“The Band”)

  From THE NEAR WORLD, ©1985 by Carl Dennis, originally published by William Morrow and Company—American Poetry Review (“Charity”), Kenyon Review (“What Has Become of Them”), The New Republic (“Hector’s Return” and “Later”), The New Yorker (“The Midlands” and “More Music”), and Salmagundi (“At Home with Cézanne,” “Beauty Exposed,” and “Captain Cook”)

  From THE OUTSKIRTS OF TROY, ©1988 by Carl Dennis, originally published by William Morrow and Company—Ironwood (“At Becky’s Piano Recital”), The New Yorker (“On the Soul”), Poetry (“Fear of the Dark,” “Heinrich Schliemann,” and “On the Way to School”), Salmagundi (“Henry James and Hester Street” and “The Promised Land”), and Sonora Review (Part III of “Twenty Years”)

  From MEETINGS WITH TIME, ©1992 by Carl Dennis, originally published by Viking Penguin—Agni (“Infidels”), American Poetry Review (“Unfinished Symphony”), Denver Quarterly (“Adventure,” “The Bill of Rights,” and “Haven”), Kenyon Review (“Tuesday at First Presbyterian”), Poetry (“Defining Time,” “No Shame,” “Spring Letter,” and “The Window”), Prairie Schooner (“Night Walk” and “The Photograph”), Salmagundi (“The Anthropic Cosmological Principle”), Shenandoah (“The Window in the Spring”), and Virginia Quarterly Review (“My Guardians”)

  From RANKING THE WISHES, ©1997 by Carl Dennis, published by Penguin Books—Agni (“All I’ve Wanted”), American Poetry Review (“Days of Heaven,” “Pendulum,” and “Sarit Narai”), Atlantic Monthly (“Bivouac Near Trenton”), Kenyon Review (“Seven Days” and “Two or Three Wishes”), The New Republic (“Consolation” and “Grace”), The Paris Review (“The Great Day” and “Integer”), Ploughshares (“Distinctions” and “Writing at Night”), Poetry (“As If,” “Loss,” “Still Life,” and “To Reason”), and Virginia Quarterly Review (“Starry Night” and “Your City”)

  From PRACTICAL GODS, ©2001 by Carl Dennis, published by Penguin Books—American Poetry Monthly (“More Art”), American Poetry Review (“Audience”), American Scholar (“Eurydice”), The Nation (“To a Pagan”), The New Republic (“Bashō,” “Bishop Berkeley,” “History,” and “On the Bus to Utica”), Pivot (“Gelati”), Poetry (“Eternal Life,” “Eternal Poetry,” “Jesus Freaks,” “Not the Idle,” “Progressive Health,” “Prophet,” “Saint Francis and the Nun,” “School Days,” and “Sunrise”), Prairie Schooner (“The Serpent to Adam”), Salmagundi (“The God Who Loves You,” “The Lace Maker,” “A Letter from Mary in the Tyrol,” and “View of Delft”), and Tri-Quarterly (“May Jen”)

  I also want to thank the generous friends who gave me valuable criticism on many of these poems: Charles Altieri, Thomas Centolella, Alan Feldman, Mark Halliday, Tony Hoagland, and Martin Pops.

  New Poems

  Gravestones

  It’s easy to mock sarcophagi for their wish to impress us,

  But not the modest tablets with their brief inscriptions:

  “Beloved wife,” “beloved husband,” parent or child

  Or friend. One stone in Buffalo’s Forest Lawn,

  Just a few steps from the grave of Millard Fillmore,

  Says only, “Not here, not here,”

  Under a woman’s name, no birth or death date.

  Not here if you seek her spirit, seems the simplest reading,

  Her spirit having ascended to its real home.

  Or else the doubling of the phrase alters the mood

  From assertive finality to wish, to prayer:

  May her essence be active elsewhere still,

  Not buried here. It’s either that or a cry of loss:

  Wherever she is, she isn’t here anymore

  Alive and well, casting a light around her

  To restore our spirits. As for the stones too worn

  To be read, their silence advises the passersby

  To put away the longing to be remembered

  And concentrate on the wish to lie

  Calm on their deathbeds, friends and family

  Pressing in close for a final blessing.

  Whoever can’t witness the end, or won’t,

  May visit the grave to transact some private business.

  Now that you’re far away, I can forgive you.

  Or now that you’re quiet you can forgive me.

  Only a portion of me was turned against you.

  The better portion stood in the wings beside the other,

  And was just as ready to make an entrance

  When the cue came and give a speech as heartfelt

  As the bitter words that elbowed their way on stage.

  Listen. You can sleep later. Until you help,

  Sleep will never visit you anyway

  If you’re still the person you used to be

  And understand how much you’re needed,

  How a sign from you can set me free.

  Heroic

  “There is no comfort in life away from people

  Who care for you,” writes Minny Temple,

  In 1869, from Newport, where she’s resting

  After the third episode, in three days,

  Of coughing blood. “Not a heroic statement,”

  She adds, “I’m fully aware.”

  At the age of twenty-three, “heroic” for her

  Means lofty and lonely, a lone commitment

  She supposes herself too needy to carry through.

  Still, her passion for life as death approaches

  Now seems heroic enough, her concern

  With feeling deeply and thinking rightly.

  “Don’t be afraid of hurting my feelings,”

  She writes to her cousin Henry, who’s mentioned

  How different he thinks they are, but withheld particulars,

  “Though there’s no one,” she adds, “whose sympathy

  Would encourage me so much as yours.”

  She’s prepared to listen humbly “to the worst”

  If it helps improve her fidelity to her “deepest instincts.”

  Her belief that such fidelity is a high vocation

  Not to be abandoned as her body abandons her

  Inspired her cousin, thirty years later,

  To provide a woman like her with a plot and setting

  Fit for the heroine of a tragedy.

  Though Minny wouldn’t have wanted to die in Venice

  Away from her family, like James’s protagonist,

  In a palace that suits a princess, she did want to see Europe

  Before the end. Too bad no one she cared to go with

  Was able to take her, or willing, though her doctor

  Opined that a warmer climate would do her good.

  It seems heroic of her not to have asked her cousin

  And not to have blamed him for never offering.

  Heroic to believe “dear Harry” a hero

  For steaming off by himself toward the independence

  His writing required, a mistress more demanding

  Than any invalid friend, more jealous.

  If he didn’t regret his choice, he still may have felt his spirit

  Smaller than hers. The spirit he gives his heroine

  Is large enough to forgive her friends their inconstancy.

  Bereft as they leave her feeling, she spreads her wings

  With a grace unstinted and unconditional

  That the author knew he could not provide.

  Socrates and I

  Faced with his d
ecision after the assembly

  Votes against him and he’s led back to his cell,

  I’d have listened to his friends’ escape plan.

  Still I’m glad he refuses, glad that for him

  Breaking the laws of Athens,

  Even when they’re applied unjustly,

  Would be like breaking the hearts of parents

  Who’ve never been false to their obligations.

  It does me good to see him defining self-interest

  As something larger than self-protection.

  It makes me want to believe that if my Athens

  Here in western New York, on the Niagara,

  Had him arrested as a public menace,

  He wouldn’t promise our Common Council

  That if they released him without a trial

  He’d talk from then on only with friends,

  In private, as I might promise.

  It’s bracing to meet a man who’s certain

  There’s only one life for him, questioning everyone.

  As for the afterlife, he imagines asking the dead

  Just what he’s asked the living—what’s justice, what’s piety,

  Who’s wise, who only seems so—though in Hades

  He could talk without fear of interruption.

  In that regard Buffalo’s an improvement too.

  I can’t blame anyone but myself if I find no time