The Best American Poetry

'Tony Towle at 70' at The Poetry Project [by Ken Tucker]

This past Wednesday, The Poetry Project hosted a "Tony Towle at 70" celebration. Towle, to my mind the New York School's most distinctive lyric poet, was well-served by the procession of poets who saluted him, preceding his own reading. One of my heroes, Ron Padgett (a white popsicle-stick of serious whimsy), and the finely meticulous poet Jo Ann Wasserman each read separate selections from Towle's Memoir 1960-1963. Anne Waldman shook a bit more of the flaky plaster loose from the ceiling, while Bob Hershon worked the crowd (and it was indeed a crowd) like a savvy tummler. Nine poets in all read some of their favorite Towle poems or prose.

After them, Towle himself read, his reedy yet surging voice delivering a superb selection of some of his poetry, the dartingly vivid work of a lifetime spent considering the most precise yet offhand way of describing historical figures, the weather, the seasons, the various skylines of New York, and the conversations of friends, rivals, and those who would bring sadness into the world.

He read "On His Name":

Wandering, shipwrecked on a shoal and running into Robert Lowell
I introduced myself: “Tony Towle,”
I said, “we met briefly some years ago at a party in your home;
we have differences in style and sensibility but a general goal,
to distill from the distraction and trouble of life as a whole
what we think of literary interest, before interment in the loam.”
He replied that that was not his role,
that he preferred not to speak, since it was not his poem,
and the conversation broke off near the knoll’s island foam.

Towle told the audience he once tried to get a copy of this poem to Lowell but wasn't successful. Then with typical modesty, he added, "I don't think he would have enjoyed it, anyway."

It was one of many peaks of pleasure in a vibrant evening. Happy birthday, Mr. Towle.

Ken Tucker on David Lehman's 'Yeshiva Boys' and H. L. Hix's 'Incident Light'

We like what Ken Tucker has to say about David Lehman's Yeshiva Boys, just out from Scribner, and H.L. Hix's Incident Light (Etruscan Press):  Hix's Incident Light is a "sustained feat of emotional and intellectual representation" and Lehman's Yeshiva Boys "is always bracing and tough-minded, brimming with a rare generosity."  Read the complete reviews here. 

Congratulations David Lehman and H. L. Hix.  And a reminder:  Roughly one year ago, H. L. Hix's Twenty Questions was one of our most popular features.  

-- sdh

Mad Men: Was This a Great Season? [by Ken Tucker]

Mad Men: Was This a Great Season?

Why are there going to be rave reviews of the season finale of Mad Men festooning the internet today? Because MM creator Matthew Weiner gave his fans what they’ve been dying for all season, even if they strenuously denied wanting it — that is, liveliness, jokes, action, and even the suggestion of a few plot-line resolutions. SPOILER ALERT IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN LAST NIGHT’S MAD MEN SEASON FINALE.

Yes, the marriage of Don and Betty took a turn toward dissolution. Yes, the children clung to the parent who occasionally shows them some semblance of affection. (That would be Don; I know it’s sometimes hard to tell with the Drapers.)

But after all the agonizingly calibrated anguish that began this season with Sal’s love-that-dares-not-speak-its-name-in-1963 hotel scene, and continued on through Betty’s zombie-like attraction to a man who’s more like a safe father-figure than the safe father-figure she started being snippy with when her real father died, Mad Men finally had to get a little madcap in its season finale to keep us primed for its next batch of new episodes.

The season-ender was directed by Weiner, and it turned out to be an extremely well-choreographed, wacky 1960s sitcom about starting an ad agency, with scenes of slamming-door farce set in the hotel room where the firm of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce is taking shape. Instead of going the screw-the-viewers route his old boss David Sopranos Chase regularly travelled, Weiner brought back fan-faves, foremost among them Joan. (You know Sal cannot be far behind.

For the rest of Ken Tucker's EW piece, click here.

Ken Tucker on "Poetry You Need to Read"

Poetry you need to read: Robert Polito's 'Hollywood & God' and Amy Gerstler's 'Dearest Creature'
by Ken Tucker

Hear, hear!

Footnoting the pop culture in this week's 'Mad Men'

• Early on, Pete cuts off wife Trudy's questions by snapping, "Trudy, stop it with the Ellery Queen."

Ellery Queen was, of course, the fictional detective and pseudonym of Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee, author/star of over 20 novels and at the time of Pete's remark, probably the most well-known American detective character this side of Nero Wolfe. Two Queen mystery titles could serve as alternative-titles for this Mad Men episode: Calamity Town and The Devil To Pay.

• It was nice to see news footage other than the usual Walter Cronkite-voice-breaking moment on CBS in reporting JFK's assassination. Chet Huntley was shown leading NBC's coverage with as assist from Frank McGee and a man caught in the middle: Bill Ryan, a local WNBC news anchor in New York who would have been doing the local news at the time the news broke. Look again and you’ll see McGee on this phone with a "Robert" who’s on the scene in Dallas: That’s Robert MacNeill, who’d later co-host The MacNeill-Lehrer NewsHour on PBS.

 • Finally, the episode’s closing-credits music was Skeeter Davis's shattering 1963 hit "The End of the World." Davis was a Kentucky-born country singer who achieved cross-over pop stardom with this song, produced by Chet Atkins. While the title of the song was appropriate for the plot of this week’s Mad Men – so many characters feeling that the world was ending with the death of a young, inspiring President – the lyrics Davis sings after the music faded out last night, unheard by the TV audience, are particularly apt for stark moment when Betty told Don she didn't love him anymore:

 "Why do the birds go on singing/Why do the stars shine above/Don’t they know it’s the end of the world/It ended when I lost your love." 

--Ken Tucker

 

Congratulations Ken Tucker!

Congratulations to Ken Tucker, whose blog post Pure Country was chosen by guest editor Greil Marcus for The Best Music Writing 2009 (De Capo).  Marcus also picked writing by David Remnick, Jody Rosen, Roseanne Cash, Wendy Lesser, and many others. Scholar and journalist Daphne Carr is series editor. Get your copy here.

-- sdh

'Masterpiece Comics': 'Where classics and cartoons collide!'

There are a lot of first-rate comic-art releases just now (I recommend David Small's Stitches: A Memoir and R. Crumb's imminent, extraordinary, illustrated Book of Genesis).

But let me call your attention to Masterpiece Comics (Drawn & Quarterly), a superb concept masterfully executed by artist-writer R. Sikoryak. He's mashed together classic literature with classic comic-book art (most of the latter, for those who follows comics, with visual impersonation/homages of artists of the so-called "Silver Age"). 

Sikoryak retells Crime and Punishment as a Batman tale as drawn in the manner of Dick Sprang. He summarizes The Scarlet Letter as a Little Lulu comic. Little Nemo In Slumberland becomes the artistic pallette for The Picture of Dorian Gray.

This is not a stunt; Masterpiece Comics matches literature and comic book with careful thought for appropriate comparison, and the dialogue summarizes quite well the texts chosen. Plus, of course, it's a helluva lot of fun.

--Ken Tucker

The Best American Poetry 2009: GALA LAUNCH READING SEPTEMBER 24, 7:00 PM The New School, 66 W. 12th Street FREE

Join series editor David Lehman as he introduces an all-star line up of the following contributors to this year's volume, chosen by guest editor David Wagoner:  John Ashbery, Mark Bibbins, Suzanne Cleary, Billy Collins, Jim Cummins, Mark Doty, Margaret Gibson, Douglas Goetsch, Michael Grabell, Dolores Hayden, Jennifer Michael Hecht readingSarah Hannah's "The Safe House," Richard Howard, Tina Kelley, Philip Levine, Phillis Levin, Susan Blackwell Ramsay, James Richardson, Martha Silano, Mitch Sisskind, Craig Morgan Teicher, and Matthew Zapruder.

Here's what Entertainment Weekly's Ken Tucker has to say: Lehman’s particular theme this year is the state of poetry criticism, and he doesn’t hold back: “Poetry criticism at its worst today,” Lehman asserts, “is mean in spirit and spiteful in intent,” and he goes on from there to apply an especially vigorous flogging to the critic William Logan . . . Read all of Tucker's review here.

This from Publishers Weekly (starred review):  * From the moment series editor David Lehman invokes the myth of Jacob wrestling the Angel in his introduction, the gloves are off in this year's installment of this popular annual anthology. Lehman devotes much of his introduction to throwing jabs at longtime sparring partner and professional poetry grump William Logan,whom Lehman calls “wounded” and “thin skinned.” Guest editor Wagoner chooses to abstain from the scuffle, but there's no denying the

Nicholson Baker writes a novel about a poet compiling an anthology

It won't be published for another week or so, but may I enthusiastically recommend Nicholson Baker's The Anthologist, a new novel about a poet who has writer's block composing the introduction to a poetry anthology.

There are marvelous Bakerite meditations on W.H. Auden, the state of poetry reviewing, and the flaw of iambic pentameter in English. I think it may be his best novel since The Mezzanine, which is really saying something.

Order yours, as they say, today.

--Ken Tucker

'Mad Men' and sex: The season premiere [by Ken Tucker]

Full confession: This is, essentially, the blog post I put up this morning on Entertainment Weekly's website, where I write a daily blog. But knowing how many BAP readers are Mad Men fans, I wanted to share it and hope it sparks some discussion. Best, Ken Tucker:

Mad Men has come back with a third-season premiere chock-full of fresh details and revelations about familiar characters. I'm interested to know what you thought of the episode. I want to write here about just one subplot, though.

I’m referring to the sex scene between Sal Romano (the superb Bryan Batt) and the bellhop. I’m not saying this was the most important subplot in the premiere – certainly seeing Don Draper in his bare feet in this night’s opening shot, a symbol of the naked soul within, was the hour’s crucial hint of what’s to come in season three.

But for Sal’s repressed sexuality, something we’ve known about since the first Mad Men season, to be brought to the fore on premiere night suggests how important this element is to series creator Matthew Weiner. On one level, leaving Sal in the closet for so long (and he remains so even after last night, to everyone except Don) was merely a necessary period detail for Mad Men. Given the era, there was probably no way an out gay man could have risen to the position Sal has within the ad agency. And marrying him off to a woman who doesn’t demand much beyond his smile, his kindness, and his paycheck is also in keeping with the times.

Choosing to have Sal cruised by a horny bellhop, and to have Sal enjoy his romp while on a business trip, is one of those neat (sometimes too-neat) symmetries that Weiner regularly employs. In this case, it made dramatic sense for Sal to engage in illicit sex as much as it did (and has) for Don Draper to do so on previous business jaunts. These away-from-the-office excursions are Mad Men excuses for men to behave madly – more freely and more true to themselves than they are at work or at home. And certainly the scene was staged beautifully: We could share the anguished joy and release Sal felt. By the time this episode occurred in 1963, Allen Ginsberg may have “Howl”'ed and Frank O’Hara (the poet whose work Don read last season) had enjoyed trysts and steady relationships with a variety of male companions, but these were bohemian artists, not the buttoned-up businessmen of Mad Men.

Weiner wrote this episode, and I treasured his usual small-but-significent period details. In these scenes I'm talking about, for instance, it was great to be reminded that, once upon a time, a fire escape was actually something people used to escape from a possible fire, as we saw here. (Does anyone in a big city hotel ever think about using these rickety, rusty things in case of an emergency anymore?)

But I do think Weiner took one easy way out: In the scene near the end, on the plane ride home, Don made it clear by implication that Sal's secret is safe with him, and that he's not upset with Sal. I would hazard, however, that a guy like Don, all steely self-discipline, furtive secrets himself, and raging straight hormones, would have been (in the realism of this series) more hypocritical, and thus repelled by what he glimpsed in Sal's room. It would have freaked out Don's very (straight) soul. He may read poetry out of curiosity and despair, but Don is ultimately a social and artistic conservative: He wants Betty home waiting for him with a home-cooked meal, and remember, he dismissed the famous DDB Volkswagen "Lemon" ad campaign by saying, "I don't know what I hate about it the most."

But even for a daring drama like Mad Men, accommodations must be made: Don must remain our sympathetic hero, and a homophobe -- the "-phobe" here meaning someone frightened, not hating -- cannot be a hero.