Bruce Covey presents Ron Padgett

Dearest Reader, Coconut is pleased to present a poignant retelling of the demise of Empedocles, the Greek philosopher who first hypothesized the existence of the four classical elements and, according to legend, committed suicide by flinging himself into the flames of Mt. Etna. Its author, Ron Padgett, is my favorite poet, one of the very first I begged to contribute to my fledgling webzine more than three years ago! When I was in high school, his poems, along with Ted Berrigan’s, were the first poems I read and loved (in Paul Carroll’s The Young American Poets, which just happened to be in my high school library), making me think I wanted to be a poet too. His book Toujours L’Amour, along with Ted Berrigan’s Many Happy Returns, was the first contemporary poetry book I ever bought (at the Yale Coop in New Haven,CT—still in high school). His poem “Sweet Pea” is the loveliest of love poems, rivaled only by his “Love Poem,” which begins with a tribute to Ohio Blue Tip matches. Surely you already own several of his books—How to Be Perfect, perhaps, or You Never Know, or the wonderful Poems I Guess I Wrote or at least his Teachers and Writers Handbook of Poetic Forms or the new selection of Kenneth Koch poems he edited?  If not, in order to promote poetic karma and natural harmony and to save your good-poetry-reader reputation, please visit your local independent bookseller upon dawn’s commencement! (Oh, and don’t forget to check out Coconut Two, where “Death of Empedocles” first appeared! Not my best-designed cover, I must admit!)

-- Bruce Covey

The Death of Empedocles

Five fingers on each hand, five
toes on each foot, that's enough.
I get into the past
which has a different kind of dust on it.
There's an old Coke bottle with dust on it
behind the bust of I think Empedocles—
Nobody from the neck down. O
Empedocles, don't jump into that volcano!
But jump he did, with his whole body,
bouncing off the rocks on the way down.
And you call this a philosopher?
I don't think he set a very good example.

-- Ron Padgett