"Drunken Winter" [by Joseph Ceravolo]

Oak oak!     like like

it then

      cold some wild paddle

so sky then;

flea you say

“geese geese" the boy

June of winter

of again

Oak sky

From The Collected Poems of Joseph Ceravolo (Wesleyan University Press, 2013). The  poem initially appeared in Spring in this World of Poor Mutts, winner of the first Frank O'Hara Award in 1968, which was judged by John Ashbery and Kenneth Koch. Books by Michael Brownstein, Tony Towle, John Koethe, and Kenward Elmslie were chosen for the series in subsequent years. Click here for more about Joe's Collected. 

A "civil engineer and regular family guy" (in Tom Clark's words), Ceravolo was born in Astoria, Queens, in 1934, went to City College, began writing poetry when serving in the US Army, and took a class with Kenneth Koch that proved decisive in his development as a poet. Many of us got our first exposure to Ceravolo's poems in the Paris Review when Tom Clark edited its poetry pages. Before dying of cancer on September 4,1988, Ceravolo wrote and published several other books with small presses, but what many readers, including ardent fans of Ceravolo's work, don't realize is that the man produced hundreds of pages of poetry in the last twelve years of his life. The poems -- some of which have dates in lieu of titles -- stand on their own and also figure as part of one long project: a chronicle of the poet's sensibility.

-- DL

Comments

[Glen Hartley]

High summer

Elm elm. nice nice
that was
hot all tame backstroke
mosquito
"duck duck" the girl
January of summer
of never

[Glen Hartley]

Glen Hartley said...

High summer

Elm elm. nice nice
that was
hot all tame backstroke
no earth ever;
mosquito they cry
"duck duck" the girl
January of summer
of never
Elm earth

[Glen Hartley]

We learn the poet prefers oak-aged booze.
Trees now resemble paddles to him (a wish to be reproved?)
and he would rather look at the sky.
He has poor personal hygiene (too much drinking).
His son would like to head south
To Florida once more,
But his dad the poet would rather drink and stare at the sky.

[Glen Hartley]

We learn the poet likes elm trees.
During hot weather he prefers to swim with a smooth and steady rhythm
While not touching bottom.
People shout about blood-sucking insects
And a young woman warns he may get bitten,
which gives him a chill,
but he tells himself it is all an illusion.