George Bilgere's Poetry Town, Elissa Gabbert's "The Essay As Realm," and Grace Cavalieri's Artwork

These days I don’t want to read the news. I don’t want to turn on NPR. I don’t want to check my phone and read all those annoying political texts.

Instead, I want to turn to my favorite things. Poetry, of course, is number one.

Every morning my inbox is full of those poem-a-day emails.  My favorite, Poetry Town, is sent out by George Bilgere whose choice of poems, commentary, and accompanying photographs are always a delight.

Here's a poem and commentary from Poetry Town that was posted on October 15th. 

Myrtle
by John Ashbery

How funny your name would be
if you could follow it back to where
the first person thought of saying it,
naming himself that, or maybe
some other persons thought of it
and named that person. It would
be like following a river to its source,
which would be impossible. Rivers have no source.
They just automatically appear at a place
where they get wider, and soon a real
river comes along, with fish and debris,
regal as you please, and someone
has already given it a name: St. Benno
(saints are popular for this purpose) or, or
some other name, the name of his
long-lost girlfriend, who comes
at long last to impersonate that river,
on a stage, her voice clanking
like its bed, her clothing of sand
and pasted paper, a piece of real technology,
while all along she is thinking, I can
do what I want to do. But I want to stay here.

 From Notes from the Air: Selected Later Poems, Ecco, 2007.

Why I Chose This Poem

Over the years I’ve learned the hard way not to fall into the trap of trying to explain what a John Ashbery poem “means.” Many a student of mine has dozed off while I stood floundering around at the lectern in a vain attempt to make sense of that canny old wizard. And while his poems can and often do drive me crazy, there is also something wonderful about the teasing way they almost always almost make sense, the same way Mae West almost always almost let you see it all.

A second favorite thing that helps me through times like this: essays. This week, my favorite is an essay from The Georgia Review called “The Essay as Realm” by Elissa Gabbert in which Gabbert describes the architectural qualities of her writing as well as her love of books on architecture.

 She writes:

“I think this is important: memories and ideas happen in a place. An essay is a place for ideas; it has to feel like a place. It has to give one the feeling of entering a room.”

 “Architecture books are full of good writing, and they’re also full of good writing advice. Venturi writes that he likes buildings that are 'boring as well as ‘interesting.’  He puts interesting in quotes, but not boring—interesting is the more suspicious category. I feel the same about books—I don’t trust books that aren’t a little boring.” 

“I think of an essay as a realm for both the writer and the reader. When I’m working on an essay, I’m entering a loosely defined space. If we borrow Alexander’s terms again, the essay in progress is “the site”: “It is essential to work on the site,” he writes, in A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction; “Work on the site, stay on the site, let the site tell you its secrets.” Just by beginning to think about an essay as such—by forming the intention to write on an idea or theme—I’m opening a portal, I’m creating a site, a realm.”

As the daughter of an architect, I am particularly taken with Gabbert’s  insights. I have always loved blueprints, and I love the very idea of designing a poem, an essay, a story as a house that you will build, enter and live inside for a period of time.

Reading this essay, I was reminded of the family house that my father added onto, designing bathrooms with tubs that curved into the walls and secret passageways and unreachable cupboards—one you had to climb up a ladder and reach into it with a pole to knock things out—that was the hiding place for Santa’s gifts. The walls of many of the rooms featured built-in bookcases. In fact, the entire house felt like a giant library with books on every wall and table and sometimes spilling onto the floors.

After my mother died, the University of Virginia bought and remodeled our house and took out all the bookcases and weird bathrooms and secret passageways and unreachable cupboards. Now, the house is like so many any other houses—generic and unmemorable.  Not a unique moment in it.  If I were to compare the house to a poem, I'd say someone took it to an MFA workshop and took everyone's advice--editing out all it's interesting features. 

I love thinking of poetry in relation to other arts--which brings me to a third favorite thing: Grace Cavalieri—I don't know whether I like her writing or her artwork best. Lately I've been spending some time checking out her paintings. 

Comments

[Grace Cavalieri]

I am weak with "thank you." Sitting down with surprise. That Nin sees me. The only Nin.

[Terence Winch]

Thanks, Nin. What a great gathering---George Bilgere, Ashbery, Elissa Gabbert, and the remarkable Grace Cavalieri.