Geraldine Monk takes pride of place in this issue of short poem notables with her sequence “Poppy Heads,” one of which includes the line “getting our peckers up,” which I think she lifted from one of our rollocking conversations years back in Sheffield. Philip Terry merits a close second with excerpts from “Homage to Ray-Worth” and “Larkin Paraphrased.”

Noon continues to be a stellar project, even without the plastic slip-case.

For more information contact Philip Rowland at noonpress[at]mac.com

Betraying Spinoza; The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity
by Rebecca Goldstein
New York: Schoken, 2006

I have just finished this luminous appreciation of Spinoza. I say “appreciation,” but that does not do justice to Goldstein’s insights into Spinoza’s system of philosophy and to the writing itself, which–in many parts–is extraordinary. What Goldstein does is attempt to enter the private space of Spinoza–that part which lies behind the tapestry of history–as the King in Nachman of Breslov’s famous parable–and attempt to divine the nature of Spinoza’s private self using biography, historical fact, and the shared experience of orthodox Judaism. Her narrative gifts are considerable, imparting warmth to what so many now see as a set of extraordinary exercises in abstract reasoning, which have been relegated (perhaps too quickly) to the museums of Western Thought. In the final section of the book, Goldstein sews the hints, the history, into her own narrative tapestry, and we see Spinoza on his death bed, where we enter the very mind of the philosopher:

“Still there is that which will remain of him. Not the personal self, this cluster of modifications endeavoring to preserve its identity, to prosper and flourish, even now, gasping for breath, unable of itself to keep from desperately trying to persist in its own being. He knows what it is in him that will persist, the view of himself that he gains when out of himself, in the deepest and most blissful grasp of the whole, the intuitive intimation of full infinity by a finite modification that cannot possibly grasp it all. That particular finite modification that he will soon be no more. But the thoughts that he has thought that were most true, that have pointed beyond themselves to the great vast system that entails them, as each of us points, however obscurely we may apprehend it, beyond ourselves to the vastness that entails us: this will remain for eternity.” (Pgs 255-256).

I can’t help but think that Goldstein, like the wise man in Nachman’s parable, through her wide-ranging recitation, coaxes the hidden King to peer out from behind his tapestry, and quickly sketches the true face of this man Spinoza. At least the likeness is close enough that it merits–in this reader’s opinion–the reproducation of Spinoza’s signature at its end.

The Authentic Note Appears to Be Lost in a Lack of Sincerity

To the Editor of the New York Times:

Your editorial, “The Poetry Game,” in this morning’s paper is quite of a piece with articles which have recently appeared in your publication and elsewhere, the purpose of which seems to be to ridicule and belittle the contemporary poetry movement in this country, simply because some of the conspicuous figures are writers to whom the capricious gods have tendered every qualification necessary to the making of poetry except sincerity.

It is true that one may fail to catch the authentic note of poetry when Miss Lowell announces that “My heart is laughing like a fish that is ready to spawn,” or when Mr. Sandburg so far forgets the injunction “De mortuis nil nisi bonum,” as to conclude a poem about a man recently dead with the charitable words, “God damn Becker.” But why should such ebullitions be allowed to cast discredit upon a movement that can boast the profound and masterful poetry of Edwin Arlington Robinson, the haunting music of Miss Edna St. Vincent Millay’s lyrics, and the exquisitely spiritualized Hellenism of William Alexander Percy?

It is not vers libre that is to blame. We need not be afraid of any verse-form whatever when it is in the hands of true poets. The trouble lies in the lack of whole-hearted artistic sincerity, the grotesque exaggeration of phrase, the deliberate vagueness of expression; all employed to reveal the absence of clear thinking and that simplicity which is the hand-maiden of beautiful language in all idioms and in all times.

Let us anticipate the example of posterity and forget these sensation-mongers. For what should a nation be proud, if not of its poets?

Lindley Williams Hubbell
Springfield, Mass., Oct. 29, 1922.

Thanks to Yoko Danno for sending sharing this with me! Now I share it with you. Jesse

Some days are pure joy and this one surely jollified my week. I had lunch today with Rebecca Brown, the novelist, and Burton Watson, translator and friend. Rebecca is in town this week holding forth at Tokyo University on topics ranging from Oku No Hosomichi to Frankenstein. She’s the author of The Haunted house (Picador), The Last Time I Saw You and The Terrible Girls (both from City Lights), and Excerpts from a Family Medical Dictionary (Granta), among others. Her work has been translated into Japanese, and this explains her visit. I handed over my well-read copy of Mary Miller’s Big World to Rebecca as well as Adam Shakur’s Don’t Forget to Breathe., and of course I gave her a copy of Tom Bradley’s Even The Dog Won’t Touch Me. (She loved the cover!)

To my surprise Rebecca brought out her Polaroid instamatic and started to snap away. She loves Polaroid shots–the gritty, unfinished feel of them–and she assured us that she had tons of film for her retro snappage. I suggested that they were the 20th century’s eqivalent of the daguerreotype, but now I’m thinking that perhaps Polaroid prints are closer to the tin-type.

A great day! My best to Rebecca and Burton

A great review of Tom Bradley’s Even the Dog Won’t Toucn Me is just out from the Exquisite Corpse. Catch it by clicking through to the corpse, by clicking here. Congrats to Tom and thanks to Jim Chafee at the charnel house of literature on-line and off.

Oulipoems 2–experimental texts from Philip Terry.
Hunting and Pecking–an Ahadada Emergency Edition by Rich Murphy.
Poor Manners–an Ahadada Emergency Edition by Adam Halbur–a talented, new voice.
We’re waiting on the binding to be finished for Judith Skillman’s Prisoner of the Swifts.
More fun on the way. Jesse

Just a note to say that this project will come to fruition this year come hell or high water. It suffered an unfortunate beginning when someone we relied on showed himself to be less reliable than we’d thought. It was then passed on to Daniel Sendecki who put it at the bottom of his “to do” list and that’s where it stayed while Dan got on with his life. Once I receive it in Japan–as Dan tells me it is boxed up and ready to go–, we will finish the project and it will be done well. Jesse