An off-kilter association. Very early on in my many years of being a Los Yorker, when the U.S. was still less homogenized and the many small cultural differences between the two cities continued to be grounds for civil war and Woody Allen jokes, I saw a film in a movie theater on Westwood Boulevard, south of UCLA. I think it may have been Alien 2. At the concession, I told the young man, about my age, that I wanted "a frank and a Coke." He stared at me like the Martian I was -- though he spoke the language -- and he said, "A *frank*?" Pause. "You mean a hot dog?"
I changed my vocabulary, but I couldn't get rid of the accent, as neither could Rukeyser.
That's very funny. Frank n Furter was the villain in the Rocky Horror Picture Show. And i thought of the Randy Newman song "I Love LA," which I always thought was sarcastic. But maybe not.
Looked this morning for Clay. Ehlemann saying "O century of clouds!" About the 20th cent'y. Knowing he would have said it to Muriel. Found in poem Reverberations his direct back and forth with her. [From Scratch_the book]
"Muriel R said if a woman were to speak her pain the world would split open, / Rigoberto Menchu, did you lie? [Clouding your witness]
//or dores the world split open and men retie and splice?
[] By which he means nothing positive, but only that we erect hoarding boards around a work of demolition. His lifework, after leaving Indiana to the acid of rains, was to address the tumuli of the torness of our simplifications with words and immediacies like 'tumulous' and pus and boots. Muriel would stay in electric light to see if that market worker's mumbles panned some bad intent. We appreciate it here. M. You located a volcano of our illiteracy! We want to tell her to stay nonplussed! To give us another ....
I know the Rukeyser line but couldn't locate the other references. No doubt obscure Toledoan tomes. But I like your voice. Also the verbs, nouns, and propositional phrases.
Clayton Eshleman can be an obscure Toledoman but in plain, he was for 60 years one of those 14 minor successes poets who could make a living without teaching. Just catching one of his online will sell you on him. Another idea of his relevant to the Rukeyser. Was that Clayton retailed an idea of Robert Duncan's in 1999. What if the 2000 clock rolled back to 1800? Well then, we would stand a chance of writing only in Things, right? Without exposition and worry abt talking over people.
You might know, Jay, that Vassar's archives and special collections include published works (including Neruda translations), mss., promotional materials, and correspondence and photos spanning the years 1927-1967. It might have been at Vassar that I first began to read her on my own. Her presence here reminds me to pick up once again her 'Collected Poems' that are on my poetry shelves. That second, untitled, poem has a great opening, I think, and such marvelous lines and contrasts. We have so much to learn from poems; it is a great shame that in America so few are exposed to it.
That this line works so well because of the repetition of frankfurters is a little miracle.
"Frankfurters frankfurters sizzle on the steel"
True!
An off-kilter association. Very early on in my many years of being a Los Yorker, when the U.S. was still less homogenized and the many small cultural differences between the two cities continued to be grounds for civil war and Woody Allen jokes, I saw a film in a movie theater on Westwood Boulevard, south of UCLA. I think it may have been Alien 2. At the concession, I told the young man, about my age, that I wanted "a frank and a Coke." He stared at me like the Martian I was -- though he spoke the language -- and he said, "A *frank*?" Pause. "You mean a hot dog?"
I changed my vocabulary, but I couldn't get rid of the accent, as neither could Rukeyser.
That's very funny. Frank n Furter was the villain in the Rocky Horror Picture Show. And i thought of the Randy Newman song "I Love LA," which I always thought was sarcastic. But maybe not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcADqxnQA_4
I’ve never sat down to read Muriel Rukeyser. Every time I come across her, I wonder why not. Thanks for the reminder. It’s past time.
Rona -- Muriel. Muriel, Rona. I wish I could listen in, but this is between you two. :)
Looked this morning for Clay. Ehlemann saying "O century of clouds!" About the 20th cent'y. Knowing he would have said it to Muriel. Found in poem Reverberations his direct back and forth with her. [From Scratch_the book]
"Muriel R said if a woman were to speak her pain the world would split open, / Rigoberto Menchu, did you lie? [Clouding your witness]
//or dores the world split open and men retie and splice?
[] By which he means nothing positive, but only that we erect hoarding boards around a work of demolition. His lifework, after leaving Indiana to the acid of rains, was to address the tumuli of the torness of our simplifications with words and immediacies like 'tumulous' and pus and boots. Muriel would stay in electric light to see if that market worker's mumbles panned some bad intent. We appreciate it here. M. You located a volcano of our illiteracy! We want to tell her to stay nonplussed! To give us another ....
I know the Rukeyser line but couldn't locate the other references. No doubt obscure Toledoan tomes. But I like your voice. Also the verbs, nouns, and propositional phrases.
Clayton Eshleman can be an obscure Toledoman but in plain, he was for 60 years one of those 14 minor successes poets who could make a living without teaching. Just catching one of his online will sell you on him. Another idea of his relevant to the Rukeyser. Was that Clayton retailed an idea of Robert Duncan's in 1999. What if the 2000 clock rolled back to 1800? Well then, we would stand a chance of writing only in Things, right? Without exposition and worry abt talking over people.
You might know, Jay, that Vassar's archives and special collections include published works (including Neruda translations), mss., promotional materials, and correspondence and photos spanning the years 1927-1967. It might have been at Vassar that I first began to read her on my own. Her presence here reminds me to pick up once again her 'Collected Poems' that are on my poetry shelves. That second, untitled, poem has a great opening, I think, and such marvelous lines and contrasts. We have so much to learn from poems; it is a great shame that in America so few are exposed to it.