Evidently Adam Fieled took offense at my earlier addition to our ongoing discussion about so-called School of Quietude poets vs. so-called post-avant poets. I’ve tendered an apology in his comment stream, because I surely didn’t mean to hurt his feelings. As for my failures in the substance of our discussion, he’s right in calling me on the fact that I did not provide him with examples of poems from “my tradition” that I would be “willing to vouch for.” I promised him I would begin doing so, and this is the first post in that process. I invite Adam to respond, although he apparently felt so insulted that he’s said he’s dropping out of the conversation, so I don’t know if he’ll stir himself to comment or not.

Whatever Adam chooses to do, I figure it won’t hurt to go ahead and post what seem to me strong poems by poets consigned by Ron Silliman to his School of Quietude. (See the list in my original response to Adam.) I’m not going to comment extensively or argue for why these poems are strong: the poems should—and do, I think—speak for themselves.

Let me start with two poems by Philip Levine—two poems so strikingly different that it’s hard to see how both of them could qualify this poet for Silliman’s disapprobation. Maybe Adam will be able to look them over and explain what it is that makes them inferior to the poems by Mark Young quoted in his original post on this subject, or to other work by post-avant poets he admires.

THEY FEED THEY LION

Out of burlap sacks, out of bearing butter,
Out of black bean and wet slate bread,
Out of the acids of rage, the candor of tar,
Out of creosote, gasoline, drive shafts, wooden dollies,
They Lion grow.
                Out of the gray hills
Of industrial barns, out of rain, out of bus ride,
West Virginia to Kiss My Ass, out of buried aunties,
Mothers hardening like pounded stumps, out of stumps,
Out of the bones’ need to sharpen and the muscles’ to stretch,
They Lion grow.
                               Earth is eating trees, fence posts,
Gutted cars, earth is calling in her little ones,
“Come home, Come home!” From pig balls,
From the ferocity of pig driven to holiness,
From the furred ear and the full jowl come
The repose of the hung belly, from the purpose
They Lion grow.
                               From the sweet glues of the trotters
Come the sweet kinks of the fist, from the full flower
Of the hams the thorax of caves,
From “Bow Down” come “Rise Up,”
Come they Lion from the reeds of shovels,
The grained arm that pulls the hands,
They Lion grow.
                               From my five arms and all my hands,
From all my white sins forgiven, they feed,
From my car passing under the stars,
They Lion, from my children inherit,
From the oak turned to a wall, they Lion,
From they sack and they belly opened
And all that was hidden burning on the oil-stained earth
They feed they Lion and he comes.

from New Selected Poems

*

WHAT WORK IS

We stand in the rain in a long line
waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work.
You know what work is—if you’re
old enough to read this you know what
work is, although you may not do it.
Forget you. This is about waiting,
shifting from one foot to another.
Feeling the light rain falling like mist
into your hair, blurring your vision
until you think you see your own brother
ahead of you, maybe ten places.
You rub your glasses with your fingers,
and of course it’s someone else’s brother,
narrower across the shoulders than
yours but with the same sad slouch, the grin
that does not hide the stubbornness,
the sad refusal to give in to
rain, to the hours wasted waiting,
to the knowledge that somewhere ahead
a man is waiting who will say, “No,
we’re not hiring today,” for any
reason he wants. You love your brother,
now suddenly you can hardly stand
the love flooding you for your brother,
who’s not beside you or behind or
ahead because he’s home trying to
sleep off a miserable night shift
at Cadillac so he can get up
before noon to study his German.
Works eight hours a night so he can sing
Wagner, the opera you hate most,
the worst music ever invented.
How long has it been since you told him
you loved him, held his wide shoulders,
opened your eyes wide and said those words,
and maybe kissed his cheek? You’ve never
done something so simple, so obvious,
not because you’re too young or too dumb,
not because you’re jealous or even mean
or incapable of crying in
the presence of another man, no,
just because you don’t know what work is.

from What Work Is

All comments are welcome, of course. Enjoy!