Re-views— :that: 2nd Series, Documents, Briefs, Proofs,

Bob Grenier’s Talk Frost Place, Franconia, NH 08.06.93

 

May 10, 1997: “Gripping the Double Axe. Thanks, Jack, that Steering Wheel”

 

The production—capturing the visual—2 full color reproductions of Grenier’s poems, front and back covers & the textual reproduction of the talk—both very difficult (the one financial, the other technical and artistic)—and both here done so well—make of this production a true record—something for a reader to participate in, and that to me is its greatest value, being a reader at this time, again, the third time after a year of having this “:that:”—at 5:30 a.m. while the birds sing but the sun is an hour twenty or so from coming up over the neighbor’s apple tree—and by then I’ll be siting in my hot tub relaxing the muscles of my back, sore from a ride on my roof top, straddling the house (horse) in the wind, repairing the torn and loose metal ridge cap—for this reading, now the third one recalls the first, after opening the envelope, one of a stack of envelopes, large and small—and the second before a visit by Steven Ellis and Brian Richards of nearly a year ago, that I recall not so much for the reading as the conversation that resulted from it, but now at 5:40 as the intensity of the bird music picks (me) up—it is distant, more in terns of space, 1200 miles (?)—a conversation with Skip Fox (friend of Brian and Steven) in Lafayette, Louisiana in his log house after a night of heavy winds—recalling my recent wind event now localized in my back, forcing me now to sit straight, just like the nuns taught (forced) me in grade school—a poem resulting that kept me—curiously—more attentive to the act of driving, driving from Lafayette to New Orleans to the landscape, similar I suppose to Ed Dorn’s experience in writing Hello La Jolla—attentive to the many white herons feeding on the fish thrown up by the waves or trapped in pools the waves created (?), attentive outside and in, in the car to this poem writing it for Skip because of a conversation about Williams, his “no ideas” that we both quote to students for the obvious reasons, mainly that they need this grounding (or perhaps, and this is what I think more and more it is we who do not see or understand the naturae of their grounding, for they do have it)—but what we need, I said—is to keep in mind (and practice) that Williams’ “no ideas” really became, quickly, not his but everyone’s, especially English teachers (in spite of Jack Spicer’s Red Wheelbarrow poems and perhaps because of that Red Wheelbarrow poem being the most anthologized poem in America(s?), torn, ripped out of context as it is, ripped out of nuclear America Waste Land, etc.—I offered this reminder to Skip that this most quoted of statements rarely includes the whole (written)  [did Williams ever say this?] context, which is a (written) speech act [within, obviously, a written act, the poem]—it goes “Say it! No ideas but in things. Mr.” as the line in Paterson Book One [and I would include the “Mr.” mister]—which, at 6:01 after the fourth coffee, recalls both the poem as it is, now hanging above my desk and the act of writing it while traveling over those very strange (to me) and wonderful to all (at least the fishermen and the herons) bayous—

 

for Dave Chirot, on a Saturday morning

 

the poem