[Rick Mullin]

In the New York Times Book Review.

RM

[Chris O'Carroll]

It seems to me that Orr egregiously misreads "Galveston, 1961." He calls it the book's "strangest poem," but what's really strange is his impulse to time travel back to the great hurricane of 1900 instead of reading "Galveston, 1961" as a love poem set in the year its title specifies. Watching a woman he loves swimming in the sea, the speaker observes and renders the optical effects creates by the moving water as it disassembles and plays with her shape. Then she returns to lie by his side on the beach, once more her whole, solid self. But now each individual drop of water on her skin does something like what the whole ocean has just been doing -- it offers new ways of perceiving and marveling at her.

Like other Wilbur love poems, this one is all elegant Apollonian artistry on the surface, with a wealth of Dionysian passion seething underneath.

So I guess I think Orr is also mistaken about that "juxtaposition" and "reducing difference" stuff. (Although it's possible that he and I are simply talking past each other on this score.) Wilbur works frequently with contrasts, juxtaposing frisky and solemn tone, vernacular and elevated vocabulary, small and large or lovely and horrific imagery.

[Rick Mullin]

Well, all I have to say about the thing is that Wilbur should get a more recent photo out there. That sweater-arm-over-the-shoulder look plays to a weakness.

RM

[David Rosenthal]

Originally Posted by Chris O'Carroll

It seems to me that Orr egregiously misreads "Galveston, 1961." He calls it the book's "strangest poem," but what's really strange is his impulse to time travel back to the great hurricane of 1900 instead of reading "Galveston, 1961" as a love poem set in the year its title specifies.

There was a great hurricane in 1961. Carla, I believe. Maybe Wilbur's poem can be read as a personification of Carla itself. I don't know.

Also, I agree with Rick about the photo, though it may be the Times fault more than his -- he clearly has some recent ones out there.

David R.

[Chris O'Carroll]

Thanks for the correction, David. I looked it up, and you're right -- Carla was the name of the 1961 storm. The death toll was much lower than in 1900, but the '61 storm was a big enough deal that it might well be the one Orr had in mind. It looks like I jumped to an inaccurate conclusion about his review. I still maintain, though, that he jumps to the wrong conclusion about Wilbur's poem. Does anyone else see a hurricane victim in "Galveston, 1961"?

[Marcia Karp]

Hey Chris. Why aren't you preparing for your reading? Warm cloth around your throat. Neat scotch in hand.

?,
Marcia

[Tim Murphy]

Galveston 1961 was written in 1961, when Dick and Charlee were in Texas on Sabbatical, while Dick undertook a new translation. Somebody in Dick's close circle laughed, thought it was awful, and it was discarded. It was recently exhumed from old papers by Ben Bagg, whose biography of Dick will someday (I pray) appear. So you're not hearing the reminiscences of a 90 year old, but a poem written when Dick was only 40. The only hurricane is the hurricane that Charlee invested in his heart for 64 years.

[Chris O'Carroll]

So it is a love poem, not the strange, hurricane-themed death poem Orr imagined. Good to know. Benedictions on the scholar who dug it out, and a Bronx cheer for the clueless reader who convinced the poet to bury it all those years ago. (By the way, I'm reasonably sure that Wilbur's biographer is Robert, not Benjamin, Bagg. But I've been wrong before -- see above.)