[A. E. Stallings]

I recently reviewed John Talbot's <u>The Well-Tempered Tantrum</u> for the Classical Outlook. When--or even if--the review will appear is anyone's guess. So I thought I'd go ahead and plug the book here too. It is one of the David Robert Series. It is an excellent book, intelligent, accomlished and deeply felt, that has received far less attention than it deserves. I urge people here to seek it out.

John Talbot is a classicist, with a PhD from Boston University. He teaches at Brigham Young University. He writes fascinating and astute articles on the classics and English poetry--you can catch a recent example in the current issue of Arion on Ted Hughes.

His poems are informed by form, and of course by ancient literature, but can not be pinned down to a school. He is metrically deft but not dogmatic.

The opening poem:

Kindling

You gone, I thought to look
for warmth in the pith of trees
so I went to the chopping-block,
brought axe's edge to kiss
soft, knotty-hearted pine
whose sinews might warm mine.

Matchstick's rasp, blue chuff:
the fine-shaved kindling caught,
curled into twenty fists
that cupped their fingers shut,
till fire fastened to the wood
and wooed it close and hot,
and soon the room was warm enough
but I was not.


from The School of Mastery

i. The Master Class

Hurtful music. Yes, I love it, but
wince beneath its justice. Semiquavers'
falgstaffs tilting in martial accord; vox
inhumana promising that above
my foundering could rise soemthing true and plumb.
What torture, when the fingers along the flute
find their stops. Or when fretted cords relax
into freedom, and I feel it, smoldering
in what is shrewdly called the perfect pitch,
which knows its cadences and fall through them
into the garden of its innocence.


the closing poem:

Late Manner

Something expired. At the turning
A spirit was gone. That which was
Turned to sepia: high collars, punting,
Waxed mustaches, parasols.

From bridges, children stared in the river
And felt themselves, also, halved.
Old manners were patently over.
New manners had not yet arrived.

The old, without waiting to speak
Their parting lines in the act,
Learned to exit the way of pipe-smoke.
Uttered nothing. Utter tact.

Steamy ghosts rose from the horses'
Maws as they champed at their bits.
The ladies reached for their purses.
The gentlemen tipped their hats.

[Lisa Barnett]

Thanks, Alicia. I'm going to look for Talbot's book.

Lisa

[Robert J. Clawson]

"...but can not be pinned down to a school."

I would pin him to the school of the Inexperienced Naturalists, those who write inaccurately about, say, firewood, in order to create a nifty artifact.

"You gone, I thought to look
for warmth in the pitch of trees
so I went to the chopping-block,
brought axe's edge to kiss
soft, knotty-hearted pine
whose sinews might warm mine."

"Pitch" is clever usage, but it's pitch that burns so hot that pine is poor firewood: you have to keep loading the fireplace or stove.

Pine's a softwood, so "kiss soft" is also damn clever phrasing, but an experienced naturalist would know that hardwood is what one splits for fires.

"Knotty-hearted" is also a nifty part of the trope, making us think of a 50's fad for knotty pine walls in studies and rec rooms, which was actually a cheaper board (wholesale) because of its flaws.

"Knotty-hearted" also connotes something strong with "sinews," but pine is soft and not nearly as "sinewy" as, say, maple, oak, ash or other fine firewoods. Stay away from elm: too sinewy.

I stop reading poets who try to pull fast ones on me.

Hard-Hearted Clawson

[A. E. Stallings]

O Hard-0f-Heart-Clawson

Mea culpa! It is I who typed "pitch"--the poet has the much more pithy "pith." Apologies--now corrected. And please note that the poem's title is "Kindling" not firewood. Pine does, I think, serve that purpose very well.

More in a bit...

[Robert J. Clawson]

Originally posted by A. E. Stallings:

"O Hard-0f-Heart-Clawson"

O Softy Stallings, "pith" ith worth: it thounds like even thofter wood.

"And please note that the poem's title is "Kindling" not firewood. Pine does, I think, serve that purpose very well."

Yes, in Georgia, we call it "light wood" or "fat wood." Excellent for starting fires, even in the wild. It's full of pitch, not "pith."

"...so I went to the chopping-block,"

When WE go to the "chopping block" making "kindling" is a disparagement. It means you missed, not "kissed" the bucked log. One doesn't make kindling at the chopping block. One chops, not shaves, at the chopping block. It's not where cometh "the fine-shaved kindling" without some miraculous axe work. That's too far fetched.

Read Frost's "Two Tramps in Mud Time" to get an accurate fix on chopping wood.

I truly enjoy Talbot's second verse. And If I didn't make firewood, I probably wouldn't object to anything in the poem you offer, because it's nicely crafted. But, as you know, I'm an old geezer, sinewy with knowledge of things like making firewood, smoking fish, and how to dance on rooves.

Thine,

O'Clawson

[A. E. Stallings]

I'll move on then. Here is his fine version of Horace's Diffugere Nives ode. (Housman sets the bar impossible high, perhaps. This strikes me as a very different, but very effective, modern approach.)


The Secret Accretions


Ice, like the shimmering robe that blond blonde lets fall
To her ankles, slips from the field,
And lets the brook break, chuckling, from its grip.
She can't be twenty years old,

She and her friends, sunbathing girls, who go
Dressed in their daring skin,
Parading everlasting youth--or so
They'd have you think. Think again.

Think of how, six months hence, the last sour breath
Of moribund summer's breeze
Will fail, and autumn pummel the grass beneath
Carpets of frost-gilded leaves.

Outside, the seasons mend such damages,
But not so the weather within:
No springtime thaws your limbs, no sun assuages
Once winter gets under your skin.

Onto the very plot on which you'll drop
Your ancestors fell first,
Who yearned for deathless things and tendered hope
And now are shades and dust.

Join them tomorrow? Next month? Who can tell?
Best live today with flair.
The secret accretions of a life led well
Elude the grasping heir.

But learn good judgment now--for all your wit
And pedigree won't budge
When men speak of you in the preterite
And you become the judged.

Stern X, for all his piety, still died,
Nor will ice soon release
Y to her pleading Z, who tried
To rescue her. She stays.