A Good Catch, Jonathan Morse on Oppen, Brady and ground combat

{Frank Stella}

In the world of copyediting/proofreading, it's a "good catch." You know. When a copyeditor (or art director or client or or) see a glaring mistake in punctuation, grammar or even spelling we all missed, round after round.

Most often, at least in my experience, the copyeditor spots mistakes, typos, art for a different product, first round and that's that.  She may also, however point out an awkward or ambivalent construction and the writer, ad exec. or client will stet it. She's learned to live with it and most everything else. She's learned to trample her own instincts. It is what it is. She is a cog in so many wheels.

But sometimes, final round, someone will say, Hey, isn't Kit-Cat spelled with Kit-Kat? That kind of stupid mistake everyone has missed for weeks. THAT's a good catch.

Another, more penetrating catch is what Jonathan Morse demonstrated in his blog posting War Wardrobes, on Oppen (the poet) and Brady (the Civil War photographer). (And Eliot Weinberger, essayist and the like.)  Morse begins his posting:

Visualize these words crawling up the screen while percussion and low strings fill the darkened room with martial sound.

Oppen . . . had fought and had been seriously wounded as an infantryman in World War II, perhaps the only enduring American poet to participate in ground combat since the Civil War.

And dissects "to participate in ground combat since the Civil War" as you might, Sarah Sarai is the only poet to be writing in her bed when she should be bathing and rushing to work. As Morse dissects Weinberger's very specific observation he writes,

It's both true and well known, for instance, that Kurt Vonnegut and J. D. Salinger were emotionally scarred for life by their experience as infantrymen in World War II, but neither Vonnegut nor Salinger was a poet.

It's true too that the poets John Ciardi, James Dickey, and Howard Nemerov flew combat missions and the poet Frank O'Hara served on a destroyer that earned sixteen battle stars, but that wasn't ground combat.

Morse next makes a poem of Oppen and and Civil War photographer Matthew Brady. It is a poem found and constructed in Morse's mind.

I observe that Sarah Sarai is the only poet in her apartment about to bathe and race to work. Read Morse's posting.
Again: http://jonathan-morse.blogspot.com/2011/04/war-wardrobes.html

Poem: A Scarlet Moss. Love so slippery needs handles.

***

The great news is it's about two years since I've been able to write a traditionalish love poem. Love poems work best when the poet worries her love will fall prey to the myth of death; when she acknowledges the body's short span relative to life's 16 billion years. Love itself? I am full of love. Just ask me!

I love nieces and nephews, friends, trees, parks, birds, books, the arts fine and coarse. I love our short, odd incarnation in flesh, the jackhammer and its dental-like technician. Like that.  Most of all I love this, thinking, staring, writing, being; conjecture on life and not-life. 

And the word "blubbery."  Tough word for a woman. Good word for the dental technican at the jackhammer. And our progress towards healing. Bingo. Enjoy, my Valentines.

A Scarlet Moss

It was weird. Mom disapproved
and Pop started shaking
like he'd seen a fluffy pooch.
He has his fears.
I stripped.
So what if I'm blubbery.
I want to roll on whorish moss.
I could wake up or you could
set fire to the marriage counselor.
Love so slippery needs handles.
Wedding planners are a food group.
So is roast beef.
The horseradish of a different color is pink.
Perhaps you're hip: Work sucks.
That one gets folk fired.
Her husband's mean.
I hope a scarlet moss does cover the land.
All I need is
rub its science fiction with bare feet.
The human soul has been invaded.
Rub it and heal.
_______________
Sarah Sarai, pub. in MiPoesias, 2010

***rapt attention provided by Jonathan Morse and friend

Quaff Quaff: does Emily have a cold?

Yeah, I'm shameless but what can you do?  Bon vivant poet, scholar, photograph and friend Jonathan Morse, who annoyingly lives in Hawaii--come on, Morse, suffer with the rest of us!--sent me a belated birthday tribute to Emily Dickinson. It's the above photo (Attachment0.jpg to its friends) with appropriate reference and caption, "Quaff   Quaff."

I fell into the photo and of course am already blissfully mired in the honey (mired in the honey?) of Emily. More of Morse's photography and can be located through his blog The Art Part.


We -- Bee and I -- live by the quaffing --

'Tisn't all Hock -- with us --

Life has its Ale --

But it's many a lay of the Dim Burgundy --

We chant -- for cheer -- when the Wines -- fail --



Do we "get drunk"?

Ask the jolly Clovers!

Do we "beat" our "Wife"?

I -- never wed --

Bee -- pledges his -- in minute flagons --

Dainty -- as the trees -- on our deft Head --



While runs the Rhine --

He and I -- revel --

First -- at the vat -- and latest at the Vine --

Noon -- our last Cup --

"Found dead" -- "of Nectar" --

By a humming Coroner --

In a By-Thyme!
____________________________________
Fr244, Emily Dickinson, (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886), The "She" of American poetry

Erratum regarding cat ownership.

Readers: My post of Friday, August 20, 2010 entitled "This life: My 3,000 Loving Arms comes through on its promise; also Louise Brooks qua cat" incorrectly stated the ownership of "cat."

The photographer of "cat" is indeed Jonathan Morse, but he ("cat") is not of the Morse household. He ("cat") is a store cat.

According to Professor Morse, "He ["cat"] lives at the store where I buy cat food." Holding his (Morse's) Meerschaum at a particularly wry angle, the academic (Morse) added, "And yes, I said he. The store is in a respectable neighborhood, but this cat does spend a certain amount of time trying out the mascara."

Erratum update: I didn't "talk" to Morse but copied his written comment; I made up the Meerschaum.

This life: My 3,000 Loving Arms comes through on its promise; also Louise Brooks qua cat

I haven't added a posting here since Monday; let me explain. "This life" is promised in the tagline of My 3,000 Loving Arms, and that's what you'll get today.

Monday I met with a job specialist to see about getting me back to full-time work with benefits. Uphill. Tuesday through Thursday I got (very) lucky and worked, three whole days in a row, proofreading at an ad agency. My networking months past paid off.

You must realize that with the exception of my four or so years of adjunct teaching here, my jobs in New York City have kept ridiculously rich people rich. At a variety of giant financial institutions, infamous trading companies and banks, and ad agencies serving them, I've done my little bit by copyediting, moving commas and correcting spelling.

It's where I've landed, despite efforts in other directions. Nevertheless, observing how the world is run fascinates. A Pulitzer-nominated playwright friend, with great politics, leads a life parallel to mine and agrees we're granted a rare perspective. Notoriously, academics isn't a safe zone. Is there one?

Love of poetry (just reread some Lorca); excitement about fiction (reading Jian Rong's Wolf Totem, translated from Chinese); new stories I'm writing; friends; sky sun clouds trees Central Park museums the Internet strong legs and a love of walking. And the occasional photo-bearing e-mail from poet and professor Jonathan Morse, a man of two muses, Hawaiin flora and his cat ("Hommage a Louise Brooks" pictured).

It's a life.