The Best American Poetry

Ken Tucker on "Poetry You Need to Read"

Poetry you need to read: Robert Polito's 'Hollywood & God' and Amy Gerstler's 'Dearest Creature'
by Ken Tucker

Hear, hear!

Footnoting the pop culture in this week's 'Mad Men'

• Early on, Pete cuts off wife Trudy's questions by snapping, "Trudy, stop it with the Ellery Queen."

Ellery Queen was, of course, the fictional detective and pseudonym of Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee, author/star of over 20 novels and at the time of Pete's remark, probably the most well-known American detective character this side of Nero Wolfe. Two Queen mystery titles could serve as alternative-titles for this Mad Men episode: Calamity Town and The Devil To Pay.

• It was nice to see news footage other than the usual Walter Cronkite-voice-breaking moment on CBS in reporting JFK's assassination. Chet Huntley was shown leading NBC's coverage with as assist from Frank McGee and a man caught in the middle: Bill Ryan, a local WNBC news anchor in New York who would have been doing the local news at the time the news broke. Look again and you’ll see McGee on this phone with a "Robert" who’s on the scene in Dallas: That’s Robert MacNeill, who’d later co-host The MacNeill-Lehrer NewsHour on PBS.

 • Finally, the episode’s closing-credits music was Skeeter Davis's shattering 1963 hit "The End of the World." Davis was a Kentucky-born country singer who achieved cross-over pop stardom with this song, produced by Chet Atkins. While the title of the song was appropriate for the plot of this week’s Mad Men – so many characters feeling that the world was ending with the death of a young, inspiring President – the lyrics Davis sings after the music faded out last night, unheard by the TV audience, are particularly apt for stark moment when Betty told Don she didn't love him anymore:

 "Why do the birds go on singing/Why do the stars shine above/Don’t they know it’s the end of the world/It ended when I lost your love." 

--Ken Tucker

 

Congratulations Ken Tucker!

Congratulations to Ken Tucker, whose blog post Pure Country was chosen by guest editor Greil Marcus for The Best Music Writing 2009 (De Capo).  Marcus also picked writing by David Remnick, Jody Rosen, Roseanne Cash, Wendy Lesser, and many others. Scholar and journalist Daphne Carr is series editor. Get your copy here.

-- sdh

'Masterpiece Comics': 'Where classics and cartoons collide!'

There are a lot of first-rate comic-art releases just now (I recommend David Small's Stitches: A Memoir and R. Crumb's imminent, extraordinary, illustrated Book of Genesis).

But let me call your attention to Masterpiece Comics (Drawn & Quarterly), a superb concept masterfully executed by artist-writer R. Sikoryak. He's mashed together classic literature with classic comic-book art (most of the latter, for those who follows comics, with visual impersonation/homages of artists of the so-called "Silver Age"). 

Sikoryak retells Crime and Punishment as a Batman tale as drawn in the manner of Dick Sprang. He summarizes The Scarlet Letter as a Little Lulu comic. Little Nemo In Slumberland becomes the artistic pallette for The Picture of Dorian Gray.

This is not a stunt; Masterpiece Comics matches literature and comic book with careful thought for appropriate comparison, and the dialogue summarizes quite well the texts chosen. Plus, of course, it's a helluva lot of fun.

--Ken Tucker

The Best American Poetry 2009: GALA LAUNCH READING SEPTEMBER 24, 7:00 PM The New School, 66 W. 12th Street FREE

Join series editor David Lehman as he introduces an all-star line up of the following contributors to this year's volume, chosen by guest editor David Wagoner:  John Ashbery, Mark Bibbins, Suzanne Cleary, Billy Collins, Jim Cummins, Mark Doty, Margaret Gibson, Douglas Goetsch, Michael Grabell, Dolores Hayden, Jennifer Michael Hecht readingSarah Hannah's "The Safe House," Richard Howard, Tina Kelley, Philip Levine, Phillis Levin, Susan Blackwell Ramsay, James Richardson, Martha Silano, Mitch Sisskind, Craig Morgan Teicher, and Matthew Zapruder.

Here's what Entertainment Weekly's Ken Tucker has to say: Lehman’s particular theme this year is the state of poetry criticism, and he doesn’t hold back: “Poetry criticism at its worst today,” Lehman asserts, “is mean in spirit and spiteful in intent,” and he goes on from there to apply an especially vigorous flogging to the critic William Logan . . . Read all of Tucker's review here.

This from Publishers Weekly (starred review):  * From the moment series editor David Lehman invokes the myth of Jacob wrestling the Angel in his introduction, the gloves are off in this year's installment of this popular annual anthology. Lehman devotes much of his introduction to throwing jabs at longtime sparring partner and professional poetry grump William Logan,whom Lehman calls “wounded” and “thin skinned.” Guest editor Wagoner chooses to abstain from the scuffle, but there's no denying the

Nicholson Baker writes a novel about a poet compiling an anthology

It won't be published for another week or so, but may I enthusiastically recommend Nicholson Baker's The Anthologist, a new novel about a poet who has writer's block composing the introduction to a poetry anthology.

There are marvelous Bakerite meditations on W.H. Auden, the state of poetry reviewing, and the flaw of iambic pentameter in English. I think it may be his best novel since The Mezzanine, which is really saying something.

Order yours, as they say, today.

--Ken Tucker

'Mad Men' and sex: The season premiere [by Ken Tucker]

Full confession: This is, essentially, the blog post I put up this morning on Entertainment Weekly's website, where I write a daily blog. But knowing how many BAP readers are Mad Men fans, I wanted to share it and hope it sparks some discussion. Best, Ken Tucker:

Mad Men has come back with a third-season premiere chock-full of fresh details and revelations about familiar characters. I'm interested to know what you thought of the episode. I want to write here about just one subplot, though.

I’m referring to the sex scene between Sal Romano (the superb Bryan Batt) and the bellhop. I’m not saying this was the most important subplot in the premiere – certainly seeing Don Draper in his bare feet in this night’s opening shot, a symbol of the naked soul within, was the hour’s crucial hint of what’s to come in season three.

But for Sal’s repressed sexuality, something we’ve known about since the first Mad Men season, to be brought to the fore on premiere night suggests how important this element is to series creator Matthew Weiner. On one level, leaving Sal in the closet for so long (and he remains so even after last night, to everyone except Don) was merely a necessary period detail for Mad Men. Given the era, there was probably no way an out gay man could have risen to the position Sal has within the ad agency. And marrying him off to a woman who doesn’t demand much beyond his smile, his kindness, and his paycheck is also in keeping with the times.

Choosing to have Sal cruised by a horny bellhop, and to have Sal enjoy his romp while on a business trip, is one of those neat (sometimes too-neat) symmetries that Weiner regularly employs. In this case, it made dramatic sense for Sal to engage in illicit sex as much as it did (and has) for Don Draper to do so on previous business jaunts. These away-from-the-office excursions are Mad Men excuses for men to behave madly – more freely and more true to themselves than they are at work or at home. And certainly the scene was staged beautifully: We could share the anguished joy and release Sal felt. By the time this episode occurred in 1963, Allen Ginsberg may have “Howl”'ed and Frank O’Hara (the poet whose work Don read last season) had enjoyed trysts and steady relationships with a variety of male companions, but these were bohemian artists, not the buttoned-up businessmen of Mad Men.

Weiner wrote this episode, and I treasured his usual small-but-significent period details. In these scenes I'm talking about, for instance, it was great to be reminded that, once upon a time, a fire escape was actually something people used to escape from a possible fire, as we saw here. (Does anyone in a big city hotel ever think about using these rickety, rusty things in case of an emergency anymore?)

But I do think Weiner took one easy way out: In the scene near the end, on the plane ride home, Don made it clear by implication that Sal's secret is safe with him, and that he's not upset with Sal. I would hazard, however, that a guy like Don, all steely self-discipline, furtive secrets himself, and raging straight hormones, would have been (in the realism of this series) more hypocritical, and thus repelled by what he glimpsed in Sal's room. It would have freaked out Don's very (straight) soul. He may read poetry out of curiosity and despair, but Don is ultimately a social and artistic conservative: He wants Betty home waiting for him with a home-cooked meal, and remember, he dismissed the famous DDB Volkswagen "Lemon" ad campaign by saying, "I don't know what I hate about it the most."

But even for a daring drama like Mad Men, accommodations must be made: Don must remain our sympathetic hero, and a homophobe -- the "-phobe" here meaning someone frightened, not hating -- cannot be a hero.

'Mad Men' second-season now out on DVD: 'Lunch Poems' vs. 'Meditations In An Emergency'

The second season of Mad Men is released on DVD today. I'm assuming that if you read this blog and you own a TV, you watch this show, to judge from the enthusiasm BAP has shown the 1960s ad-agency series. The DVD set offers a lot of episode commentaries, the most interesting emanating from series creator Matthew Weiner, who's such a stickler for detail (kind phrase for: so obviously a control-freak), you get used to him pointing out a shot in a scene and saying things like, "I won't let the directors [of other episodes] do that, but I was directing this one, so... " (I wouldn't be surprised if Weiner not only told the actors how to say their lines, but also wiped down the water-stains left by the martini glasses on Roger Sterling's desk.

Of note to readers of this blog is Weiner's commentary remarks about the use of Frank O'Hara's Meditations In An Emergency, which Don Draper reads in the season premiere and which serves as the title for the season finale. Weiner reveals he really wanted to use Lunch Poems in the first scene (Don was, after all, drinking his lunch in a bar, as you'll recall), but, meticulous researcher that he is, Weiner learned that Lunch Poems hadn't yet been published at the time that particular episode was set.

The new season of Mad Men starts Aug. 16. 

'Hung' and the gluten-free Neruda cranberry-walnut bread

Tonight, HBO will premiere Hung, its latest attempt at a half-hour sitcom since it forgot Eastbound & Down was as good as Sex and the City. Hung is about Ray, a high-school athletics coach, a middle-aged divorced dad, most of whose house has recently burned down. He's strapped for cash, his kids and ex-wife more or less hate him. Desperate, Ray attends a make-your-dreams-come-true motivational speech in which he's urged to find his essential talent to achieve success. Or in the words of the speaker, to "identify your own tool." If you take that phrase and the show's title, are you surprised when I say the show is about Ray and his gigantic penis?

Yes, this is the essentially one-joke premise of Hung. Ray becomes, in the words of one character, a "man-whore," servicing women for money. But that character is more interesting than Ray. She's Tanya, a poet. A poet who's also in the identify-your-tool class, and whose own get-rich-tediously idea is something she calls "lyric bread": "a croissant folded around Maya Angelou's 'Phenomenal Woman', or a raisin loaf with Robert Frost's 'The Road Not Taken' swirled in." She also suggests a "gluten-free Neruda cranberry walnut bread." Says the motivational leader: "Food for the body, food for the soul: I like it!" Ray, who is dubious, advises her to "laminate the poems" so they don't melt in the bread. 

Tanya and Ray unite because Tanya, who had a one-night fling with Ray some time ago, knows his "tool" truly is something special, and says she's "hoping to give women more than they've been seeing for centuries." In other words, says Ray, you "want to be my pimp." Correct, says Tanya.

Tanya is played by the wonderful Jane Adams, whom you may recall as one of Niles' girlfriends on Frasier. Adams has huge eyes and a low voice and redeems a lot of the lousy penis jokes. Looking at advance reviews of Hung, I find my Entertainment Weekly review leaves me in the minority. Other reveiwers are more impressed with the show, and find in it metaphors for and comparisons to a deflated economy.

It occurs to me that the ideal reviewer for Hung may be Nin Andrews, who would bring her own special talent to bear on Hung. It would also be interesting to hear how other poets react to Tanya and her poetry bread. Let me know if you watch. And if you'd buy "lyric bread." 

--Ken Tucker

Paradise Lost at the cineplex

The Hollywood Reporter has a story saying not one, but two, films of Paradise Lost are in, as they say, development. The first adaptation of John Milton was done by the writer John Collier (yes, the late author of "His Monkey Wife" and other fine short stories). What's that, you say? Collier died in 1980? Ah, the magic of Hollywood: producer Martin Poll has maintained the option on that script lo these many years, and has now found financial backing from a group of Philadelphia-based investors who usually make Bollywood extravaganzas. ("I tell ya, Marty, we keep the poetry but re-title it Slumdog Satan!")

The second Paradise Lost (not to be confused with Paradise Regained) is being planned by an even bigger outfit: Warner Bros. Yes, the studio that brought you the Batman movies. Personally, I'm hoping Tim Burton is tapped to direct. Few living souls can "justify the ways of God to men" than the fellow who directed both the first Batman film, Beetle Juice, Mars Attacks!, and Pee-wee's Big Adventure.

Casting suggestions are now open to the floor.