The Best American Poetry

JA on RAI [by Moira Egan]

This just in!

Tomorrow (Thursday) at 5 p.m. Rome time (11 a.m. East Coast Time), listen to an interview on RAI with John Ashbery on the occasion of Un mondo che non può essere migliore: Poesie scelte 1956-2007 (translated by Damiano Abeni and Moira Egan, with an introduction by Joseph Harrison) having won a Special Prize from the Premio Napoli.

Go to http://www.radio.rai.it/player/player.cfm?Q_CANALE=3

Another sonnet [by David Lehman]

And here's another hot one by David, for your sizzling summertime reading delectation.

Here’s to the duality of flesh
and blood, neck and rope,
and the temporary flush
of skin, absence of hope.

As far as foreplay is indicted,
here's to his length and her depth.
The whole vice squad is invited:
gambling, booze, dope, and death.

He will paint her not as a painter paints
a woman but as a painter paints a wall.
If fucking is the athleticism of the saints,
here’s to her autumn and his fall.

You will become addicted to his smell,
so use it well or not at all.

Bar Napkin Sonnet # 24 [by Moira Egan]

BAR NAPKIN SONNET #24

It’s wicked to admit I love these bruises,
the set of fingerprints along my hip
that an FBI Agent could dust and use
to track him down.  I love the boy-stung lips
from hours kissing, lips soft, but his whiskers
grown rougher with the hours into night,
and rougher still, we move together, quicker,
as if our muscles’ work brought on the light.
Mornings like this, I’m torn between two notions:
Are love’s inscriptions like a form of art,
or injuries incurred from constant motion:
tennis elbow, carpal tunnel, arrhythmic heart?
And  you should see my scars  I sit alone,
a glass of wine, a napkin, and my pen.

SONETTO SUL TOVAGLIOLINO DI UN PUB #24

E’ perverso ammettere che adoro queste ammaccature,
la serie di impronte digitali sui miei fianchi
che un agente segreto saprebbe rilevare e usare
per rintracciarlo. Adoro i graffi d’uomo stanchi
dopo ore di baci, labbra morbide, ma le sue basette
irruviditesi con il passare della notte
sono piu’ ruvide ancora, e ci muoviamo insieme, ancora
piu’ svelte, come se i muscoli in moto accendessero l’aurora.
Le mattine cosi’ ho due pensieri, e mi tormento:
i graffiti dell’amore sono forme artistiche
o solo danni inferti da ininterrotto movimento –
gomito del tennista, tunnel carpale, aritmie parossistiche?
E “dovresti vedere le mie cicatrici”: resto sola al tavolino
con la mia penna, un tovagliolo di carta e un bicchiere di vino.

-- Moira Egan

To Summer [by David Lehman]

It's sizzling summer sonnet time here on the BAP blog. This one by David Lehman first appeared on Nerve.com.
Enjoy!

To Summer

Shall I compare a season to a day,
a woman to a body like a violin?
Summer is the reason for my grin,
and on that violin I would play.

In the nave of her church I would pray.
Though summer’s lease hath all too short a date,
I shall fall into winter and spring to my fate,
and while you wait I’ll be frank and sing “My Way.”

But just as a whole is greater than the sum
of its parts, or `twere a bummer, rank indeed,
so a garden outlives its fiercest weed
to blossom under my green thumb.
On her I shall gaze from head to bum.
Where summer follows I shall lead.

Bar Napkin Sonnet #23 [by Moira Egan]

BAR NAPKIN SONNET #23

Sometimes you have to swallow.  I love you
might otherwise escape your lust-dumb lips.
By dumb I mean here dim-witted, not mute,
though I have learned the Helen Keller trick
to see no, hear no, speak no thing like truth.
How could this big dumb guy I’m sitting with
have made me come so hard I damn near swooned?
And now he’s watching baseball as if it’s
a new religion.  Jesus Christ.  Who knew
that goddamned oxytocin spike I get
could trick me into thinking amour fou.
It’s bitter, but I just dry-swallow it
like aspirin, or confession.  I get used
to walking out, my ass and soul both bruised.

SONETTO SUL TOVAGLIOLINO DI UN PUB #23

A volte si deve inghiottire. Altrimenti
Ti amo potrebbe sfuggire da labbra ebeti di piacere.
Per ebeti intendo qui ottuse, non silenti,
anche se so bene il trucco di Ellen Keller:
non vedo, non sento, non dico niente che sia verità.
Come ha potuto questo giuggiolone con cui sto seduta
farmi venire così forte che sono quasi svenuta?
E adesso guarda il baseball come se fosse
una nuova religione. Santo Cielo. Chi lo sa-
peva che quel dannato picco di ossitocina potesse
ingannarmi fino a farmi pensare amour fou.
E’ amaro, ma senz’acqua lo butto giù
come un’aspirina, o una confessione. Sono abituata
a lasciarli, col culo dolente e l’anima ammaccata.

Bar Napkin Sonnet # 22 [by Moira Egan]

Today and for the next two days we're pleased to present a trio of Moira Egan's Bar Napkin Sonnets.  #22-24. BNS #22-24 appeared in Damiano Abeni's Italian translation in Nuovi Argomenti (Italy) and are included in La Seta della Cravatta /The Silk of the Tie.  Bar Napkin Sonnets won The Ledge 2008 Poetry Chapbook Award and will be published in Fall 2009. -- DL

 BAR NAPKIN SONNET #22

(I want to fall in love, but not forever.
Is that the truth, or am I still confused
where love’s concerned?  Or am I simply used
to Solitary broken by Whoever
looks interested or interesting?  Never
quite thought of it that way.  What is the juice
that drives the flower, forces green the fuse
that sparks in me—what?  Last night, with my lover,
I almost dropped the L word.  O confusion!
He gathered up my hair the way they do
when habit seems like love.  On top of him
I swear I found some new type of orgasm.
I’ve swallowed almost anything, but do
you think it’s good to swallow I love you?)

SONETTO SUL TOVAGLIOLINO DI UN PUB #22

(Voglio innamorarmi, ma per sempre no.
E’ la verita’, o sono ancora confusa
se si tratta d’amore? Forse sono solo adusa
al Solitario interrotto da qualsiasi gigolo’
sembri interessato o interessante? Non ho
ma visto la questione cosi. Qual’e’ il succo
che forza il fiore, che spinge il verde boccio
che s’accende in me – qual’e’? L’altra notte con
l’Amante quasi m’e’ sfuggita la parola “A…”. Sciocca!
Mi aveva raccolto i capelli sulla nuca a crocchia
come quando l’abitudine imita l’amore. Nello spasmo,
cavalcandolo, ho scoperto un nuovo tipo di orgasmo.
Ho inghiottito praticamente di tutto ma, andiamo,
pensate sia bene inghiottire “Ti amo”?)

Happy Birthday John Ashbery [by Moira Egan]

[photo Giovanni Giovannetti / Effigie]

For your reading pleasure on this auspicious date, following are excerpts from an interview that poet Massimo Gezzi conducted with John Ashbery for the Italian journal POESIA, the prestigious (and very lovely) poetry monthly that's been edited and published by Nicola Crocetti since 1988.

Massimo Gezzi: The collection Un mondo che non può essere migliore, edited by Damiano Abeni and Joseph Harrison for the publisher Luca Sossella Editore, which is the first volume, in Italy, composed of poems chosen by the author – comes out exactly fifty years after some of your poems appeared for the first time ever in translation. Even then it was an Italian anthology, namely Poesia americana del dopoguerra edited by Alfredo Rizzardi. What do Italy and Italian readers represent for you?

John Ashbery: I’m not sure how my poems got in the Rizzardi anthology, since I was barely known then, even in America. In the seventies my book Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror attracted a great deal of attention and some literary prizes and was translated into Italian by Aldo Busi. I hoped that it would be followed by translations of my later poetry, but this did not happen until now, though one Italian publisher had taken an option on another book, which was repeatedly renewed, though no book ever appeared. How can I say what Italy and Italian readers represent for me? They are obviously tremendously important, as they would be for anybody. I’m very pleased with the generous selection of work translated by Abeni and Egan. My Italian is such that I can read a newspaper but not really judge the quality of poetry. But from my conversations with the translators and from other comments, I believe they have done an excellent job.

MG: In a 1991 essay, Franco Fortini, an Italian poet and intellectual, distinguished between difficult poetry (in any case understandable by willing readers) and obscure poetry (always incomprehensible, even to the poet). Do you agree with this distinction? Do you think your poetry is more difficult or more obscure?

JA: I can’t see a poet sitting down to write and choosing between writing “difficult” poetry or “obscure” poetry. How does one know what will be “understandable to willing readers,” or, for that matter, “always incomprehensible even to the poet?” Your question “Do I think my poetry is more difficult or more obscure?” is like asking me which poison would I chose to end my life. I never set out to be one thing or the other. However, my literary tastes were formed during what now seems like the distant era of twentieth century modernism, that is, the period of Proust, Joyce, Kafka, Faulkner, Henry James, Gertrude Stein, and the Surrealists, to name a few who have undoubtedly helped to shape my sensibility as a writer. Obviously some of these writers are difficult, and I’ve always been attracted to what Yeats called “the fascination of what’s difficult” because it seemed to me that I would be wiser once I had read it. People don’t seem to feel this way very much anymore, at least in America, where “accessibility” is highly esteemed. I have nothing against “accessibility” and I don’t favor “inaccessibility,” but I believe that the best poetry and art often demand a certain amount of effort to be appreciated.

Cetonaverde Congratulations [by Moira Egan]

[the prize ceremony looks up to this view]

We over here in Hot Hot Bella Italia are very pleased to pass on the news that our friend and poet-we-like-to-translate MASSIMO GEZZI has won the category "Poesia Giovane" of the Cetonaverde Prize for 2009. We are very happy for Massimo.

This year's winner of the Premio Cetonaverde for lifetime achievement in poetry was Seamus Heaney. The prize is a biennial, very prestigious affair, decided upon by a committee of writers, editors, and journalists (many wearing multiple hats of course). The pictures were taken by Damiano in 2007, when he was accompanying Mark Strand, who won that year's prize. So we're talking some good company!

Good company deserves good poetry: below the jump you'll find a couple of Massimo's poems, in translation.

Roaming Around [by Moira Egan]

[Backdrop to La Festa dell'Editoria Romana]

With all due apologies for my bloglessness, I can blame it on jet lag. Well, for a while I could, now I'll have to blame it on something else. I'm glad Jill Essbaum reported on West Chester and that David Yezzi mentioned how weird it's felt to come to this space since Craig Arnold has left us. I've been reading both of Craig's books these weeks: what a gift, and what a terrible, strange feeling it leaves.

Speaking of strange feelings, all day, helicopters have been flying overhead. G8 protests. It's going to be interesting to see what happens up in L'Aquila, and I wonder if our world leaders will actually get to experience any aftershocks, because, as you probably know, they are still happening. Did you see this in the NY Times? 

And in case you were wondering, yes, Michael Jackson's memorial service was broadcast here.

Miscellany from Rome [by Moira Egan]

We're watching the European Parliament Election Returns. The center right is winning, and that's no news, but it's far from the triumphs that have been predicted by Mr. B______ in the past few days. And he's not telling whether Kaka' is going to Madrid until tomorrow, after the elections.

* * *
I have learned a new Italian word. It's "gossip." Imagine!

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There is a wonderful shop in Rome where I found some much-needed summery shirts. It's called POEMS. Now I have some shirts whose labels say POEMS. I love to wear POEMS.