29 Songs
#1 Madison, Wis., remembering the bloom of Monticello (1931)
1 March
1931/ Contact (Feb. 1932) and An “Objectivists” Anthology (1932)
LZ calls
this his “Helen Kane-Jefferson poem,” in a 3 Sept. 1931 letter to EP,
suggesting it might help to imagine the poem recited by Helen Kane (1903-1966),
a very popular American singer of the time (EP/LZ
98-99). Kane is also favorably mentioned in “‘Recencies’
in Poetry” (Prep+ 211), where LZ
remarks that this poem is “to be spoken with an accent on every syllable—like
vaudeville recitative” (213). Kane in fact began in vaudeville, famously
introduced some scat elements into her songs and sang her lyrics with excellent
diction, as well as with a distinct Bronx
accent.
Title: Madison, Wis.:
LZ spent Nov. 1930–May 1931 teaching at the University
of Wisconsin at Madison, where he worked on a never completed
book on Thomas Jefferson, How Jefferson
Used Words, which is often mentioned in his correspondence with EP during
this time; also mentioned at “A”-12.257.3.
bloom of Monticello:
from a 27 March 1997 letter by Thomas Jefferson to his daughter, Martha
Randolph: “The bloom of Monticello
is chilled by my solitude. It makes me wish the more that yourself and sister
were here to enjoy it.”
40.1 empty
bed blues: popular blues song recorded in 1928 by Bessie Smith (1894-1937)
at the height of her fame. The first stanza follows:
I woke up this morning with a awful aching head
I woke up this morning with a awful aching head
My new man had left me, just a room and a empty bed
40.5 “Keep in it deer, / rabbits, pigeons…:
the quoted passages in this poem are from Thomas Jefferson, Garden Book, which details his work in
and observations on his gardens at the Monticello estate (Leggott
95-96). LZ mentions his interest in Jefferson’s
Garden Book to EP in a 5 Nov. 1930 letter (EP/LZ 60). The
following is a 1771 note on ideas for the gardens: “Keep in it deer, rabbits, Peacocks, Guinea poultry, pidgeons &c. Let it be an
asylum for hares, squirrels, pheasants, partridges and every other wild animal
(except those of prey.) Court them to it by laying food for them in proper
places.”
40.7 “the figure will be better / placed…:
further 1771 notes by Jefferson for his gardens: “let the spring enter at a
corner of the grotto, pretty high up the side, and trickle down, or fall by a
spout into a basin, from which it may pass off through the grotto. the figure will be better placed in in this: form a
couch of moss. the English inscription will then be proper.”
40.27 the brain / Lenin’s: this may refer to
the fact that Lenin’s brain was removed for study on his death in 1924, and in
1929 the German neuroscientist Oskar Vogt published a
report on his findings.
41.2 “keep the / thorn constantly / wed”:
from Thomas Jefferson’s instructions, dated 13 May 1807, to his overseer at Monticello, Edmund
Bacon: “Keep the thorns constantly clean wed” (Leggott
96).
#2 Immature Pebbles
1931
Commentary
LZ
comments on this poem in his 1968 interview with L.S. Dembo
(Prep+ 239-240).
In
manuscript this poem has the title, “Sunday, April 12, 1931: Madison, Wis.”
(Scroggins Bio 493).
41.1 An
Imponderable is an article of make-believe…: from Thorstein
Veblen (1857-1929), The Vested Interests and the Common Man (1919), Chap. 1, “The
Instability of Knowledge and Belief.” On LZ’s
interest in Veblen see also “A”-8.56.13f, 8.59.19f,
“A”-12.257.7, Prep+ 16:
“Any knowledge that runs in
such out-worn terms turns out to be futile, misleading, meaningless; and the
habit of imputing qualities and behavior of this kind to everyday facts will
then fall into disuse, progressively as experience continues to bring home the
futility of all that kind of imputation. And presently the habit of perceiving
that class of qualities and behavior in the known facts is therefore gradually
lost. So also, in due time the observances and the precautions and provisions
embodied in law and custom for the preservation or the control of these lost
imponderables will also fall into disuse and disappear out of the scheme of
institutions, by way of becoming dead letter or by abrogation. Particularly
will such a loss of belief and insight, and the consequent loss of those
imponderables whose ground has thereby gone out from under them, take effect
with the passing of generations.
An Imponderable is an article of make-believe which has become
axiomatic by force of settled habit. It can accordingly cease to be an
Imponderable by a course of unsettling habit. Those elders in whom the
ancient habits of faith and insight have been ingrained, and in whose knowledge
and belief the imponderables in question have therefore had a vital reality,
will presently fall away; and the new generation whose experience has run on
other lines are in a fair way to lose these articles of faith and insight, by
disuse. It is a case of obsolescence by habitual disuse. And the habitual
disuse which so allows the ancient canons of knowledge and belief to fall away,
and which thereby cuts the ground from under the traditional system of law and
custom, is reenforced by the advancing discipline of
a new order of experience, which exacts an habitual apprehension of workday
facts in terms of a different kind and thereby brings on a revaluation and
revision of the traditional rules governing human relations. The new terms of
workday knowledge and belief, which do not conform to the ancient canons, go to
enforce and stabilise new canons and standards, of a
character alien to the traditional point of view. It is, in other words, a case
of obsolescence by displacement as well as by habitual disuse.
This unsettling discipline
that is brought to bear by workday experience is chiefly and most immediately
the discipline exercised by the material conditions of life, the exigencies
that beset men in their everyday dealings with the material means of life;
inasmuch as these material facts are insistent and uncompromising. And the
scope and method of knowledge and belief which is forced on men in their
everyday material concerns will unavoidably, by habitual use, extend to other
matters as well; so as also to affect the scope and method of knowledge and
belief in all that concerns those imponderable facts which lie outside the
immediate range of material experience. It results that, the further course of
in changing habituation, those imponderable relations, conventions, claims and
perquisites, that make up the time-worn system of law and custom will
unavoidably also be brought under review and will be revised and reorganised in the light of the same new principles of
validity that are found to be sufficient in dealing with material facts.”
41.25 mandrill: large baboon of west Africa
with distinctive bright red and blue or violet markings on the face and rear of
the adult male.
#3 Prop. LXI (The
Strength of The Emotions—Ethica ordine
geometrico demonstrata: IV)
16 April
1931/ An “Objectivists” Anthology
(1932)
In “‘Recencies’ in Poetry,” the preface to An “Objectivists” Anthology (1931), LZ remarks that this poem “in
defense of the conceit is curious—since it contradicts on the face of it all
his critical values opposed to the confusion of the senses. Still, […] the
digression of mentality is perhaps only another fact for the poet to record” (Prep+ 213). LZ made a similar remark on
sending the poem to EP in April 1931 (EP/LZ
97).
Title Prop. LXI…: As the subtitle indicates,
the title refers to Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), Ethics, whose full original Latin title LZ gives, meaning Ethics proved in Geometrical Order. This
particular proposition is in Part IV: The Strength of the Emotions (qtd. Bottom 16): “Desire
which arises from reason can have no excess. Proof.—Desire (Def. Emo. I) absolutely
considered is the very essence of man in so far as it is conceived as
determined in any manner to do anything. Therefore desire which arises from
reason, that is (Prop. 3, Part III.), which is engendered in us in so far as we
are active, is the very essence or nature of man in so far as it is conceived
as determined to do those things which are adequately conceived through the
essence of man alone (Def. 2, Part III.). If, therefore, this desire can have
excess, then human nature considered in itself can exceed itself, or could do
more than it can do, which is a manifest contradiction. And therefore this
desire cannot have excess. Q.e.d.” (trans. Andrew Boyle). Spinoza was a major life-long
interest of LZ’s, particularly important in “A”-12
and Bottom.
#4 Train-Signal
26 May
1931/ Pagany
(Autumn 1931)
#5 “It’s a gay li – ife”
26 May
1931/ Contempo
(April 1932)
Commentary
Scroggins,
Mark. Louis Zukofsky
and the Poetry of Knowledge. Tuscaloosa: U
of Alabama P,
1998. 186-187.
#6 —“her soil’s birth”
22 Aug.
1931/ An “Objectivists” Anthology
(1932)
LZ
indicates in a 3 Sept. 1931 letter to EP (EP/LZ
98) that this poem imitates the form of Edmund Waller (1606-1687), “Go, Lovely
Rose.” The first stanza of Waller’s lyric follows:
Go, lovely Rose—
Tell her that wastes her time and me,
That now she knows,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.
#7 “Who endure days like this”
9 April
1932
#8 “Happier, happier, now”
30 Nov.
1931
#9 “In Arizona”
28 April
1932/ Contact (Oct. 1932)
This and
the following poem came out of LZ’s cross-country
trip to San Francisco
with Jerry Reisman in the spring of 1932. The
concluding scenes of Ferdinand are
set in the Southwest desert and presumably recall this trip as well.
#10 Arizona
29 April
1932/ Contact (Oct. 1932)
When
originally published in Contact, this
poem lacked the current title, simply titled “Song 10,” but added the subtitle:
“(towards Phoenix, Arizona).” See previous.
#11 Home for Aged Bomb Throwers—U.S.S.R.
11-22 Nov. 1933/ Bozart-Westminister
(Spring/Summer 1935)
#12 “Whatever makes this happening”
20 June
1932
#13 “in that this happening”
22 June
1932/ Il Mare (1 Oct. 1932)
Written
in response to EP sending LZ a check as travel money to Europe in a letter
dated 16 Aug. 1932 (EP/LZ 135),
although as Scroggins points out, given the date on the manuscript not
originating as such (Bio 503).
Although LZ did not use the check, he did visit Europe
and EP in the summer of 1933. EP was responsible for printing this poem in Il Mare, a Rapallo, Italy weekly in which he had a
regular literary column. LZ’s poem was accompanied by
a translation into Latin by Basil Bunting (see Bunting’s “Verse and Version,”
in Collected Poems 130). In a Sept.
1932 letter to LZ, Bunting discusses his translation in some detail; qtd. Sister Victoria Marie Forde,
S.C., “The Translations and Adaptations of Basil Bunting,” in Basil Bunting: Man and Poet, ed. Terrell
F. Terrell (Orono, ME: National Poetry Foundation,
1981): 303-304.
#14 “The sand: For the cigarette finished”
3 Aug.
1932
#15 “Do not leave me”
15 Aug.
1932
#16 “Crickets’”
15 Aug.
1932
Commentary
Hatlen, Burton.
“A Poetics of Marginality and Resistance: The Objectivist Poets in Context.” In
Rachel Blau DuPlessis and
Peter Quartermain (1999). 50-52.
#17 Imitation
10 Nov.
1932/ Symposium (April 1933)
49.11 THE ACADEMY OF THE HOLY CHILD:
the first stanza and a half of this poem describe St. Walburga’s
Academy of the Holy Child, a convent and school for girls. The prominent
building was known as “the castle” and located on Riverside Drive and 140th Street, 20 blocks north of Columbia University.
49.21 Xavier: St. Francis Xavier (1506-1552),
Jesuit disciple of Ignatius Loyola, most famous for his zealous missionary work
in South and East Asia.
49.22 in China even comparatively recently…: the rest
of this stanza and much of the following comes from the description of a museum
exhibition, “Ivory Objects from China.”
The following is quoted from the Field Museum News for Dec. 1932 (Field
Museum of Natural History, Chicago), although it seems likely, given the
composition date, that the exhibition was in NYC:
“Until
comparatively recent times physicians attending women of the upper class in
China never saw their patients except for a hand extended from behind a
concealing curtain or screen for the taking of the pulse. For the
rest of their diagnosis the doctors had to depend upon a proxy in
the form of a small carved figure of a woman upon which the patient
indicated the location of her complaint.
One
of these figures, carved from ivory, is on exhibition in a collection of
various Chinese ivory objects installed in George T. and Frances Gaylord Smith
Hall (Hall 24). The exhibit comprises objects of many and various kinds from
different parts of China,
and covers a wide range of time beginning with the archaic period (1122-247
B.C.).
Included
in the exhibit are several pairs of ivory chopsticks; some exquisite fans of
the Manchu court, plaited from ivory threads and overlaid with colored ivory
carvings; cages for keeping singing and fighting crickets; and a
miscellany of fans, tablets, writing-brush holders, figures of
goddesses, saints, monks and other revered persons, various kinds of ornamental
objects, a desk screen, scent box, foot-measures, girdle pendants,
combs, back scratchers, opium smokers'
equipment, and other material.”
#18 “The mirror oval sabers playing”
28 Nov.
1932
In
manuscript given the title “9 and Nine” (Booth 162).
#19 “Checkers, checkmate and checkerboard”
29 Nov.
1933
#20 “Ears beringed
with fuzz”
5 Dec.
1932
Commentary
Dembo, L.S. "Louis Zukofsky:
Objectivist Poetics and the Quest for Form." American Literature 44.1 (March 1972): 74-96. Rpt. Terrell (1979):
302-303.
#21 “Snows’ night’s winds on the window
rattling”
13 Dec.
1932
#22 “To my wash-stand”
13 Dec.
1932/ Symposium (April 1933)
Commentary
Hatlen, Burton.
“Zukofsky, Wittgenstein, and the Poetics of Absence.”
Sagetrieb
1.1 (Spring 1982): 63-93.
52.26 modillions: ornamental brackets used in
series under a cornice (AHD).
#23 “The Immediate Aim”
7 March
1934
Title “The Immediate Aim”: although often
enough echoed in Lenin and other strident Leftist writings, the primary origin
of this phrase is Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto: “The immediate
aim of the Communists is the same as that of all other proletarian parties:
Formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois
supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat” (trans. Samuel
Moore).
56.6 his own gravedigger: Cf. Marx and Engels, The Communist
Manifesto: “The development of Modern
Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the
bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, is its own
grave-diggers” (trans. Samuel Moore). See Arise
42.
#24 This Fall, 1933
12 Nov.
1933/ Bozart-Westminister
(Spring/Summer 1935)
THE AMERICAN BANKNOTE FACTORY: built in 1911 in the Bronx
with large multi-paned windows.
#25 No One Inn
1 Dec.
1932
#26 A Junction
7 Aug. 1933/ Bozart-Westminister
(Spring/Summer 1935)
In the
manuscript LZ notes this was written in Budapest
(Booth 62).
#27 Song—3/4 time
8 Dec.
1933/ Bozart-Westminister
(Spring/Summer 1935)
During
the seminars he gave at the U. of Connecticut in 1971, LZ indicated that he
wrote this poem to the tune of “Three O’Clock in the
Morning,” a popular waltz, which is mentioned in F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925) as “a neat, sad
little waltz of that year” (Butterick 161).
58.1 Right out / of / Das Kapital…:
as LZ indicates, the
following quotation, as well as that beginning at 61.1 to the end, is from Karl
Marx, Capital Chap. 3 (Money, or the
Circulation of Commodities), Section 2 (The Medium of Circulation), Subsection
a (The Metamorphosis of Commodities), paragraphs 42 and 43:
“The
circulation of commodities differs from the direct exchange of products, known
as barter, in substance as well as in form. This is shown by a single glance at
the course of events. The weaver has certainly exchanged his linen for a bible,
exchanged his own commodity for a commodity that belonged to some one else. But
this phenomenon is only true for him. The seller of the bible, who has a taste for something that will
warm up the cockles of his heart, had no more thought of exchanging his
bible for linen, any more than the weaver knew that wheat was being exchanged
for his linen; and so it goes on. B's commodity replaces A’s commodity; but A
and B do not reciprocally exchange their commodities. It may, of course, happen
that A and B make simultaneous purchases each from the other; but such a
particular relation is by no means a necessary outcome of the general relations
under which the circulation of commodities takes place. We see here, on the one
hand, how the exchange of commodities breaks down the individual and local
hindrances attendant upon the process of barter, and furthers the circulation
of the products of human labor. On the other hand, there develops a
multiplicity of social relations that are spontaneous in their growth and are
quite outside the control of the actors. The weaver is only able to sell
his linen because the farmer has sold the wheat; the bible agent is only able
to sell the bible because the weaver has
sold linen; the distiller is only
able to sell the strong waters because
the bible agent has already sold the waters of eternal life; and so on.
Consequently, the process of
circulation does not, like direct barter, come to an end as soon as the
use-values change places or change hands. Money does not disappear because it
ultimately drops out of the series of metamorphoses undergone by a particular
commodity. It is constantly being precipitated into new places in the arena of
circulation, places vacated by other commodities. For instance, in the complete
metamorphosis of the linen (linen—money—bible), the linen drops out of
circulation, and money steps into its place; then the bible drops out of
circulation, and money steps into its place. When one commodity replaces another, the money commodity always remains
in the hands of some third person. Circulation sweats money unceasingly at
every pore” (trans. Paul and Cedar Eden).
#28 “‘Specifically, a writer of music’”
24 Feb.
1934
Commentary
Twitchell-Waas, Jeffrey. “Louis Zukofsky.”
Review of Contemporary Fiction 22.3
(Fall 2002): 19-20.
This
prose poem is clearly related to the “Thanks to the Dictionary” project, which
LZ composed off
and on through most of the 1930s largely by improvising out of the dictionary, so that a given
paragraph tends to be created out of words and definitions found on a given
page or in close proximity—the page often selected at random by throwing dice. For a discussion of LZ’s method in writing “Thanks to the Dictionary” see Quartermain, “Writing and Authority” 160-163, who states
that LZ used two different dictionaries: Funk
& Wagnalls Practical Standard Dictionary
(1930) and Webster’s Collegiate
Dictionary (1917). The following notes only pretend to point out some of
these references or connections.
61.1 “Specifically, a writer of music”: =
composer. “Thanks to the Dictionary” is preoccupied taken up with the story of
David, which does not seem to overtly come into the “Song 28” text, except here
at the opening, in passing in paragraph 5 and the quotations from the Psalms at
the end.
From Funk & Wagnalls:
composer n. 1 One who composes. 2. A writer of music.
complexion n. 3 Archaic The combination of certain assumed
qualities in a definite proportion supposed to control the nature of plants,
bodies, etc.: also the habit ascribed to such combination.
complicate 3 Zool. Folded longitudinally, as
the wings of certain insects.
complexus n. 1 A complicated system; complex.
2 Anat. A large muscle of the back, which passes from the spine to the head
[<L <complectere].
Paragraph 2: Prometheus (Gr. Myth), The
Titan founder of civilization: he stole fire form heaven and as a punishment
was chained to a rock, where an eagle devoured his liver, which renewed itself
at night.
adventitious adj. 1 Not inherent; extrinsic; accidental; casual. 2
Accidental; acquired, not inherited. 3 Biol. A Sporadic: formed without
order or in unusual places. B Occurring away from the natural habitat; adventive.
Paragraph 3: diadelphous
adj. Bot. Having the stamens combined
by their filaments so as to form two sets of bundles.
diadem n. 1 A symbol of royalty worn upon the head. 2 Regal power:
sovereignty.
Paragraph 4: donkey, donna
(Anna), Don Giovanni, perhaps Don Quixote.
62.12 “For,
I am at least half blind, my windows…: from John Donne (1572-1631), letter
to Sir G. B. dated 12 Dec (year unknown).
62.16 daughter of the governor of Seville: Donna Anna,
who Don Giovanni attempts to rape in the opening scene of Mozart’s opera, Don Giovanni (1787); her father, the
governor (or Commendatore), is killed by Don Giovanni
when he attempts to interfere. In the end, Don Giovanni will be dragged down to
hell by the stone statue of the Governor, although donkeys are not involved.
See “Non Ti Fidar” (CSP 123).
62.21 “Sir,
not only a mathematique point flowers into every line…:
from John Donne, letter to Sir Henry Goodyer,
Spring/summer 1609.
62.25 dancing-master named Fox: Harry Fox, a
vaudeville actor, was the originator of the foxtrot in 1914 (see 63.6; Para.
5).
Paragraph 5: fovea n. Anat. A
shallow, rounded depression; the central fovea.
four-in-hand adj. 1 Consisting of a four-horse team driven by one
person.
fourfold adv. In quadrupled measures.
Fourierism n. The social reform system
advocated by F.M.C. Fourier. The sentence beginning “In rows of townships…:
describes the utopian scheme of François Marie Charles Fourier (1772-1837).
foxtrot n. 1 A pace between a trot and a walk: used of horses. 2 A
modern dance step of syncopated two-four time.
foxwood n. Decayed or found wood.
four o’clock is a bright trumpet shaped flower in various colors that opens in
mid-afternoon and stays open until early morning. Native to tropical America and also called “marvel of Peru.”
Paragraph 6: tangent, tangible, tangle, tango, tangram (a Chinese puzzle as described), tansy, tannic,
Tao(ism), tapdance, Tantalus, tantivity,
taper, taps.
Paragraph 7: Draco
(northern constallation) from dragon (mythical
monster), which can also mean a short musket, flying dragon (genus Draco, arboreal
lizard), dragon fly (= devil’s darning needle), possibly dragon boat. Tannim, Heb. of
uncertain meaning applied to various animals translated as dragon in the Bible.
64.18 There went up a smoke…: LZ identifies
the last four sentences or phrases as from the Psalms:
Psalms 18:7-8: “Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the
hills moved and were shaken, because he was wroth. There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth
devoured: coals were kindled by it.”
Psalms 38: 5: “My wounds stink and
are corrupt because of my foolishness.”
Psalms 66:12: “Thou hast caused men to
ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water: but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place.”
Psalms 68:1-2: “Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered: let them also that
hate him flee before him. As smoke is
driven away, so drive them away: as wax melteth
before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God.”
#29 N.Y.
24 Jan.
1933/ Poetry (Sept. 1933)
Title: When
originally published in Poetry, this poem was simply numbered 29,
underneath which appeared in italics: (N.Y. 1/29/33); the above date as
given in Booth may be a misreading.
64.1 “At heaven’s gate” the larks: the lark’s song is
traditionally associated with the daybreak. Here LZ is alluding to Shakespeare,
either or both Cymbeline and Sonnet 29:
a song from Cymbeline II.ii:
Hark, hark! The lark at heaven’s gate sings,
And Phoebus ‘gins arise,
His steeds to water at those springs
On chaliced flowers that lies […].
from Sonnet 29:
When, in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possess’d,
Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day
arising)
From sullen earth, sings hymns at
Heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with Kings.
64.7 January the 29 , the 29th birthday:
according to Leggott, LZ believed for many years that
his birthday was 29 Jan.; when he finally located his birth certificate, he
read it as the 26th, only later to rescrutinize it
and discover his birthdate was actually 23 Jan.
(116); the last is the date referred to at “A”-23.563.8.
64.9 As planned…: see LZ’s
terminal note to 55 Poems (CSP 73) and note on 55 Poems.
“Further than”—
20 Jan.
1935
65.18 abscissas: The coordinate representing
the position of a point along a line perpendicular to the y-axis (vertical
axis) in a plane Cartesian coordinate system (AHD).
