Some Time (1956)

 

“Some time has gone”

25 Feb. 1949/ Botteghe Oscure (1950)

 

Sequence 1944-6

1: 16 Jan. 1944; 2: 13 Feb. 1945, 4 March 1947; 3: 7-8 Sept. 1945, 4 March 1947; 4: 2-3 Sept.1945, 4 March 1947; 5: 23 March-12 April 1946/ Partisan Review (July-Aug. 1947)

 

5

Title      (Flushing Meadows): large park in Flushing, a major neighborhood in north Queens, NYC. The park was initially constructed to host the 1939-40 World’s Fair and has two large lakes; these days it is best known for hosting various major sports facilities and events. The Zukofskys lived at 163rd Street, Flushing from 1944-1946.

 

A Song for the Year’s End

1: 30 Sept. 1945; 2: 16 April 1945; 3: 14 Feb. 1946/ Yale Poetry Review (1946)

 

1

111.1    Daughter of music…: here clearly refers to CZ, but see the Mozart epigraph to “Non Ti Fidar” below (CSP 123), which is presumably the source for this phrase.

2

111.1    my mother’s grave: Chana Pruss Zukofsky, died 29 Jan. 1927 (see “A”-5.18.14).

111.4    wherever Jews are not the right sort of people: as Scroggins points out, LZ refers here to the period early in 1945 when he was working in Towson, a Baltimore suburb, editing electronics manuals for Jordanoff Aviation, but he was unable to find an apartment in Towson itself because he was Jewish (“’there are less Jews’”).

112.2    I now have a wife and son: LZ married CZ in Aug. 1939 and PZ was born Oct. 1943.

112.7    suburbs are restricted…: see note at 111.4

112.15  winged foot of Mercury…: the logo of Goodyear tires.

112.24  dead President: Franklin D. Roosevelt died 12 April 1945.

3

113.6    Papa Bear’s Song…: this and the final quoted line from the children’s story, “The Three Bears.”

 

que j’ay dit devant

1: 22 Oct. 1947; 2: 26 Aug. 1947/ 1: Tomorrow (June 1951)

 

Title      que j’ay dit devant: Fr. as I have said; from the second stanza of François Villon’s Le Lais (The Legecy):
En ce temps que j'ay dit devant,
Sur le Noël, morte saison,
Lorsque les loups vivent de vent,
Et qu'on se tient en sa maison,
Pour le frimas, près du tison:
Cy me vint vouloir de briser
La très amoureuse prison
Qui souloit mon cueur despriser.

At this time, as I have said,
Near Christmas, the dead season
When wolves live off the wind,
And people, fearing frost,
Stay home near burning logs,
A desire came to me
To flee those bonds of love
From which my heart was breaking. (trans. Anthony Bonner)

1

113.7    god’s egis: or aegis, in Greek mythology the goatskin shield or breastplate of Zeus or Athena.

 

2

This section originally written as individual poem with the title “Marry—.”

 

So That Even a Lover

1: 1 Jan. 1948/ The Golden Goose (Summer 1948)

 

1

Little wrists…: this lyric was among LZ’s favorite poems for readings and in the 1966 NET recording he precedes it by reading Robert Herrick’s “Divination by a Daffadil (‘When a daffadil I see’)” and suggests “Little wrists” is his attempt to do something similar. Long before, LZ had placed these two poems together in TP 28 as examples of Grace; and Herrick’s poem also quoted in Bottom 166.

2

114.2    St. Francis: because he directly addressed and extended his love to all aspect of nature, St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) is often considered the patron saint of animals and nature.

114.8    44 years to do: LZ’s age at the time he composed this poem.

 

“Light”

1: 1943-44; 2: 25 Feb. 1940; 3: 31 March-3 April 1943; 4: 3 April 1948?; 5: 1-6 Dec. 1943; 6: 19 July 1941; 7: 1 Dec. 1943; 8: 28 April 1941; 9: 3-4 Dec. 1941; 10: 1 Jan., 28 April 1941; 11: 3 Dec. 1940, 8 April 1941; 12: 1 April 1943; 13: 28 April 1941; 14: 14 Feb. 1941; 15: 4-5 Aug. 1940/
The Golden Goose (Autumn 1948)

 

Written separately, these poems were assembled together 17 May 1948 (Booth 119).

 

Commentary

Campbell, P. Michael. “The Comedian as the Letter Z: Reading Zukofsky Reading Stevens Reading Zukofsky.” In Scroggins (1997): 175-191 [on section 6, “Pierrot of Montauk”].

Slate, Joseph Evans. “The Reisman-Zukofsky Screenplay of ‘Ulysses’: Its Background and Significance.” Library Chronicle of the University of Texas, new series 20/21 (1982): 137-138 [on section 3].

 

1

115.1    instruction booklet: from 1943-1947, LZ’s primary employment was editing various technical and electronics manuals.

115.4    ∞: a lemniscate, mathematical symbol for infinity.

2

11.2      jigger: for various possible meanings see “A”-7.39.11.

3

115.1    Tarzan triumphs: this is the title of a highly popular 1943 propagandistic Tarzan movie starring Johnny Weissmuller, from which come many of the details of this poem. Since Maureen O’Sullivan retired from doing Tarzan movies, Jane is back in London and does not appear in this feature, leaving Tarzan, Boy and Cheeta on their own. The jungle is invaded by Nazis who enslave the lost city of Palandria and its princess, Zandra, but Tarzan espouses isolationist sentiments until belatedly realizing who the bad guys are when they kidnap Boy. Tarzan defeats the Nazis, and their colonel falls into a trap and is killed by a lion.

4

116.3    LL.D.: Doctor of Law < L. Legum Doctor.

6

117.3    Pierrot: originally a clownish male character from French pantomime, but innumerable modern works in music, art, literature and even film have interpreted the character, who is usually a type of bumbling innocent in a cynical world.

117.3    Montauk: the far eastern tip of Long Island, NY.

8

118.1    See: / My nose feels better in the air: apparently this is a remark made by CZ (Booth 119), which explains “See” = C; puns on C/see/sea are ubiquitous in the later LZ.

9

118.12  D.P.’s: displaced persons.

11

LZ notes that this is from a dream, except for second stanza added at later date (Booth 119).

12 R.A.E.

Title      R.A.E.: Robert Allison Evans (c.1885-1943), a mining engineer and poet who LZ apparently discovered in the early 1930s and helped promote his work with the aid of WCW. Ahearn notes that LZ wrote EP in Jan. 1936 that Evans was fired from his job for challenging his bosses; the first line’s mention that “Chance broke the jaw” may allude to the fact that Evans died of oral cancer (WCW/LZ 226, 325; Scroggins Bio 49). Also see note at “A”-8.83.30.

13

120.1    daylight saving: during WWII, President Roosevelt instituted daylight saving time, called “war time,” as an energy saving measure; mentioned also in “Anew 18” (CSP 87).

 

Michtam

1: 22 Aug. 1947; 2: 20 May 1948; 3: 14 Nov. 1948/ Ark 2/Moby 1 (1957)

 

Title      Michtam: Heb. poem or song, and specifically designates Psalms 16, 56-60.

 

1 Lese-Wiat, from Caul Gate

Title      Caul Gate: = Colgate. LZ taught Shakespeare and Renaissance literature at Colgate University in Hamilton, NY during the summer of 1947; the original title of this section was “Colgate, Farewell” (Booth 122). There also is obviously a pun on Colgate toothpaste; the university was named after the family who founded the famous soap and toothpaste company.

 

2 Romantic Portrait

122.1    Sealea: Stephen Seley (1915-1982), an American novelist with whom LZ apparently worked (see WCW/LZ 361) and corresponded with over quite a few years. Seley wrote The Cradle Will Fall (1945) and Baxter Bernstein: A Hero of Sorts (1949)—LZ makes an appearance in the latter.

 

3 With a capital P

This poem is an edited note from Basil Bunting, in which the latter reported on his new job and that he wrecked his car twice in one month (Scroggins Bio 274-275).

 

Xenophanes

10 Feb. 1949/ New Mexico Quarterly (Summer 1950)

 

Title      Xenophanes (c.570–c.480 BC) a pre-Socratic Greek poet-philosopher of Colophon. Although often called the founder of the Eleatic school, surviving fragments suggest he is a far more eclectic philosopher than Parmenides. He is best known for his condemnation of the anthropomorphic representations of the gods in Homer. LZ constructs this poem entirely out of pieces from the surviving poetic fragments of Xenophanes, using the translation of Arthur Fairbanks (1898) from Milton C. Nahm’s Selections from Early Greek Philosophy (the following numbering of fragments as in Nahm).

1. For now the floor is clean, the hands of all and the cups are clean; one puts on the woven garlands, another passes around the fragrant ointment in a vase the mixing bowl stands full of good cheer, and more wine, mild and of delicate bouquet, is at hand in jars, which says it will never fail. In the midst frankincense sends forth its sacred fragrance, and there is water, cold, and sweet, and pure; the yellow loaves are near at hand, and the table of honor is loaded with cheese and rich honey. The altar in the midst is thickly covered with flowers on every side; singing and mirth fill the house. Men making merry should first hymn the god with propitious stanzas and pure words; and when they have poured out libations and prayed for power to do the right (since this lies nearest at hand), then it is no unfitting thing to drink as much as will not prevent your walking home without a slave, if you are not very old. And one ought to praise that man who, when he has drunk, unfolds noble things as his memory and his toil for virtue suggest; but there is nothing praiseworthy in discussing battles of Titans or of Giants or Centaurs, fictions of former ages, nor in plotting violent revolutions. But it is good always to pay careful respect to the gods (this passage and the following alluded to in Bottom 103).
22. The following are fit topics for conversation for men reclining on a soft couch by the fire in the winter season, when after a meal they are drinking sweet wine and eating a little pulse: Who are you, and what is your family? What is your age, my friend? How old were you when the Medes invaded this land? [“pulse” here means the edible seed of certain pod-bearing plants, such as peas and beans (AHD)].
4. Nor would any one first pour the wine into the cup to mix it, but water first and the wine above it.
2. But if one wins a victory by swiftness of foot, or in the pentathlon, where the grove of Zeus lies by Pisas' stream at Olympia, or as a wrestler, or in painful boxing or in that severe contest called the pancration, he would be more glorious in the eyes of the citizens, he would win a front seat at assemblies, and would be entertained by the city at the public table, and he would receive a gift which would be a keepsake for him. If he won by means of horses he would get all these things although he did not deserve them, as I deserve them, for our wisdom is better than the strength of men or of horses. This is indeed a very wrong custom, nor is it right to prefer strength to excellent wisdom. For if there should be in the city a man good at boxing, or in the pentathlon, or in wrestling, or in swiftness of foot, which is honored more than strength (among the contests men enter into at the games), the city would not on that account be any better governed. Small joy would it be to any city in this case if a citizen conquers at the games on the banks of the Pisas, for this does not fill with wealth its secret chambers.
7. Now, however, I come to another topic, and I will show the way. . . . They say that once on a time when a hound was badly treated a passer-by [Pythagoras] pitied him and said, “Stop beating him, for it is the soul of a dear friend; I recognized him on hearing his voice” (LZ alludes to this anecdote at “A”-12.210.3 and qtd. in Bottom 103).
28. The upper limit, of earth at our feet is visible and touches the air, but below it reaches to infinity (this and the following alluded to in Bottom 103).
32. She whom men call Iris [rainbow], this also is by nature cloudy, violet and red and pale green to behold (qtd. Bottom 356).

 

Non Ti Fidar

19 Feb. 1949/ Botteghe Oscure (1950)

 

Title      Non Ti Fidar: It. LZ once translated this as “I am not faithful to you” at a reading. From a quartet in Act I of Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni (1787), in which Donna Elvira warns Anna against Don Giovanni’s seductions.

Epigraph: in opera poetry must be the obedient daughter of music: from Mozart letter to his father, 13 Oct. 1781: "In opera, willy-nilly, poetry must be the obedient daughter of music. Why do Italian operas please everywhere, even in Paris, as I have been a witness, despite the wretchedness of their librettos? Because in them music rules and compels us to forget everything else. All the more must an opera please in which the plot is well carried out, and the words are written simply for the sake of the music and not here and there to please some miserable rhyme, which, God knows, adds nothing to a theatrical representation but more often harms it. Verses are the most indispensable thing in music, but rhymes, for the sake of rhymes, the most injurious. Those who go to work so pedantically will assuredly come to grief along with the music. It were best if a good composer, who understands the stage, and is himself able to suggest something, and a clever poet could be united in one, like a phoenix. Again, one must not fear the applause of the unknowing." This epigraph also qtd. Bottom 93 and 427.

123.7    Don Giovanni’s shapely seat and heart live in hell: in the denouement of Mozart’s opera, the unrepentant Don Giovanni is dragged down to hell by a stone statue.

 

Chloride of Lime and Charcoal

I: 13-16 Aug. 1949, rev. Sept. 1949; II: 28 Oct. 1949; III: 29 Oct. 1949/ Botteghe Oscure (1950)

 

I.1        

This scene takes place at the Zukofskys’ summer cottage near Old Lyme, Connecticut; see Little for description of the swampy pumping problems they encountered (CF 41). Chloride of lime is bleaching powder, also used as a disinfectant, but no doubt LZ is pleased with the pun on Lyme as well.

I.2        

Although according to Leggott (206-207) this poem is addressed to the poet Kenneth Patchen (1911-1972) and his wife, who were neighbors of the Zukofskys in Old Lyme 1947-1951, Scroggins more plausibly identifies the zinnias as a housewarming gift from the Abblebys, who held the mortgage on their summer cottage, as mentioned in the poem (Bio 232).

 

124.2    butcher furniture: this term refers to an early 19th century style of furniture that imitated the then fashionable heavy French style and was made from black walnut. LZ mentions this in his Index of American Design broadcast on the American furniture maker Duncan Phyfe (1768-1854) as indicating a decline from his earlier furniture designs in response to changes in popular tastes (A Useful Art 180-181). On Phyfe see “A”-12.239.33. In a note to Lorine Niedecker mentions that such furniture tends toward “Victorian massive curlicues” and references “’Mantis,’ An Interpretation” where he mentions Victorian upholstery (see CSP 69).

125.14  lotus or artichoke of your sepals / Of Egypt: referring to the flora designs atop ancient Egyptian columns. Sepals are the outer green petals of a flower that enclose the bud before it blossoms.

I.3

125.7    My name is Jackie…: John Abbleby, son of the couple who held the mortgage on the Zukofskys’ Old Lyme cottage, and who worked as a general handyman (Scroggins Bio 233). This is the same Jackie as appears in “A”-12 as the “Poor Pay Pfc.” writing letters to LZ as he heads for the Korean War; see 12.216-223.

125.9    Homer—the carpenter— / Did you write that book?: a question asked by the young PZ of a carpenter named Homer (Penberthy 164); Lorine Niedecker also included this incident in an early version of one of the For Paul poems, “What bird would light” (Collected Works 384).

II

126.1    Homer’s Argos: Argos is Odysseus’ faithful old dog who recognizes his disguised master on his return to Ithaca in Book XVII of the Odyssey.

126.2    Handel’s Largo: an aria, “Ombra mai fù” (in praise of a tree’s shade), from the opera Xerxes by Georg Friedrich Händel (1685-1759). See “A”-12.158.8.

126.6    Brownstone: row houses built of brownstone (a reddish brown sandstone), ubiquitous throughout much of NYC.

126.19  Faster than sound: the sound barrier was first broken by Chuck Yeager in Oct. 1947.

III

Title      W: =  WCW; this poem was written as a tribute to WCW (see “A”-17.382.18). In a note to Lorine Niedecker, LZ indicated that the poem was meant to be in the voice of WCW (Henderson 129).

127.1    “A soothsayer, a doctor, a singer…: from Homer, Odyssey XVII (LZ refers to the following characterization of the “singer” at “A”-12.162.29-30 and Prep+ 19, 223): "Who ever goes himself and invites a stranger from abroad? Unless it be one who serves the public, such as a prophet of a physician or a clever craftsman, or it may be a heavenly singer to give pleasure at a feast. Men like these are invited all the world over; but no one would invite a beggar to burden hissen with” (trans W.H.D. Rouse).

127.4    Never / have I seen anything like you…: from Homer, Odyssey VI: [Odysseus addressing Nausicaä when he is washed up on the land of the Phaeacians]: “Never in all my life have I seen such another, man or woman: I am amazed as I look upon you. In Delos once I did see something like you, a young palm-spire springing up beside Apollo’s altar. For I have traveled even so far; and there were many others with me on that voyage which was to bring so much tribulation. Even so when I saw that sapling my spirit was dumbfounded for a long time, for no other trees like that grow out of the earth; and so, my lady, I am amazed and dumbfounded at seeing you, and I am awestruck at the thought of touching your knees” (trans. W.H.D. Rouse).

 

Reading and Talking

6, 10-11 Jan. 1950/ Quarterly Review of Literature (April 1956)

 

127.1    Cauliflower-eared Spartan / Who go about...: cauliflower-eared is a swelling and deformation of the ear caused by repeated injury, common among boxers. This first stanza reworks a passage from Plato’s Protagoras, in which Socrates somewhat mischievously claims that the Lacedaemonians (i.e. Spartans) are a great philosophical nation: “This, however, is a secret which the Lacedaemonians deny; and they pretend to be ignorant, just because they do not wish to have it thought that they rule the world by wisdom, like the Sophists of whom Protagoras was speaking, and not by valour of arms; considering that if the reason of their superiority were disclosed, all men would be practising their wisdom. And this secret of theirs has never been discovered by the imitators of Lacedaemonian fashions in other cities, who go about with their ears bruised in imitation of them, and have the caestus bound on their arms, and are always in training, and wear short cloaks; for they imagine that these are the practices which have enabled the Lacedaemonians to conquer the other Hellenes” (342; trans. Benjamin Jowett).

127.3    cestus: or caestus, among the Greeks and Romans, a kind of boxing-glove or gauntlet, consisting of stout leather thongs or straps, often leaded with lead or iron, fastened on the hands and arms of boxers to render their blows more effective. Also (as at line 5) in Greek and Roman antiquity, a girdle of any kind, whether worn by men or by women; particularly, the Greek girdle for confining the tunic, and specifically the girdle or zone of Venus, which was said to be decorated with everything that could awaken love (CD). The CD illustrates both these definitions.

127.12  Plato said, not / Much better…: the quotations or close paraphrases from 127.15-128.24 are from Plato, Symposium:
            [Pausanias speaking:] “For we have a custom, and according to our custom any one who does service to another under the idea that he will be improved by him either in wisdom, or, in some other particular of virtue—such a voluntary service, I say, is not to be regarded as a dishonour, and is not open to the charge of flattery. And these two customs, one the love of youth, and the other the practice of philosophy and virtue in general, ought to meet in one, and then the beloved may honourably indulge the lover. For when the lover and beloved come together, having each of them a law, and the lover thinks that he is right in doing any service which he can to his gracious loving one; and the other that he is right in showing any kindness which he can to him who is making him wise and good; the one capable of communicating wisdom and virtue, the other seeking to acquire them with a view to education and wisdom, when the two laws of love are fulfilled and meet in one-then, and then only, may the beloved yield with honour to the lover. Nor when love is of this disinterested sort is there any disgrace in being deceived, but in every other case there is equal disgrace in being or not being deceived. For he who is gracious to his lover under the impression that he is rich, and is disappointed of his gains because he turns out to be poor, is disgraced all the same: for he has done his best to show that he would give himself up to any one's ‘uses base’ for the sake of money; but this is not honourable. And on the same principle he who gives himself to a lover because he is a good man, and in the hope that he will be improved by his company, shows himself to be virtuous, even though the object of his affection turn out to be a villain, and to have no virtue; and if he is deceived he has committed a noble error. For he has proved that for his part he will do anything for anybody with a view to virtue and improvement, than which there can be nothing nobler. Thus noble in every case is the acceptance of another for the sake of virtue. This is that love which is the love of the heavenly goddess, and is heavenly, and of great price to individuals and cities, making the lover and the beloved alike eager in the work of their own improvement. But all other loves are the offspring of the other, who is the common goddess” (184-185).
            [Diotima speaking to Socrates:] “She answered me as follows: ‘There is poetry, which, as you know, is complex and manifold. All creation or passage of non-being into being is poetry or making, and the processes of all art are creative; and the masters of arts are all poets or makers.’ ‘Very true.’ ‘Still,’ she said, ‘you know that they are not called poets, but have other names; only that portion of the art which is separated off from the rest, and is concerned with music and metre, is termed poetry, and they who possess poetry in this sense of the word are called poets.’ ‘Very true,’ I said. ‘And the same holds of love. For you may say generally that all desire of good and happiness is only the great and subtle power of love; but they who are drawn towards him by any other path, whether the path of money-making or gymnastics or philosophy, are not called lovers—the name of the whole is appropriated to those whose affection takes one form only—they alone are said to love, or to be lovers.’ ‘I dare say,’ I replied, ‘that you are right.’ ‘Yes,’ she added, ‘and you hear people say that lovers are seeking for their other half; but I say that they are seeking neither for the half of themselves, nor for the whole, unless the half or the whole be also a good. And they will cut off their own hands and feet and cast them away, if they are evil; for they love not what is their own, unless perchance there be some one who calls what belongs to him the good, and what belongs to another the evil. For there is nothing which men love but the good. Is there anything?’ ‘Certainly, I should say, that there is nothing.’ ‘Then,’ she said, ‘the simple truth is, that men love the good’” (205).
                [Socrates speaking:] “But if you like to here the truth about love, I am ready to speak in my own manner, though I will not make myself ridiculous by entering into any rivalry with you. Say then, Phaedrus, whether you would like, to have the truth about love, spoken in any words and in any order which may happen to come into my mind at the time. Will that be agreeable to you?” (199; trans. Benjamin Jowett).

128.25  Make music, Socrates…: through 128.30 from Plato, Phaedo; when asked by Cebes about turning Aesop into verse, Socrates responds (see “A”-12.177.1):
            “Tell him, Cebes, he replied, that I had no idea of rivalling him or his poems; which is the truth, for I knew that I could not do that. But I wanted to see whether I could purge away a scruple which I felt about certain dreams. In the course of my life I have often had intimations in dreams ‘that I should make music.’ The same dream came to me sometimes in one form, and sometimes in another, but always saying the same or nearly the same words: Make and cultivate music, said the dream. And hitherto I had imagined that this was only intended to exhort and encourage me in the study of philosophy, which has always been the pursuit of my life, and is the noblest and best of music. The dream was bidding me to do what I was already doing, in the same way that the competitor in a race is bidden by the spectators to run when he is already running. But I was not certain of this, as the dream might have meant music in the popular sense of the word, and being under sentence of death, and the festival giving me a respite, I thought that I should be safer if I satisfied the scruple, and, in obedience to the dream, composed a few verses before I departed. And first I made a hymn in honor of the god of the festival, and then considering that a poet, if he is really to be a poet or maker, should not only put words together but make stories, and as I have no invention, I took some fables of Aesop, which I had ready at hand and knew, and turned them into verse. Tell Evenus this, and bid him be of good cheer; that I would have him come after me if he be a wise man, and not tarry; and that to-day I am likely to be going, for the Athenians say that I must” (60d-61c; trans. Benjamin Jowett).

129.4    Talk is a form of love: Niedecker incorporated this line, perhaps from a letter, into her prose piece, “The evening’s automobiles…” (Collected Works 338).

 

“As to How Much”

1 Feb. 1950/ Imagi (1950)

 

George Washington

22 Feb. 1950/ Ark 2/Moby 1 (1957)

 

130.10  Who could not lie…: here and elsewhere alluding to the popular tale that the young George Washington (1732-1799) chopped down his father’s cherry tree to try out a new axe and when questioned declared he could not tell a lie. 

131.4    Wig and white dust: it was a popular style in the 18th century for men to wear powered wigs; commonly assumed Washington wore such a wig, although apparently not the case.

 

And Without

1 April 1950

 

Commentary

Conte, Joseph M. Unending Design: The Forms of Postmodern Poetry. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1991. 209-210.

Quartermain, Peter. “’Actual Word Stuff, Not Thought for Thoughts’: Louis Zukofsky and William Carlos Williams.” Disjunctive Poetics (1992): 90-103.

 

Perch Less

2 June 1950/ New Mexico Quarterly (Summer 1951)

 

Commentary

Conte, Joseph M. Unending Design: The Forms of Postmodern Poetry. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1991. 210-211.

 

Air

24 Dec. 1950/ Tomorrow (May 1951)

 

title: a manuscript note indicates that one sense of the title was a musical air, as in Thomas Campion’s Ayres, and by implication singing as breathing.

132.6    excavation for the tunnel: the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, connecting with lower Manhattan, was completed in 1950.

132.13  This Egypt…: LZ compares central NYC to Egyptian monuments on a number of occasions: see e.g. the uncollected poem “N.Y., 1927” and “A”-12.148.1.

132.16  ashlar: a squared block of building stone; a thin, rectangle of stone used for facing walls.

 

Pamphylian

22-23 Jan. 1951

 

In a 29 Jan. 1951 letter to WCW, LZ remarks on this poem: “Much as Plato annoys me I think he knew where the hell the Idea (1) came from. If he didn’t this is telling him—I hope the irony gets across in the ‘heroic’ opening six verses etc etc” (WCW/LZ 436).

 

Title:     Pamphylian: in ancient times Pamphylia was a country located along what is now the coast of south-west Turkey. The first seven lines of this poem adapt details from the long allegorical tale of Er the Pamphylian, which concludes Plato’s Republic (alluded to in Bottom 83, 104). Er recounts a vision of the afterlife, which is also of the mechanics of cosmic justice, after being allowed to come back to life.
            Also Pamphilia is the name of a town (Elizabethtown, NY) where Little and family spend some summers in Little (CF 84).

133.1    Whole night in form the whorl on earth…: the first seven lines from Plato, Republic X (616-617). LZ mentions this passage, specifically the phrase “like the whorl on earth,” in Bottom 83, where he correlates it with a passage in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, as well as in Prep+ 55:
            [Socrates speaking:] “Now when the spirits which were in the meadow had tarried seven days, on the eighth they were obliged to proceed on their journey, and, on the fourth day after, he said that they came to a place where they could see from above a line of light, straight as a column, extending right through the whole heaven and through the earth, in colour resembling the rainbow, only brighter and purer; another day's journey brought them to the place, and there, in the midst of the light, they saw the ends of the chains of heaven let down from above: for this light is the belt of heaven, and holds together the circle of the universe, like the under-girders of a trireme. From these ends is extended the spindle of Necessity, on which all the revolutions turn. The shaft and hook of this spindle are made of steel, and the whorl is made partly of steel and also partly of other materials. Now the whorl is in form like the whorl used on earth; and the description of it implied that there is one large hollow whorl which is quite scooped out, and into this is fitted another lesser one, and another, and another, and four others, making eight in all, like vessels which fit into one another; the whorls show their edges on the upper side, and on their lower side all together form one continuous whorl. This is pierced by the spindle, which is driven home through the centre of the eighth. The first and outermost whorl has the rim broadest, and the seven inner whorls are narrower, in the following proportions—the sixth is next to the first in size, the fourth next to the sixth; then comes the eighth; the seventh is fifth, the fifth is sixth, the third is seventh, last and eighth comes the second. The largest (of fixed stars) is spangled, and the seventh (or sun) is brightest; the eighth (or moon) coloured by the reflected light of the seventh; the second and fifth (Saturn and Mercury) are in colour like one another, and yellower than the preceding; the third (Venus) has the whitest light; the fourth (Mars) is reddish; the sixth (Jupiter) is in whiteness second. Now the whole spindle has the same motion; but, as the whole revolves in one direction, the seven inner circles move slowly in the other, and of these the swiftest is the eighth; next in swiftness are the seventh, sixth, and fifth, which move together; third in swiftness appeared to move according to the law of this reversed motion the fourth; the third appeared fourth and the second fifth. The spindle turns on the knees of Necessity; and on the upper surface of each circle is a siren, who goes round with them, hymning a single tone or note. The eight together form one harmony; and round about, at equal intervals, there is another band, three in number, each sitting upon her throne: these are the Fates, daughters of Necessity, who are clothed in white robes and have chaplets upon their heads, Lachesis and Clotho and Atropos, who accompany with their voices the harmony of the sirens—Lachesis singing of the past, Clotho of the present, Atropos of the future; Clotho from time to time assisting with a touch of her right hand the revolution of the outer circle of the whorl or spindle, and Atropos with her left hand touching and guiding the inner ones, and Lachesis laying hold of either in turn, first with one hand and then with the other (trans. Benjamin Jowett).

133.3    Plato broad forehead and throat: originally named Aristocles, Plato was given the name Platon as a schoolboy, meaning broad. In Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius offers three explanations for this nickname: the breath of his eloquence, his broad forehead or his broad shoulders from his wrestling ability (III.5)—in any case, the sense was extended to refer to his wide knowledge as well.

 

To My Valentines

13 Feb. 1951

 

On Valentine’s Day to Friends

28 Jan. 1952

 

134.11  R’lene and Edward: Edward Dahlberg (1900-1977), American novelist and essayist, who was a colleague of LZ’s at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute in 1948-1950; R’lene was Dahlberg’s (second) wife.

134.11  Lorine: Lorine Niedecker (1903-1970), poet and long-time friend of LZ.

134.13  Tags: Helen Taggart, a family friend who appears as James Madison in Little; see note CF 298.

134.13  René: René Taupin (1905-1981), French critic, who emigrated to the U.S. in 1930 and taught at various U.S. universities, particularly Columbia University and Hunter College in NYC. LZ seems to have met him in 1930, and Taupin commissioned LZ to write Le Style Apollinaire in the early 1930s; Taupin also wrote L'Influence du symbolisme francais sur la poésie americaine,1910-1920 (1929), which included the earliest critical discussion of Imagism and was reviewed by LZ, as well as other works on Franco-American poetic relations.

 

Alba (1952)

17 May 1952, rev. 12 Aug. 1952

 

LZ notes in manuscript that the original of this poem was written 1 May 1934 and was intended for WCW’s The First President opera that he was working on with LZ’s friend Tibor Serly; the opera never materialized, although WCW’s script and libretto was published in 1936. LZ says this poem was meant for Martha Washington, to be sung while her husband slept (Booth 63), presumably in the opening scene of the opera. At least one other short lyric LZ wrote did survive into WCW’s opera, in scene 2 sung by Mrs. Benedict Arnold: “Sorrow! Sorrow little child! / Alone in this wild place. / Weep, weep, sweet face. / There is no pity, pity for us”; see WCW, Many Loves and Other Plays. NY: New Directions, 1961: 328.

 

Title      Alba: dawn song, from medieval Fr.

 

Old

11 May 1952/ Accent (Summer 1953)

 

LZ notes first two lines from PZ to his mother, dated 16 Feb. 1952 (Booth 128).

 

Spooks’ Sabbath, Five Bowings

6-15 July 1952/ Accent (Summer 1953)

 

This was a favorite piece of LZ’s for readings (see Recordings of LZ), each section titled by a different violin bowing technique:

spiccato: a controlled bouncing or spring bow off the string.

martelé: Fr. hammered (It. martellato); a hammered, accented effect.

grand detaché: large, long, fast strokes.

collé: stuck or glued, a stroke that begins from a heavily weighted bow resting motionless on the string.

staccato: a light, short stroke with a period of silence between notes.

 

I

135.5    Schumann: Robert Schumann (1810-1856), German composer and pianist of the Romantic period.

V

138.10  With Shakespeare / They make mows: in Shakespeare “mows” means grimace, and this particular locution is found in Hamlet II.ii:
Hamlet: It is not very strange; for my uncle is King of Denmark, and those that would make mows at him while my father lived give twenty, forty, fifty, a hundred ducats apiece for his picture in little. ’Sblood, there is something in this more than natural, if philosophy could find it out.

 

“All Wise”

2 Jan. 1953/ Accent (Summer 1953)

 

For Selma Gubin’s Umbrellas

5 Jan. 1953

 

Title      Selma Gubin’s Umbrellas: (1903-1974), Russian-born artist who grew up and worked in NYC. LZ accurately describes a c.1953 linocut entitled “Umbrellas” of a scene in Chinatown, NYC. There are a number of variations of this print and, as LZ indicates, some were colored. An uncolored version that otherwise fits LZ’s description very closely can be seen here.

 

The Judge and the Bird

23 Oct., 3 Nov. 1953/ Poetry (Nov. 1954)

 

141.1    The house…: the house and surroundings described are almost certainly the same as appears in Little (CF 111-113, 127-130) called The Castle with the brook called “The Breath.” This was a historical residence the Zukofsky’s rented for the summer outside of Elizabethtown, NY (called Pamphilia in Little) in the early 1950s while PZ attended summer music school nearby.

142.1    Corbie gable, / corbel: the former is a gable having steps or step-like projections (called corbie-steps or corbels) on the top of a gable wall. Corbie < F. corbeau, OF. corbel, dim. fr. L. corvus raven. The same architectural detail mentioned at “A”-13.310.6.

 

“All of December Toward New Year’s”

21 Dec. 1953/ Quarterly Review of Literature (April 1956)

 

Commentary

Scroggins, Mark. Louis Zukofsky and the Poetry of Knowledge. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 1998. 115-117 [section 3].

 

3

144.4    the toile / That hangs on the wall…: this cloth with blue hand-block prints appears several times in LZ’s work; see “A”-12.239.14 and “It Was,” CF 184.

 

H.T.

27 Dec. 1953

 

Title      H.T.: = Hyman Thaew, CZ’s father, who died 24 Dec. 1953. In a letter to Lorine Niedecker, LZ explained his name meant “life good” in Hebrew (Henderson 132); Thaew is pronounced Tave, a variant of the Heb. tov meaning good (Scroggins Bio 142). According to Penberthy (12) this poem originated as a letter to Niedecker describing his father-in-law’s funeral.

 

songs of degrees

1: 12 Feb. 1953; 2: 14 Feb. 1953; 3: 28 July 1953, 21 Jan. 1955; 4: 13 Feb. 1954; 5: 3 Aug. 1954; 6: 17 Jan. 1955; 7: 2-5 March 1955/ Black Mountain Review (Spring 1956)

[Note: for section 5, Booth gives the date as 3 Aug. but this is almost certainly a misprint or mistranscription as indicated by the letter in which LZ sent this poem to WCW (WCW/LZ 460)]

 

Commentary

Conte, Joseph M. Unending Design: The Forms of Postmodern Poetry. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1991. 211-213 [sections 1 & 2].

Scroggins, Mark. “’There are less Jews left in the world’: Louis Zukofsky’s Holocaust Poetry.” Shofar 21.1 (Fall 2002): 63-73 [examines section 3 “Nor did the prophet” in detail].

Taggart, John. “Louis Zukofsky: Songs of Degrees.” Songs of Degrees: Essays on Contemporary Poetry and Poetics. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 1994. 82-113, 191-219 [detailed discussion of entire sequence].

 

Title      Songs of Degrees: or songs of steps, the designation given to Psalms 120-134, probably because they were sung by pilgrims on the ascent to Jerusalem. EP used the title, “A Song of the Degrees” in a 1913 poem (Personae 95-96). See “A”-12.171.13, “A”-14.316.11-12 and “Thanks to the Dictionary” (CF 284). 

 

1 & 2 With a Valentine (the 12 February) & With a Valentine (the 14 February)

 

Taggart (208-210) suggests two possible sources for the vocabulary of the first two sections in Plato’s Alcibiades Major and LZ’s abbreviated version of Shakespeare, Pericles in Bottom 318-320. Niedecker suggests that “the 12 February” is “saying the opposite of Lord Herbert [of Cherbury]’s ‘In a Glass Window for Inconstancy’” (“Poetry of LZ”), which is included in TP 41:

Love, of this clearest, frailest glass
Divide the properties, so as
In the division may appear
Clearness for me, frailty for her.

 

3 ‘Nor did the prophet’

As Taggart and Scroggins point out, this poem is addressed to EP, who is the “friend” referred to at 146.4-5, and is an oblique comment on his anti-Semitism. Scroggins argues convincingly that in the initial version of the poem, lacking the first and last stanzas, which were added 21 Jan. 1955 (Booth 146), LZ was specifically referring to EP’s references to rebuilding the Temple of Jerusalem in the Pisan Cantos. Originally the second stanza had a second line, “Ezra, he did not pound” (Scroggins Bio 270).

 

146.2    Jannequin’s…: Clément Jannequin or Janequin (c.1485-1558), French composer whose best known work is the onomatopoeic Le Chant des Oiseaux (The Chant of the Birds), which is closely associated with EP who reproduced the musical score in Canto 75. At EP’s request, PZ performed this work when the Zukofskys visited EP at St. Elizabeths in 1954; see “A”-13.298.35.

147.2    “The worst bastard of them all”: presumably a comment by EP on David. Cf. Canto 74/429: “to redeem Zion with justice / sd / Isaiah. Not out on interest said David Rex / the prime s.o.b.”

147.17  Rends coat, plucks hair of his head…: the prophet Ezra’s response on hearing that Jews were intermarrying with and adopting the customs of the locals at Ezra 9:3: “And when I heard this thing, I rent my garment and my mantle, and plucked off the hair of my head and of my beard, and sat down astonied.”

147.20  And does not stop from drinking water / As blood is shed–: from II Samuel 23:16-17: “And the three mighty men brake through the host of the Philistines, and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem, that was by the gate, and took it, and brought it to David: nevertheless he would not drink thereof, but poured it out unto the Lord. And he said, Be it far from me, O Lord, that I should do this: is not this the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives? therefore he would not drink it. These things did these three mighty men.” See “A”-8.93.5.

[End notes]: Ezra 1-6 narrates the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem following the period of Babylonian exile: the Persian kind Cyrus orders and supports the rebuilding as well as the return of the temple vessels, there are detailed accounts of the enormous wealth raised for the reconstruction, the succeeding king Artaxerxes stops the rebuilding, but it restarts with the urging of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah and permission is reaffirmed by the next Persian king Darius (much of this information mentioned in Bottom 104).
I Chronicles 6:32: “And they ministered before the dwelling place of the tabernacle of the congregation with singing, until Solomon had built the house of the Lord in Jerusalem: and then they waited on their office according to their order.”
I Chronicles 15:16: “And David spake to the chief of the Levites to appoint their brethren to be the singers with instruments of musick, psalteries and harps and cymbals, sounding, by lifting up the voice with joy.”
II Samuel 23:4 [David’s dying words on the just ruler]: “And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain.”
Genesis 23: 16-19: “And Abraham hearkened unto Ephron; and Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver, which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant. And the field of Ephron, which was in Machpelah, which was before Mamre, the field, and the cave which was therein, and all the trees that were in the field, that were in all the borders round about, were made sure Unto Abraham for a possession in the presence of the children of Heth, before all that went in at the gate of his city. And after this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah before Mamre: the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan.”

 

5 William / Carlos / Williams / alive!

LZ is almost certainly recalling a 8 May 1946 letter from WCW, written while the latter was in a hospital recovering from an operation, that mentions both the review of LZ’s Anew that he was writing and his interest in a biography of Billy the Kid he was reading, explicitly associating the latter with himself (WCW/LZ 373). When LZ sent this poem to WCW on 31 Aug. 1954, he mentions that it was written on a long train trip out West in the summer of 1954 (WCW/LZ 460); in fact on the manuscript LZ specifies that is was written between Gaviota and Soledad on the famous South Pacific RR train “Coast Daylight” that ran between Los Angeles and San Francisco. It might also be relevant that a few months previous LZ had been reading WCW’s just published Desert Music, the title poem of which recounts WCW’s own trip to the Southwest and Mexico (WCW/LZ 456). Although different in tone and theme, LZ’s poem seems in part to echo E.E. Cummings’ “Buffalo Bill’s / defunct.”

 

148.14  scape: the shaft of a column, < L. scapus, the shaft of a pillar, the stalk of a plant, etc. a pillar, beam, post (CD).

149.5    gulled: as a verb, gull means to deceive, cheat, mislead by deception, trick, defraud (CD).

 

6 A wish

151.2    Clark Street: in Brooklyn Heights, runs perpendicular to Willow Street, where the Zukofskys lived at this time, and down to the wharfs; Taggart points out that LZ would have walked along this street on his way to work at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute (102).

151.19  a good sprag memory…: this and following from Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor IV.i, in which the Welsh Parson Evans tests young William’s school learning in front of his mother, Mrs. Page:
Mrs. Page. I’ll be with her by and by: I’ll but bring my young man here to school. Look, where his master comes; ’tis a playing-day, I see.
[Enter Sir Hugh Evans.]
How now, Sir Hugh! no school to-day?
Evans. No; Master Slender is get the boys leave to play.
[Evans procedes to test William.]
Evans. Leave your prabbles, ’oman. What is the focative case, William?
William. O vocativo, O.
Evans. Remember, William; focative is caret.
[…]
Mrs. Page. He is a better scholar than I thought he was.
Evans. He is a good sprag [= alert, lively] memory. Farewell, Mistress Page.
Mrs. Page. Adieu, good Sir Hugh. [Exit Sir Hugh.] Get you home, boy. Come, we stay too long.
[Exeunt].

152.11  See I, day-playing / a ’tis…: following on the mention of Bach, this backwards repetition is meant to suggest a mirror fugue.

 

7 March first

152.10  “We are the generations of leaves”: Cf. Homer, Iliad VI. 144f, where Glaukos answers Diomedes on the battlefield:
"Great-souled son of Tydeus, wherefore inquirest thou of my lineage? Even as are the generations of leaves, such are those also of men. As for the leaves, the wind scattereth some upon the earth, but the forest, as it bourgeons, putteth forth others when the season of spring is come; even so of men one generation springeth up and another passeth away” (trans. A.T. Murray).

 

The Guests

21 Aug. 1955/ Poetry (March 1956)

 

LZ notes written in Wardsboro, Vermont while visiting “K & T.S.H.” (Booth 156); presumably this would be LZ’s long-time friends Kate and S. Theodore Hecht (see CSP 29.2).

 

153.29  goldenglow: a tall plant (Rudbeckia laciniata) cultived for its large, yellow, many-rayed flower heads (AHD).

 

Claims

5-6 Nov. 1955

 

Title      Ferdinand is a long story by LZ; Pericles the play by Shakespeare.

155.1    a poet: i.e. LZ. LZ wrote two other works that take their title from characters, Bottom and Little. The former, which he was in the middle of writing at the time of this poem, is what he seems to have in mind, as is suggested alliteratively especially in the last few lines.

155.5    To sing a song that old was sung, From ashes—: from the opening of Shakespeare, Pericles spoken by Gower who functions as prologue and chorus; he in fact identifies himself at the point LZ breaks off: “From ashes ancient Gower is come, / Assuming man’s infirmities, / To glad your ear, and please your eyes.”

155.6    Antioch’s: setting of the first scene of Pericles.

155.7    mean risking life: Ferdinand possibly from Gothic fardi, journey + nand, ready. In Bottom, LZ glosses the meaning of Pericles as “suggested by (?) periclitate = attended with risk (1623); ‘They would periclitate their lives’—1657. In any case—the risk of mind!” (74) and at 428 states that the name simply means risk.

 

The Laws Can Say

5-6 Nov. 1955

 

Commentary

Baraban, Stephen. “Zukofsky’s ‘The Laws Can Say.’” Explicator 43.2 (1985): 40-41.

 

Shang Cup

5 Nov. 1955

 

Title      Shang Cup: the Shang dynasty of China (1766-1122 BC) produced sophisticated bronze objects, particularly libation cups and drums, characteristically decorated with stylized animal forms; the poem describes a typical three-legged ritual cup quite precisely.

 

An Incident

16 Nov. 1955

 

LZ was a life-long smoker; a couple of ashtray poems are included in Barely and widely (CSP 168-169).

 

The Record

6 Feb. 1956

 

157.2    Eine kleine Nachtmusik: Ger. A little night music; title of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s famous Serenade for strings in G major (serenade no. 13), 1787; also mentioned in the story “A Keystone Comedy” (CF 186).