I grew up in
Kinston, NC, a small town of about 25,000 people in the rural eastern part of
the state. I met a lot of great
people there, many if not all of them, connected in some way with the DuPont
corporation. DuPont opened a
textile fiber plant there in 1954, the year I was born, and my family moved
from Richmond, Virginia to Kinston for the job.
There wasn’t a
whole lot of culture in Kinston, though it did and does have a great arts
center. Still it was a bit of a
backwater. I spent my
first 18 years there and went all the way through my pre-college education in
the public school system, graduating from high school in 1972.
Through my
high school English classes I developed an interest in poetry. I requested and received for Christmas
one year the “New Oxford Book of English Verse.” I was delighted when a book store of some size opened in
Kinston. Called “Central News and
Card Shop” it was nothing like a modern day Barnes and Noble, still it was a
great leap forward for Kinston. It
had lots of shelves of “skin” magazines.
But it also had biblical commentaries, non-fiction books, novels and
even a poetry section. It was there I bought a book of poetry by Rod Taylor
called “Florida East Coast Champion.” The photographs for the cover were taken by Annie
Leibovitz. I had no idea who that
was when I bought the book back in the 1970s. It was only just today, when I opened the book again, that I
was struck by that credit!
At any rate,
part of what thrilled me then was the short bio included in the book which
began with these words: “Rod
Taylor was born on April 30, 1947 in Kinston, North Carolina.” Amazing! Here is someone a mere seven years older than me who had
come of out this town, and he has a book of poetry published by “Straight Arrow
Books: The Book Division of Rolling Stone.” James Dickey wrote the cover blurb: “Rod Taylor has a real kind of primal
energy…” I felt a kinship and I
liked the poems.
A couple of
those poems have especially stuck with me. One, which I’ll reproduce here in its entirely is called
“Alive.”
Thunder has shaken the city, causing my son
to come into our bed. We lie
close to each other in the sound of the rain,
and I think of how many days I’ve wasted, loving
the wrong things.
I spread my hand across his chest, feeling his ribs
with my thumb.
They are small as the bones of a
chicken.
My palm, pressed flat on his body, feels the strength
of his living beat against it. We have come
beautifully together and made his small breathing
but did not think of it then.
Krista’s breasts, relaxed and smooth, touch me
with the warmth of her blood. I know
we are one thing, holding back
death from each other.
Another poem was called “Death of Lester Brown, House
Painter”. It begins
He’d seen his blood before, called forth
by fishhooks, knives, wrenches, and it flashed
in the sun like the river. But something went wrong.
This poem continues for several stanzas, describing the
process of dying. The last stanza
reads:
His arteries are too thin
for a needle, the doctors told them.
The year was sucked around the bend
of a glass straw and was over. I didn’t visit him.
Those who did were not known. They say
that in the last months, he couldn’t
close his eyes.
Tomorrow we hide him
in earth.
Mrs. Brown will be alone then
in the damp sagged boards of the old
house.
Maybe, when she cleans, she will find
something – a hairbrush with his hair in the bristles,
a fingernail,
and it will be hard to keep on living.
I have always been haunted by the things that get left behind when someone I love dies. That poem grabbed me then and it still does.
Another book
of poetry I bought from Central News and Card shop was an anthology entitled
“The Voice that is Great Within Us” edited by Hayden Carruth. It was and is one
of the best anthologies of 20th century poetry. Mr. Carruth explained that his
“principles of selection, which are general rather than absolute” were few:
“1. To admit no poem merely because it is famous, but rather
to reexamine the entire work of each poet and to choose to poems that seem now,
in current taste and feeling, his strongest.
2. To exclude all translations, excerpts from long poems,
and poems with extensive notes, epigraphs or other appendages.
3. To give primacy among all criteria to my own feeling, and
to select no particular poem that does not seem to me genuine within its given
modality, whatever that may be.”
The book began
with Robert Frost and ended with Joel Sloman, covering folks like Wallace
Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Kenneth Rexroth, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Denise
Levertov and Diane Wakoski in between.
I loved this book!
I highlighted
various lines in various poems including these lines from Robert Frost’s poem,
“The Black Cottage.”
For, dear me, why abandon a belief
Merely because it ceases to be true.
Cling to it long enough, and not a doubt
It will turn true again, for so it goes.
Most of the change we think we see in life
Is due to truths being in and out of favor.
If I believed
those words at 17 years of age, I was wiser than I remember being. It is certainly interesting to revisit
them at 58 years of age. At any
rate, I cherished the book, but knew almost nothing about its editor, Hayden
Carruth. I remember quoting from
the book in a paper for my Freshman or Sophomore English class in college and referring to
Carruth as “she.” I don’t
think the professor picked up the error but at some point in college I did
learn that Hayden was a man not a woman.
But that is about all I learned.
Flash forward
40 years to the other day. I am in
Richmond, Virginia going into the Virginia Commonwealth University bookstore on
Broad Street. I am looking for two
issues of Rolling Stone Magazine.
One was a commemorative edition with Jimi Hendrix on the cover, saying
once again that he was the greatest guitarist who ever lived. Of course he was. The other was the current issue of the
magazine which featured an interview with Bob Dylan. Just for the record, I found both issues.
But I also
browsed through the store and what should I see but a book published in
2012 entitled “Hayden Carruth:
Last Poems”. Of course I snapped
it up. And, I am thoroughly
enjoying his poems. I am also
enjoying learning just a bit more about the man, who died in 2008 at the age of
87. It turns out he served in the
Army Air Corps in Italy in World War Two.
My father served in the Army Air Corps in World War Two in North Africa
and Italy, so I was struck by that. Carruth was painfully shy and didn’t give a public reading until he was in
his fifties. He was agoraphobic
and lived in his parents house, never going out, for a three year stretch at
one point. He tried to commit
suicide once, but as the introduction says, “Fully recovered, he found himself
for some reason, delighted to be alive.”
He lost a daughter to cancer, which was a great sadness. The introduction also notes
“Beyond poetry and his friends, what he liked best were sex, jazz, and books,
but jazz sustained him till the end.”
He sounds like a difficult and delightful person.
Here is one of his last poems, entitled “The Last Piece of
Chocolate”
The last piece of chocolate
in the New Year’s box
is yours, my dearest. Why?
you ask.
Well, aside
from common courtesy
I think of two reasons.
First, because I’ve eaten
damn near all the rest,
but secondly because this
is the first day of twenty-
aught-six and you are still
with me. You
are the most
faithful and loyal person
I have ever known, and the
most loving.
I was born in
1921, a long time ago, and so
I am now an ancient of days,
a codger, a geezer, whom
no one ought to love. Yet.
Here you are. How extra-
ordinary!
The great hero
of all lovers, Bertran de
Born, said that poets
must always make sacrifices
for their ladies fair. So
please, my dearest, take
the last piece of chocolate.
And be my love forever, as
I will be yours.
With many
thanks for everything.
One of the
things I am noticing about my life these days is I don’t always have to wonder
how people turn out. I have lived
long enough so that I can, with a little research and luck, learn what has
happened to some of them, as I have done with Hayden Carruth. I never met the man and am only now
learning about him. But I have loved
his anthology and I find myself oddly sad to learn that he has died. I am glad to have his book, “Last
Poems”.
Oh, and for
the record, Rod Taylor earned an MA from Stanford where was a Stegner
Fellowship winner in poetry and he also taught creative writing there. In addition he has been a recording
artist, screenwriter, television producer and television director. In these latter endeavors he often
collaborates with his son Bruce - I am supposing that is the son who came into
his bed that night so long ago when thunder had shaken the city.
