 |
| Lamantia signature on frontispiece of Bed of Sphinxes (City Lights Books, 1997) |
Let’s celebrate today – and cerebrate on – the (my oh my!) 99th anniversary of the birth of the San Francisco-born poet Philip Lamantia (1927 - 2005).
This blog has fêted Lamantia’s poetry on October 23rd for nearly two decades: seek and ye shall find! Indeed, the ardor here is reflected in the blog’s name: the glade of theoric ornithic hermetica is a line from a Lamantia’s mid-1980s mini-opus “America in the Age of Gold.”
(By the way, that poem’s allusion-rich (and often difficult) vision of “Poetry magic love liberty” remains, forty years after publication and especially in our current too-often grossly over-gilded times, a compelling alternative to what the poem calls “the unequivocally mediocre.” The poem as read by Lamantia in 1986 – the tape runs six and one-half minutes – an be heard by clicking here.)
Today I honor Lamantia the Teacher: teacher of things new-to-me, and of new perspectives on things already known.
Let’s begin by (re)counting the ways. First, there are the poems themselves. They have what is found in all good poems: that which is necessary for a healthy life, to awkwardly paraphrase William Carlos Williams’ beautiful lines towards the end of “Asphodel, That Greeny Flower”:
In addition, Lamantia’s prose essays, collected in Preserving Fire (Wave Books, 2018), contain much that can be studied. The tippy-top examples here are probably “Radio Voices” (on childhood and old-time serials) and “Poetic Matters” (on the true role of imagination, including incisive comments on 20th Century American poetry). The latter essay, decades ago, turned me on to the poetry of Mina Loy (for many years I carried when traveling a home-made copy of her “Songs to Joannes”) and Harry Crosby (among much else, I’m currently re-reading his diary (written from 1922 to 1929), more or less exactly a century after each entry).
There’s also much to discover in Lamantia’s interviews. There’s not a large number of these, but they always educate; see for example the 1998 Q+A included in David Meltzer, editor, San Francisco Beat: Talking with the Poets (City Lights Books, 2001) and “Un Surrealiste En Californie” [interview, in French], in Yves Le Pellec, editor, Entretiens Beat Generation (Paris: Editions Subervie, 1975). In the latter, for example, Lamantia says that his writing of poetry began at age 13, after he first read Poe (he particularly liked “Ulalume” and the short poems), remarking (this my translation from the French) “I remember clearly the illumination caused by the reading” of those poems. I still enjoy re-reading Poe with the young Lamantia in mind.
This blog has fêted Lamantia’s poetry on October 23rd for nearly two decades: seek and ye shall find! Indeed, the ardor here is reflected in the blog’s name: the glade of theoric ornithic hermetica is a line from a Lamantia’s mid-1980s mini-opus “America in the Age of Gold.”
(By the way, that poem’s allusion-rich (and often difficult) vision of “Poetry magic love liberty” remains, forty years after publication and especially in our current too-often grossly over-gilded times, a compelling alternative to what the poem calls “the unequivocally mediocre.” The poem as read by Lamantia in 1986 – the tape runs six and one-half minutes – an be heard by clicking here.)
Today I honor Lamantia the Teacher: teacher of things new-to-me, and of new perspectives on things already known.
Let’s begin by (re)counting the ways. First, there are the poems themselves. They have what is found in all good poems: that which is necessary for a healthy life, to awkwardly paraphrase William Carlos Williams’ beautiful lines towards the end of “Asphodel, That Greeny Flower”:
It is difficultMore than that, Lamantia’s poetry, especially that written in his last four decades (see The Collected Lamantia, University of California Press, 2013) often includes numerous allusions, many to people and locales not commonly known. For the curious and adventurous, those allusions provide still more to explore and study. For example, in the above-mentioned “America in the Age of Gold” alone Lamantia references, among other things (I leave out here mentions of a dozen or so different birds): Coit Tower, Manhattan, Sor Juana, John Donne, Arizona, the Penitentes, the massacres at Humboldt Bay, the ruins of Brasilia, Church’s Cotopoxi, the tree monkey of Borneo, Mt. Konocti, Obisidian Man, and Gilak of the Pomo legend, the Kalmath, Karuk traditions, Voleny, Cole’s Catskill paintings, Quidor, the Rogue River rapids, Meditation By the Sea, Calafian landscapes, Fata Morgana, Shiva, Celtic shores, Bisbee, Frisco, the Huachuca mountains, the collini lombardini, Murrel, the Natchez Trace, and Choctaws.
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there.
In addition, Lamantia’s prose essays, collected in Preserving Fire (Wave Books, 2018), contain much that can be studied. The tippy-top examples here are probably “Radio Voices” (on childhood and old-time serials) and “Poetic Matters” (on the true role of imagination, including incisive comments on 20th Century American poetry). The latter essay, decades ago, turned me on to the poetry of Mina Loy (for many years I carried when traveling a home-made copy of her “Songs to Joannes”) and Harry Crosby (among much else, I’m currently re-reading his diary (written from 1922 to 1929), more or less exactly a century after each entry).
There’s also much to discover in Lamantia’s interviews. There’s not a large number of these, but they always educate; see for example the 1998 Q+A included in David Meltzer, editor, San Francisco Beat: Talking with the Poets (City Lights Books, 2001) and “Un Surrealiste En Californie” [interview, in French], in Yves Le Pellec, editor, Entretiens Beat Generation (Paris: Editions Subervie, 1975). In the latter, for example, Lamantia says that his writing of poetry began at age 13, after he first read Poe (he particularly liked “Ulalume” and the short poems), remarking (this my translation from the French) “I remember clearly the illumination caused by the reading” of those poems. I still enjoy re-reading Poe with the young Lamantia in mind.
There’s also interesting things that can be learned from Lamantia’s letters, written mostly between about 1945 and 1970 he traveled extensively and lived for extended periods in Mexico and Spain (among other places). Some of those letters an be read, albeit with considerable effort, at various university or other library special collections. While he writes mostly about life events and his own work, Lamantia occasionally referenced other matters. I remember, for example, an enthusiastic mention, in an early 1960s letter, of Ornette Coleman’s then-new Change of the Century – and giving that now-classic and still brilliant jazz LP a deep listen.
Finally, given Lamantia’s polymathic ways, and habit of talking for hours both in-person and on the phone – which I was privileged to experience for three years or so (1998-2001) – were often incredibly informative. I remember, for example, Philip talking about birdsong and Olivier Messiaen; in short order I listened to that composer’s Catalogue d'oiseaux and other works (it seems relevant to include here that Lamantia’s 2005 memorial service included three Messiaen organ works, played live, including the mysterious and powerful L'Apparition de l'Église éternelle).
I remember too a phone conversation in which he talked about the Beguines and Marguerite Porete, the 13th Century French mystic – he recited a poem he’d written about her – which caused me to read Porete’s The Mirror of Simple Souls, which includes, “Ah Reason . . . you will always be one-eyed, you and all those who are fed by your doctrine.”
I recall as well the time he mentioned linguist’s Roman Jakobson’s writings on poetry, causing me to seek those out.
And I remember too when he mentioned that Lizabeth Scott was his favorite film noir actress, which led me to try to see those movies (try Too Late for Tears (1949)).
As the examples above suggest, Lamantia’s poems, essays, interviews, letters, and talks, taken together, became for me a kind of ocean rich with things to check out or, if previously known, to consider in different ways. Dozens of poets and hundreds of books, chiefly, but also certain art, photography, music and films. I’ve happily taken multiple deep dives into many of these things, and those adventures continue. I may not think every day on something learned from Lamantia, but it often seems as if I do. I consider myself blessed – a lucky, lucky, lucky man – to have all that: may all who enjoy such learning find someone like Lamantia to fuel their trip.
And now – this just happened just a couple months ago – there’s a marvelous addition to all the above: the syllabi and reading lists Lamantia put together in 1979 and 1982 when he taught classes on poetry / poetics at the San Francisco Art Institute. These were posted at archive.org last summer by Raymond Foye, the NYC-based writer, curator, editor and publisher. While the files can be a bit tricky (the pdf titles don't always match the documents within), they provide a detailed snap-shot of Lamantia’s teaching-points at the time. Today, a diligent student can, somewhat miraculously given that it’s a half-century later, more-or-less audit the courses as Lamantia taught them. For me, it’s a marvelous miracle.
And now – this just happened just a couple months ago – there’s a marvelous addition to all the above: the syllabi and reading lists Lamantia put together in 1979 and 1982 when he taught classes on poetry / poetics at the San Francisco Art Institute. These were posted at archive.org last summer by Raymond Foye, the NYC-based writer, curator, editor and publisher. While the files can be a bit tricky (the pdf titles don't always match the documents within), they provide a detailed snap-shot of Lamantia’s teaching-points at the time. Today, a diligent student can, somewhat miraculously given that it’s a half-century later, more-or-less audit the courses as Lamantia taught them. For me, it’s a marvelous miracle.
For your edification, here are Lamantia’s two-page syllabus and three-page supplementary reading list for his Summer 1979 San Francisco Art Institute “The Poetic Spirit” class: it’s a rich feast; between the two documents, dozens of writers and works are referenced, in addition to more general topics:
How about that? A bonanza, I declare, for those with an avocation for informal / individual-directed learning (keep in mind Lamantia was an autodidact himself, for the most part). Also, while some or many matters included can also be found in Lamantia’s essays, much is not.
Among the many matters in the syllabus / reading list that interested me was the mention of Claude McKay, included in Part V (“The Twentieth Century), right after Mina Loy and Harry Crosby. I don’t recall reading of McKay in Lamantia’s poetry, essays, or interviews. McKay’s self-edited (tho posthumously published) Selected Poems (1953) – a beautifully designed book – is included in Lamantia’s “Supplementary Reading” list
My best guess is that McKay was included in Lamantia’s course as a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance, and because his poetry, at its core, can be read as stemming from an insurgent / outsider imagination (which is the way Lamantia thought of Mina Loy and Harry Crosby).
In that regard, consider McKay’s “If We Must Die” (1919), a sonnet of militant resistance to racial hate, and his similarly defiant “Outcast,” with its declaration, in the final couplet, that he “was born [ . . . ] out of time.” I think also of “The Desolate City,” with its extended metaphor in which a ruined, “pestilential” city stands for McKay’s internal physical and emotional state. The latter poem includes this striking and strange image:
. . . green-eyed moths of curious design,I wonder too if Lamantia dug Mackay’s “North and South,” given that that poem extolls “waking dreams” and the “breath of idleness in the air / that casts a subtle spell upon all things” – ideas that seem close to matters that Lamantia embraced.
With gold-black wings and rarely silver-dotted,
On nests of flowers among those rocks recline
Bold, burning blossoms, strangely leopard-spotted,
But breathing deadly poison at the lips.
There are many other McKay poems I imagine Lamantia might have liked, including maybe most especially “Thirst,” a compelling and fervent expression of desire for fundamental change from a parched status quo:
THIRSTThe image of “[t]he golden finch” in McKay’s poem reminded me that Lamantia wrote and published several poems in the 1980s that mentioned finches: “America in the Age of Gold”, “Unachieved”, “Poetics by Pluto”, “Diana Green”, and “Passionate Ornithology Is Another Kind of Yoga”. It’s a coincidence, I think, though an example of how close study, including (and maybe especially) of all- things-Lamantia, can result in discovery of marvelous matters.
My spirit wails for water, water now!
My tongue is aching dry, my throat is hot
For water, fresh rain shaken from a bough,
Or dawn dews heavy in some leafy spot.
My hungry body’s burning for a swim
In sunlit water where the air is cool,
As in Trout Valley where upon a limb
The golden finch sings sweetly to the pool.
Oh water, water, when the night is done,
When day steals gray-white through the window-pane,
Clear silver water when I wake, alone,
All impotent of parts, of fevered brain;
Pure water from a forest fountain first,
To wash me, cleanse me, and to quench my thirst!
¡¡¡ Viva Lamantia !!!
 |
Philip Lamantia at Beyond Baroque Los Angeles February 1999 (Photo by Michael Hacker) |
+++++
+++++++++++
+++++
