tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post3765844188252135868..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: Edward Dorn: On the Debt My Mother Owed to Sears RoebuckUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-85769728504647459762012-10-11T06:39:36.745-07:002012-10-11T06:39:36.745-07:00Marcia,
Maybe the experience of surviving (or fle...Marcia,<br /><br />Maybe the experience of surviving (or fleeing) those looming walls of dust and biblical plagues of grasshoppers and locusts was so overwhelming it could not be easily spoken of.<br /><br />About the bonus function of the Sears Roebuck catalogue pages, I do remember going out to the country to visit the farm of my Uncle Jack and Aunt Sadie (to neither of whom of course we were actually related), and finding those scattered palimpsests of bits of ads for dresses and shoes and so on, conveniently stacked right there for instant access in the privy.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-70276393611489825352012-10-11T04:23:00.983-07:002012-10-11T04:23:00.983-07:00This Dorn poem and the images of the dry, desolate...This Dorn poem and the images of the dry, desolate land bring back the few stories I remember about the Dust Bowl. I wish I'd asked more questions. I wish the elders would have talked more about the days. I do remember hearing of the never-ending dust and wind and heat, the grasshoppers eating everything and clinging to people's clothes, and lard sandwiches in school lunch buckets. One thing that still existed in my day was the Sears Roebuck catalog. It was a treat to study, and as the short clip from the woman in Texas showed, once it was well-worn, it served yet another purpose. <br /><br />One couldn't help but think about those dark, dusty days while the midsection of our country burned under 100+ degrees much of this past summer. Now one can't help but think about those desolate times as we try to see through the flying dirt of politics....Marciahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17150292834089323928noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-54757071629606743482012-10-11T00:59:14.558-07:002012-10-11T00:59:14.558-07:00Brad,
It may be the sense of timeliness we feel w...Brad,<br /><br />It may be the sense of timeliness we feel with certain poems takes a while to accumulate, as a kind of historical increment. So too, perhaps, the sense of timelessness, with the very best ones. This poem was fine when it was written a half century ago, and has "aged" extremely well. It has improved with the expansion of its range of application -- and implication. It's impossible to say that about the great majority of "famous" poems of its time, those well-shaped-urn ship-in-a-bottle creations of Richard Wilbur, Tony Hecht, et al., which now amount to little more than a dossier of evidence confirming the cultural vacuity of the period, much as (say) the Mickey Mouse Club. <br /><br /><br />Curtis,<br /><br />Speaking of ladies' torsos (ah, it's been a while), the history of female body self-imaging must be inseparable from the constantly shifting projections of ideal anatomical shape delineated in those old, dog-eared (possibly from pawing by covert adolescent hands) <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQDXeRikta8" rel="nofollow">mail order catalogues</a>.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-89549033660462054052012-10-10T11:47:50.388-07:002012-10-10T11:47:50.388-07:00I was moved by this . . . am still, as I replay th...I was moved by this . . . am still, as I replay the lines and movement between them . . . and am stuck at how timely it is . . . the ethics and pain of debt, its craven necessity, like the locust bound for the field. This one will stick with me, and I will certainly read more Dorn. <br /><br />Someone asked me the other day, Tom, what I thought was the best online resource for learning about poetry. Without hesitation, I told them your blog. I stand by that. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-6146230245661011132012-10-10T11:01:56.237-07:002012-10-10T11:01:56.237-07:00Sir Edward Dorn
Knight of the table mesa
slayer o...Sir Edward Dorn<br /><br />Knight of the table mesa<br />slayer of the sideways boulder<br />thinker of the feelings<br />of across<br />that landscape.<br />What happened there<br />with the official message<br />all its implicit<br />folds-- <br />neurotic iron<br />flat on the mountainside.<br />The town appears to be run<br />with computers<br />but that is not what<br />is really going on<br />beneath the surface<br />of all that shopping<br />at the Natural Food Store.<br />It would take a major poet<br />to point this out.Susan Kay Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16277139119869470939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-83353487244095486172012-10-10T10:24:21.375-07:002012-10-10T10:24:21.375-07:00Is the world washed-out?
Does the washing hanging...Is the world washed-out?<br /><br />Does the washing hanging on the long wire, stretched from the edge of the back porch overhang to the corner of the barn, blank out white and pure-smelling forever? <br /><br />Or has it faded into insubstantiality like so much of our wrinkled past?<br /><br />T-shirts thus finished had a lovely freshness which no amount of "spinning" in the mechanical tumble could ever accomplish.<br /><br />I remember poring over the lingerie ads in the Monkey Wards catalog for the best view of the ladies' torsos. Alas, the girdles and bras of those days were entirely too elaborate, unlike the Victoria's Secrets call-girls of our day. <br /><br />How much imagination makes an apple?Curtis Favillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06213075853354387634noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-37559713003187251072012-10-10T01:33:17.895-07:002012-10-10T01:33:17.895-07:00It's hard to develop nostalgic feeling for any...It's hard to develop nostalgic feeling for any company that has managed to survive into the monstrous amerikan corporate present -- and the survival of Sears is/was down to the sort of corporate morphing that eventually yielded a grey conglomerate of "democratic" agencies such as Kmart, All State & c. -- but back in those Dick & Jane days, before plastic and credit, there was a certain cultural signification in the cut-price mail-order function... all gone by the boards now of course, in the nightmare maelstrom of "our" cheapjack surrogate stars and stripes mall 'n Smartphone invented version of reality.<br /><br />But once upon time...<br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye3eYHqXFyk&feature=related" rel="nofollow">What the Sears catalogue meant to one West Texas woman</a><br /><br />WB, it would be pleasant to be able to say that ethical motive has remained a driving force in the poetics of this benighted republic. Alas however even the possibility of that has by now been bred out of the strain. Dorn could no more have written this poem now than he could have lived through the history it describes.<br /><br />As to the debt to our mothers, that is something we will be servicing, in our tiny shrunken alien-millennium hearts, the rest of our few given days.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-70092278587525256222012-10-09T23:34:52.315-07:002012-10-09T23:34:52.315-07:00It's great to read a poet who understands that...It's great to read a poet who understands that poetry is something that happens ethically.Mose23https://www.blogger.com/profile/01100756913131511440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-80104269597611320582012-10-09T23:29:44.235-07:002012-10-09T23:29:44.235-07:00That terrible sense of how debt holds you in place...That terrible sense of how debt holds you in place, the unspeakable anxiety of it.<br /><br />The repetition of the word, dry, in the opening stanza makes for a hard and necessary way in to the poem's world. It scratches.Mose23https://www.blogger.com/profile/01100756913131511440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-66500993431807699592012-10-09T16:39:10.370-07:002012-10-09T16:39:10.370-07:00The corn became a sad mirror
nobody could look int...The corn became a sad mirror<br />nobody could look into<br />especially those looking<br />to go, itching to disappear<br />they did not want you<br />anyway. They looked through you.<br /><br />At the old places <br />impossible<br />to fit in<br />largely <br />too handsome<br />to be used<br />for long. Your voice<br /><br />didja know it would be <br />such<br />a hindrance <br />at the odd jobs?<br /><br />Not enough this not enough that.<br />To hell. Clueless to what--<br /><br />life was worth it<br />in all seriousness<br />all beauty<br />in your debt<br />your service<br />to its credit.Susan Kay Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16277139119869470939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-5032568793754576162012-10-09T15:55:50.062-07:002012-10-09T15:55:50.062-07:00B.C.
before credit
or
before computers were neede...B.C.<br />before credit<br />or <br />before computers were needed<br />to count it all out.Susan Kay Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16277139119869470939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-34272997936183191012012-10-09T15:07:27.058-07:002012-10-09T15:07:27.058-07:00"The judgment of American poetry...songs of t..."The judgment of American poetry...songs of the marginalized American experience."<br /><br />What an amazing piece of writing. Forget Dorn's poem--no, don't forget it, who could, but, wow, great to read these words about a dedicated miner who tossed us the good bits of what he dug out with bare hands.Susan Kay Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16277139119869470939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-15296491163753830212012-10-09T14:52:55.604-07:002012-10-09T14:52:55.604-07:00All of a sudden there is no center. It is not fou...All of a sudden there is no center. It is not found in the pages of the catalog. It is not by the well, not by the house, the old places. The field is meaningless. There is no substance. It is not at the Hippodrome. It used to be. It used to be. Wars will scramble everything up, yet again.<br /><br />The poet should have saved this world but it was beyond saving, or would've been happier to ignore this feeling, this reality, but he cannot. He is way too sensitive even though he was not supposed to be this refined, feeling everything, everything affecting him so much. His heart had broken a long time ago. Nothing would ever affect him so much ever again. He was over it, there. He was bitter and forever in love with it. It gave him freedom to embrace alternatives less crushing.Susan Kay Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16277139119869470939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-43150053352468386512012-10-09T13:53:19.439-07:002012-10-09T13:53:19.439-07:00So glad Dorn sent you those poems. So glad you pub...So glad Dorn sent you those poems. So glad you published them. His memories and feelings well up, become words . . . honest, plain, and beautiful. Dorn and Stryker’s crew of photographers seem to have been mining the same vein of reality. They’re a good fit.<br /><br />An economy of debt. We’ve been taking this ride for a long time.Hazenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13417573435195561519noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-2869121172966119122012-10-09T12:18:52.663-07:002012-10-09T12:18:52.663-07:00"a meaningless map, a meaningless riddle
of w..."a meaningless map, a meaningless riddle<br />of what in simpler life would say was lost"<br /><br />Nothing is here to grab onto in a concrete way. A desperate disappointment, more than sad, ache for the rich land underfoot. It's right there out of reach. Its dream is in the twisted branches of the locust-eaten trees. The people have eaten everything there is to eat. It is stark and desolate, futuristic in black and white, even though this happened eighty years ago. Back to hunting, back to gathering. A regretful explanation. The poet does not anticipate any change yet, any hope, except the west that pulls invisibly.Susan Kay Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16277139119869470939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-43806490154558476862012-10-09T10:35:56.905-07:002012-10-09T10:35:56.905-07:00The debt kept them alive
before credit cards.The debt kept them alive<br />before credit cards.Susan Kay Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16277139119869470939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-52647814253622597822012-10-09T10:31:24.956-07:002012-10-09T10:31:24.956-07:00My Mother's Olden Tongue
A place of rivers. ...My Mother's Olden Tongue<br /><br />A place of rivers. A <br />map of dry lightning.<br /><br />The Iller. The Danube. The Rogue.<br />The Salmon. The Kuzatrin. Rattlesnake Creek.<br />Tundra telepathy.<br />Yoga before it was popular.<br /><br />Roman. Olden. Fairy tale muscle. Animal.<br />Bird. Mountain singing.<br /><br />Mine--raspberry, strawberry. Plant-like, fruit-like.<br />Spoiled. American. Breathy chime. Bossy father sense.<br />Avalanche.Susan Kay Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16277139119869470939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-75898133245427300642012-10-09T10:17:18.575-07:002012-10-09T10:17:18.575-07:00One wishes to be taken seriously
despite what it l...One wishes to be taken seriously<br />despite what it looks like<br />instead of the outward suspended<br />inward longing reach across a continent.<br /><br />It is practical to focus on the mailbox<br />that stands between. Something<br /><br />in the mail keeps the wheels spinning <br />round and round<br /><br />wheels turning.Susan Kay Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16277139119869470939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-85725240635526822722012-10-09T04:35:50.032-07:002012-10-09T04:35:50.032-07:00Great poem, and I don't know Dorn well. I wou...Great poem, and I don't know Dorn well. I would love to read more--will order an early book. Sears Robuck was such an event back then. We used to love that catalog, and ordered from it every fall. And we saved them to make paper dolls and such from last years' pages.<br />I must have been born just when it was going out . . . but I also remember thinking that Dick and Jane were dressed in Sears catalog outfits.<br /><br />Nin Andrewshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12643167108589844026noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-26472907101098410372012-10-09T02:02:35.696-07:002012-10-09T02:02:35.696-07:00The judgment of American poetry by the academic ar...The judgment of American poetry by the academic arbiters who form accepted orders of critical value has always been skewed by the pressure of economic interests at whose trough academia feeds. Independent thinking in this area is rare, and the uniqueness of the early poetry of Edward Dorn, which shone out as exceptional at the time of its production, has been further accentuated even as its hard truths become increasingly difficult for academics to confront -- that is to say, its courage and originality have come to stand out with full clarity only now that there begins to emerge a general comprehension, at least on the part of those outside academia, of the desolation and devaluation of the human inflicted upon this country by an economic system geared to the benefit of the very few at the expense of the very many. Few have so articulately challenged the foundations of this monolithic structure as did Edward Dorn, in his early, enduring songs of the marginalized American experience..<br /><br />Dorn began sending me his poems in 1963-1964, when I was in England and he was in Idaho. I had just lately begun editing poetry for The Paris Review. Dorn's independent, intelligent, sensitive yet uncompromising and often righteously indignant "outsider" voice, manifested in poems like this one, or like "The Sense Comes Over Me, and the Waning Light of Man by the 1st National Bank" (which I placed in The Paris Review #35), was not the sort of voice one was used to hearing in that journal -- up to that time (and indeed now again, as it happens) strictly a mainline "company" venue in poetry.<br /><br />William McPheron, writing in a monograph on Dorn in the Boise State University Western Writers Series, 1988, contributed what remains the most useful introductory assessment of this poet's work.<br /><br />McPheron, speaking of the early poems:<br /><br />"These early years in Illinois were informed by rural poverty and its emotional desolation. Their imprint was deep, producing attitudes that animate much of Dorn's writing. His conviction of the injustice of the American economic system, anger at the suffering it inflicts, and distrust of the privileged classes that benefit from it may be traced to this period. 'On the Debt My Mother Owed to Sears Roebuck' powerfully evokes the sorrow of dispossessed farm life, while 'The Sense Comes Over Me, and the Waning Light of Man by the 1st National Bank' directly links his own family's deprivation to the country's financial structure."<br /><br />The "father" referred to in the present poem is actually Dorn's stepfather, Glen Abercrombie -- his real father, an itinerant railwayman, having passed out of the picture too early to be remembered.<br /><br />A moving poem from Dorn's first book, The Newly Fallen (1961) remembers his mother in a characteristic attitude: left behind, uncomprehending, caught as if frozen in a "year-long stare / across plowed flat prairielands":<br /><br /><a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/edward-dorn-goodbye-to-illinois.html" rel="nofollow">Goodbye to the Illinois</a><br /><br />Economic analysis always proceeds most firmly on the ground of experience. When Ed and I met in 1965, we spoke often of our memories of our native state, though Ed's downstate rural history and my own upstate urban background were in many respects quite unlike. He said once that in the part of the state where he had grown up, a region of "sodbusters", my ilk were described (with some irony) as "Chicago busters". Still we discovered there were many memories we shared in common, and among these was the memory of growing up in households in which the Sears Roebuck mail-order catalogue, pored over at length by the mothers who kept the families going by assiduous scrimping, was the most consulted book.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.com