It’s good to be reminded there is still nobility in literature, in every sense of that word. These days my world is made up of outlandishly commercial fiction, the gossipy media bubble of publishing, and the hardscrabble existence of my writer friends. Seven years out of English academia, I’ve almost forgotten that there is a writing universe that exists on a different plane from that in which I dwell.
Last night, Brian and I attended an event that brought that world crashing back into glorious focus for me. Philip Levine is a legendary poet, winner of a Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, two National Book Critics Circle awards, and just about every other honor a poet can receive. Not only that, but he’s one hell of a guy, if his friends and colleagues can be believed. And it seemed all of them came out last night to the Cooper Union for an 80th birthday tribute. Those speaking and reading in his honor included E.L. Doctorow, Edward Hirsch, Galway Kinnell, Yusuf Komunyakaa, and several other poets too famous for me to even have heard of.
It was really a collection of contemporary poetry’s nobility. And that’s one thing that struck me: that there still exists this rarefied cadre of writers who support, teach, tease, and inspire each other. They cling together in this tiny community that the rest of the world ignores but that performs an unspeakably vital service. In their unwavering determination to both capture and create beauty on the page, to point up the injustices of the world, and to explore the idea of truth, they are truly noble. And Phil Levine embodies this spirit of nobility better than almost any living writer, having spent fifty years throwing himself at the darkness of truth. He yokes art and the mundane together to create a sublime and terrible honesty on the page that is frightening in its power.
And this from a man who last night expounded gleefully upon the term “ratfuck” and attributed his best poems to his wife, Fanny. Nobody said nobility precludes a sense of humor.
Last night, Brian and I attended an event that brought that world crashing back into glorious focus for me. Philip Levine is a legendary poet, winner of a Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, two National Book Critics Circle awards, and just about every other honor a poet can receive. Not only that, but he’s one hell of a guy, if his friends and colleagues can be believed. And it seemed all of them came out last night to the Cooper Union for an 80th birthday tribute. Those speaking and reading in his honor included E.L. Doctorow, Edward Hirsch, Galway Kinnell, Yusuf Komunyakaa, and several other poets too famous for me to even have heard of.It was really a collection of contemporary poetry’s nobility. And that’s one thing that struck me: that there still exists this rarefied cadre of writers who support, teach, tease, and inspire each other. They cling together in this tiny community that the rest of the world ignores but that performs an unspeakably vital service. In their unwavering determination to both capture and create beauty on the page, to point up the injustices of the world, and to explore the idea of truth, they are truly noble. And Phil Levine embodies this spirit of nobility better than almost any living writer, having spent fifty years throwing himself at the darkness of truth. He yokes art and the mundane together to create a sublime and terrible honesty on the page that is frightening in its power.
And this from a man who last night expounded gleefully upon the term “ratfuck” and attributed his best poems to his wife, Fanny. Nobody said nobility precludes a sense of humor.
3 comments:
Carrie, here's a link to "Cowboy Up," the Charles Wright poem that I keep on my desk at work.
(Charles Wright was another poet at the reading last night.)
http://www.vqronline.org/articles/2007/summer/wright-cowboy-up/
That's funny, I have a spur and a cowboy hat hanging over my desk, but I'm the westerns editor so I have an excuse.
(And yes, Charles Wright was awesome.)
Carolyn, I wish you would get a chance to do more of your own writing like you used to, instead of just editing for other people. You are good.
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