When I was 14 or 15 our family had moved to Ukraine and none of us were particularly happy about it. I was not a cheerful person under normal circumstances, but the move really made me sullen and withdrawn, especially from my family. I would do almost anything to get out of the house, walk around the city, whatever - just as long as it wasn't with the fam.
I've been a pretty insatiable reader since around the age of three, but it was usually science fiction, Children's Illustrated Classics or the New Hardy Boys Adventures. (Man, those two jokers kept me entertained for hours. Dumb as a wet bag of laundry soap, but they helped me kill some time.)
Then in junior high I started to read some poetry for class - mostly kid stuff like "Casey at the Bat," Walter De La Mare and Edgar Allen Poe's more Halloweeny work. (I was also a huge fan of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," but that's mostly because of all the nightmarish stuff within, later mined by Alan Moore for "Tales of the Black Freighter," the comic-within-a-comic from WATCHMEN.)
I started writing poetry and song lyrics around that time, partly for escapism, partly as something to do, and also partly because I was starting to realize that gangly dorks with oversized glasses can feel some measure of control and power with a mastery of language. One of my brothers wrote a poem much later that described me as always scribbling in a mysterious notebook and never showing anyone what was inside. I don't remember it quite that way, but I'll accept that version of events.
So I was too caught up in moody junior-high resentment and having my face stuck in a book to realize that my family is noticing all of these things about me. And in at least one case this would have been valuable information.
I'm the oldest kid in my family, my brother Nate is a year and a half younger. He and I are pretty much polar opposites - he’s blond, blue-eyed, athletic, outgoing, unselfconscious, relaxed, straightforward. I’m often described as difficult, reserved, uptight, brooding, dark, introverted - and it was way worse back then.
One day after school Nate got very excited and banged on the wall between our rooms, “Hey Matt! You’ve got to come see this! It’s so amazing!” (I’m extemporizing here, but yes, he actually talked like that.)
I trudged over, grumbling to myself, and at the door he greets me with trembling, expectant hands holding out a piece of lined paper, a tremulous half-smile on his face. This is what was written on it.
Pictures in the Clouds
Nate Quarterman
A panda, lion, and a little dove.
Horse and rider,
Apple cider, dogs, and a bee,
Boat, pig, a tiny fig,
And birds that like to sing.
A big mass, a pane of glass,
Fairies, and a moat.
Big bells, oyster shells, flowers,
And a boat.
All these things in the clouds
Were made by God above,
Painted by His awesome power
And his abundant love.
And so, burgeoning poet that I was, in my own estimation definitely the greatest poet I knew, what did I say?
I think it was, “That’s terrible, Nate. It’s really not good. Try again.”
Imagine, if you will, a dog owner who’s had the pet for years. Suddenly one day the master stops taking his medication and out of nowhere begins repeatedly kicking this poodle in the head. Now picture the look on that dog’s face.
My mistake was not honesty. Pretty much anyone who has read this poem over the years (and I’ve recounted this story to plenty of friends) has agreed that it’s a pretty awful poem. Can’t fault me with malfunctioning critical instincts. Heck, I don’t even think my primary mistake was a lack of compassion - though that was also certainly one of my failings.
My main mistake was in believing everybody creates art for the same reasons I do.
Nate wanted to have some fun, show his interest in the same things I loved, and be rewarded for his first meager efforts. I wanted to be the great expatriate poet, acknowledged far and wide as the best-educated and most insightful artist of his era, the Man Who Brought Poetry Back from the Brink.
I thought that my struggles and aspirations and unloved-ness could all be redeemed by my skill and wit and worthiness. Caliban nurses his grudge like a bitter glass of beer, and I knew my suffering would be justified by the glory poetry brought me. Turns out art isn’t a great star to hitch your wagon to.
You don’t get points for being tortured. You don’t lose points for being happy-go-lucky. And not everyone has to live for art.
As I read this now I’m touched and honored by the poem. He thought, “Who would be a worthy critic and colleague? Who knows about poetry that I respect?” He so craved some appreciation of his work and his self, he just launched himself off that cliff and hoped for the best. He obviously didn’t know who he was dealing with.
So that’s the most important poem I’ve ever read - it taught me a lesson, it changed my life. That’s a lot for one piece of verse to do.
Nate made me promise to follow that poem up with a companion piece, something more recent than a decade and a half old. In the meantime he’s turned into a really fine writer.
I often wish he’d bang on a wall between us and say, “You’ve got to come read this! It’s so amazing!”
Hurghada
Nate Quarterman
Look at the glory of the Ancients
-- sign in the Valley of the Kings
The Saturday balcony carried a
cross-section of the synthetic
Arabian night.
Fragments of minarets whispered to us
on the dream mezzanine.
The skycranes and palms pierced
the full winesack moon,
and it bled its brilliance down
onto the Red Sea.
We watched it all turn to
Moon blood.
We watched a Koran-child
and his mother, who was
wrapped in the wrinkles of a
black mummy corpse.
We watched the men
selling onyx cat gods and alabaster,
and I remembered that
Joseph's bones once
clattered across this
desert.
(From here on out
each city is like a point
on the star of David)
We listened to the nasal hiccups of a
distant muezzin
and as we listened,
Islam whispered to us.
It whispered through the lotus
temples and hollow kings.
It whispered through
garbage villages and canopic jars.
It whispered over hieroglyphics.
And as Islam whispered to us,
we sat up in the
unconditioned night.
As it whispered,
we haggled and cursed
their kindness.
As Islam whispered to us,
we lost sight of all, and
we didn't whisper
back.
No comments:
Post a Comment