Now & Then Read online

  Now & Then

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  Also by Robert Hass

  Poetry

  Time and Materials: Poems 1997–2005

  Sun Under Wood

  Human Wishes

  Praise

  Field Guide

  Essays

  Twentieth Century Pleasures

  Translations

  Czeslaw Milosz, The Separate Notebooks

  (with Robert Pinsky and Renata Gorczynski)

  Czeslaw Milosz, Unattainable Earth (with the author)

  Czeslaw Milosz, Collected Poems (with the author and others)

  Czeslaw Milosz, Provinces (with the author)

  Czeslaw Milosz, Facing the River (with the author)

  Czeslaw Milosz, Treatise on Poetry (with the author)

  Czeslaw Milosz, Road-side Dog (with the author)

  Czeslaw Milosz, Second Space: New Poems (with the author)

  The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho¯, Buson, & Issa

  Editor

  Robinson Jeffers, Rock and Hawk: A Selection of Shorter Poems

  Tomas Tranströmer, Selected Poems: 1954–1986

  Into the Garden: A Wedding Anthology (with Stephen Mitchell)

  The Addison Street Anthology: Berkeley’s Poetry Walk (with Jessica Fisher)

  Poet’s Choice: Poems for Everyday Life

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  Now & Then

  The Poet’s Choice Columns

  1997–2000

  Robert Hass

  H

  Shoemaker & Hoard

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  Copyright © 2007 by Robert Hass

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used

  or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written

  permission from the Publisher, except in the case of brief

  quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Every attempt has been made to secure permissions.

  We regret any inadvertent omission.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Hass, Robert.

  Now & then : the Poet’s choice columns, 1997–2000 / Robert Hass.

  p. cm.

  Includes indexes.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-59376-146-2 (alk. paper)

  ISBN-10: 1-59376-146-5 (alk. paper)

  1. English poetry—History and criticism. 2. American poetry

  —History and criticism. I. Title. II. Title: Now and then.

  PR503.H27 2007

  811'.54—dc22

  2007003474

  Book design by Gopa & Ted2, Inc.

  Printed in the United States of America

  Shoemaker Hoar

  H

  d

  www.shoemakerhoard.com

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  * * *

  For Finn, Josephine, Cole, Ella, Hazel & Fionna

  —when you want, someday, to read a poem

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  Contents

  A Note to Readers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

  1997

  December 7

  Wallace Stevens and Joni Mitchell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

  December 14 In Memoriam: James Laughlin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

  December 21 Nativity Poems:

  William Butler Yeats and Louise Glück . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

  December 28 A New Year’s Poem

  from the Korean Sijo Tradition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

  1998

  January 4

  A Korean Poet: Ko Un . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

  January 11

  In Memoriam: Denise Levertov . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

  January 19

  In Memoriam: William Matthews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

  January 25

  Frank Bidart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

  February 1

  A Polish Poet: Adam Zagajewski . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

  February 8

  A Question of Decency: Walt Whitman . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

  February 15

  Stanley Plumly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

  February 22

  Sonia Sanchez . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

  March 1

  Marie Howe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

  March 8

  John Koethe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

  March 15

  Sylvia Plath . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

  March 22

  Ted Hughes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

  March 29

  Spring, and a New Translation of Horace . . . . . . . . . . . 39

  April 5

  Passover: Linda Pastan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

  April 12

  Easter: Mary Karr . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

  April 19

  An Irish Poet: Derek Mahon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

  April 26

  Audubon’s Birthday: Birds by Robert Frost,

  W. C. Williams, and Robinson Jeffers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

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  viii Contents

  May 3

  In Memoriam: Octavio Paz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

  May 10

  Mother’s Day: Dorianne Laux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

  May 17

  Agha Shahid Ali . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

  May 24

  Margaret Atwood. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

  May 31

  Memorial Day and Shakespeare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

  June 7

  Summer and Baseball: Linda Gregerson . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

  June 14

  Encompassing Nature:

  Sappho, Lady Komachi, and an Irish Bard . . . . . . . . . . 61

  June 21

  Father’s Day: Cornelius Eady . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

  June 28

  Joseph Stroud and Larissa Szporluk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

  July 5

  Independence Day: Ralph Waldo Emerson . . . . . . . . . 68

  July 12

  Patriotism and Public Memory: Robert Lowell . . . . . 70

  July 19

  Susan Wheeler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

  July 26

  D. A. Powell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

  August 2

  Arthur Sze . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

  August 9

  The Villanelle:

  Theodore Roethke and Elizabeth Bishop . . .
. . . . . . . 79

  August 16

  In Memoriam: Zbigniew Herbert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

  August 23

  Something Old, Something New: Charlotte Mew . . . 84

  August 30

  Yusef Komunyakaa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

  September 6 Labor Day: Gary Snyder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

  September 13 May Swenson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

  September 20 Donald Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

  September 27 Presidents, Poets, and Shame: James Wright . . . . . . . . . 92

  October 4

  Filipino Poetry: Returning a Borrowed Tongue . . . . . . . . 95

  October 11

  John Ashbery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

  October 18

  Sterling Brown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

  October 25

  Robert Bly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

  November 1 Chase Twichell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

  November 8 A Canadian Poet: Roo Borson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

  November 15 A Portuguese Poet: Fernando Pessoa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

  November 22 Thanksgiving:

  Harriet Maxwell Converse and Iroquois Song . . . . . 109

  November 29 A Swedish Poet: Tomas Tranströmer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

  December 6

  Czeslaw Milosz: The Poet as a Road-side Dog . . . . . 114

  December 13 Israeli Poems on War and Peace: Yehuda Amichai . . . 116

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  Contents ix

  December 20 Christmas: Mark Doty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

  December 27 A Poem for the End of a Thousand Years:

  W. H. Auden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

  1999

  January 2

  A Scottish Poet for New Year’s Day:

  George Mackay Brown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

  January 10

  In Memoriam: Margaret Walker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

  January 17

  In Memoriam: Janet Lewis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

  January 24

  Philip Larkin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

  January 31

  A Spanish Poet: Rafael Alberti . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

  February 7

  George Herbert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

  February 14

  Valentine’s Day: Kenneth Rexroth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

  February 21

  An Irish Poet: Paul Muldoon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

  February 28

  Ben Jonson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

  March 7

  Pattiann Rogers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

  March 14

  An Italian Poet: Eugenio Montale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

  March 21

  Claudia Rankine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

  March 28

  Gerard Manley Hopkins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

  April 4

  Easter: Charles Wright . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

  April 11

  Richard Wright and Langston Hughes . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

  April 18

  Wang Ping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

  April 25

  Michael Ondaatje . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

  May 2

  Forrest Gander . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160

  May 9

  A Serbian Poet: Vasko Popa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

  May 16

  Adrienne Rich . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

  May 23

  Malena Mörling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

  May 30

  Memorial Day: Jaime Sabines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

  June 6

  The Poetics of Travel: Elizabeth Bishop . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

  June 13

  Paul Beatty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

  June 20

  Father’s Day: Li-Young Lee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

  June 27

  Poetry and Weddings: Benjamin Saenz . . . . . . . . . . . . 180

  July 4

  Independence Day: Rita Dove . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

  July 11

  Fanny Howe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

  July 18

  Lee Ann Brown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

  July 25

  A Serbian Epic: The Battle of Kosovo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

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  x Contents

  August 1

  Denise Levertov . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

  August 8

  Summer Shakespeare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196

  August 15

  Louise Glück . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199

  August 22

  In Memoriam: Sherley Anne Williams . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202

  August 29

  Naomi Shihab Nye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

  September 5 Labor Day: Willam Blake and Debra Allbery . . . . . . . 207

  September 12 One Thousand Years of Poetry in English:

  A Millennium Gathering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

  September 19 Rainer Maria Rilke: Herbsttag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

  September 26 Rainer Maria Rilke Translated by

  Galway Kinnell and William Gass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224

  October 3

  Andrew Hudgins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

  October 10

  Heather McHugh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

  October 17

  Dean Young . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232

  October 24

  John Clare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

  October 31

  Halloween: John Keats and Lynne McMahon . . . . . . 240

  November 7 Czeslaw Milosz: An Argument About Imperialism . . 243

  November 14 Wallace Stevens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245

  November 21 Thanksgiving: Daniel Halpern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250

  November 28 A Peruvian Poet: César Vallejo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253

  December 5

  Bad Words: Stephen Berg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256

  December 12 Seamus Heaney’s Beowulf as an Ecological Epic . . . . . 259

  December 19 Snow: Emerson, Lowell, Dickinson,

  Longfellow, Whittier, and Stevens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261

  De
cember 26 Christmas: Ira Gershwin and Cole Porter . . . . . . . . . . 267

  2000

  January 2

  New Year’s Day:

  Tessa Rumsey and Harryette Mullen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271

  January 9

  Charlotte Smith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274

  January 16

  Rita Dove . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277

  Epilogue

  Ezra Pound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281

  Copyright Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287

  Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297

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  A Note to Readers

  This is a book of poems and small essays about them written over

  a period of about two years. It came about because Nina King,

  then literary editor of the Washington Post, invited me to write a weekly

  column for the Post’s Book World. The idea was that I would, each week,

  select a poem and comment on it. The aim was to introduce poetry to

  people who had never read it at all; to reintroduce it to people who had

  read it in school but had gotten out of the habit and, having an impulse to

  find their way back to it, didn’t know where to start; and to give people

  who did read poetry some poems and ideas about poems to think about.

  The column was a novelty. Nothing quite like it had been done in an

  American newspaper in many decades, if ever, and it was immediately

  popular with readers of Book World. In very little time it was syndicated

  nationally in more than twenty-five newspapers, including the San Fran-

  cisco Examiner, the Seattle Times, the Miami Herald, the Atlanta Journal,

  the Chicago Sun-Times, the Detroit News, and the Philippines’ principal

  English-language paper, the Manila Times.

  I wrote the column for four years. Since then it has continued to thrive

  in the hands of Rita Dove, Edward Hirsch, and Robert Pinsky. For the

  first two years of working on it, my task was mainly to pick a poem and

  provide the briefest framing by way of commentary. But in late 1997 the

  format of Book World changed, and I had a little more space to work with,