Christian Wiman
Christian Wiman, born and raised in West Texas, continues a tradition in American poetry which is now outnumbered, if a tradition can be that. By now the boundless, formless, scattered and often scrambled poem dominates the American poetic world, and is advancing into the rest of the English-speaking world as inexorably as Wal-Mart. Chris Wiman does the other sort of thing. He writes with transparent exactitude in contained, rhythmic forms that Robert Frost would have approved of. Richard Wilbur, one of Chris Wiman’s mentors, has illuminatingly commented on his “singular power to bring about mergings of consciousness with the surround.” The surround can be anywhere in America and indeed the world. This poet is much travelled (he has lived in England, Mexico, Guatemala and the Czech Republic) and has served in several universities, with Stanford, where he was Jones lecturer in poetry, perhaps at the top of the list. His most influential posting, however, is the editorship of Poetry (Chicago), but he is notable for seeking, from contributors, nothing except quality, and imposes no requirement to write within the boundaries that he sets for himself. Indeed his own poetry is entirely absent from the magazine’s pages: an impressive act of self-denial. I find his poems insistent on being read aloud, in the way that so much from America is determined not to be. His rhymes and line-turnovers are all carefully placed to intensify the speech rhythms, making everything dramatic: not shoutingly so, but with a steady voice that tells an ideal story every time. His most recent collection, Hard Night (2005), is probably the best way in, but don’t miss the five-part title poem of his 1998 collection The Long Home. There is now also a book of prose, Ambition and Survival (2007), which deals fascinatingly with the subject of Becoming a Poet.
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Darkness Starts
A shadow in the shape of a house
slides out of a house
and loses its shape on the lawn.
Trees seek each other
as the wind within them dies.
Darkness starts inside of things
but keeps on going when the things are gone.
Barefoot careless in the farthest parts of the yard
children become their cries.
A shadow in the shape of a house
slides out of a house
and loses its shape on the lawn.
Trees seek each other
as the wind within them dies.
Darkness starts inside of things
but keeps on going when the things are gone.
Barefoot careless in the farthest parts of the yard
children become their cries.
slides out of a house
and loses its shape on the lawn.
Trees seek each other
as the wind within them dies.
Darkness starts inside of things
but keeps on going when the things are gone.
Barefoot careless in the farthest parts of the yard
children become their cries.
A shadow in the shape of a house
slides out of a house
and loses its shape on the lawn.
Trees seek each other
as the wind within them dies.
Darkness starts inside of things
but keeps on going when the things are gone.
Barefoot careless in the farthest parts of the yard
children become their cries.
Clearing
It was when I walked lost
in the burn and rust
of late October that I turned
near dusk toward the leaf-screened
light of a green clearing in the trees.
In the untracked and roadless open
I saw an intact but wide open house,
half-standing and half-lost
to unsuffered seasons of wind
and frost: warped tin and broken stone,
old wood combed by the incurious sun.
The broad wall to the stark north,
each caulked chink and the solid hearth
dark with all the unremembered fires
that in the long nights quietly died,
implied a life of bare solitude
and hardship, little to hold
and less to keep, aching days
and welcome sleep in the mind-clearing cold.
And yet the wide sky, the wildflowered ground
and the sound of the wind
in the burn and rust of late October
as the days shortened and the leaves turned
must have been heartening, too,
to one who walked out of the trees
into a green clearing that he knew.
If you could find this place,
or even for one moment feel
in the word-riddled remnants
of what I felt there
the mild but gathering air, see the leaves
that with one good blast would go,
you could believe
that standing in a late weave of light and shade
a man could suddenly want his life,
feel it blaze in him and mean,
as for a moment I believed,
before I walked on.
It was when I walked lost
in the burn and rust
of late October that I turned
near dusk toward the leaf-screened
light of a green clearing in the trees.
In the untracked and roadless open
I saw an intact but wide open house,
half-standing and half-lost
to unsuffered seasons of wind
and frost: warped tin and broken stone,
old wood combed by the incurious sun.
The broad wall to the stark north,
each caulked chink and the solid hearth
dark with all the unremembered fires
that in the long nights quietly died,
implied a life of bare solitude
and hardship, little to hold
and less to keep, aching days
and welcome sleep in the mind-clearing cold.
And yet the wide sky, the wildflowered ground
and the sound of the wind
in the burn and rust of late October
as the days shortened and the leaves turned
must have been heartening, too,
to one who walked out of the trees
into a green clearing that he knew.
If you could find this place,
or even for one moment feel
in the word-riddled remnants
of what I felt there
the mild but gathering air, see the leaves
that with one good blast would go,
you could believe
that standing in a late weave of light and shade
a man could suddenly want his life,
feel it blaze in him and mean,
as for a moment I believed,
before I walked on.
in the burn and rust
of late October that I turned
near dusk toward the leaf-screened
light of a green clearing in the trees.
In the untracked and roadless open
I saw an intact but wide open house,
half-standing and half-lost
to unsuffered seasons of wind
and frost: warped tin and broken stone,
old wood combed by the incurious sun.
The broad wall to the stark north,
each caulked chink and the solid hearth
dark with all the unremembered fires
that in the long nights quietly died,
implied a life of bare solitude
and hardship, little to hold
and less to keep, aching days
and welcome sleep in the mind-clearing cold.
And yet the wide sky, the wildflowered ground
and the sound of the wind
in the burn and rust of late October
as the days shortened and the leaves turned
must have been heartening, too,
to one who walked out of the trees
into a green clearing that he knew.
If you could find this place,
or even for one moment feel
in the word-riddled remnants
of what I felt there
the mild but gathering air, see the leaves
that with one good blast would go,
you could believe
that standing in a late weave of light and shade
a man could suddenly want his life,
feel it blaze in him and mean,
as for a moment I believed,
before I walked on.
It was when I walked lost
in the burn and rust
of late October that I turned
near dusk toward the leaf-screened
light of a green clearing in the trees.
In the untracked and roadless open
I saw an intact but wide open house,
half-standing and half-lost
to unsuffered seasons of wind
and frost: warped tin and broken stone,
old wood combed by the incurious sun.
The broad wall to the stark north,
each caulked chink and the solid hearth
dark with all the unremembered fires
that in the long nights quietly died,
implied a life of bare solitude
and hardship, little to hold
and less to keep, aching days
and welcome sleep in the mind-clearing cold.
And yet the wide sky, the wildflowered ground
and the sound of the wind
in the burn and rust of late October
as the days shortened and the leaves turned
must have been heartening, too,
to one who walked out of the trees
into a green clearing that he knew.
If you could find this place,
or even for one moment feel
in the word-riddled remnants
of what I felt there
the mild but gathering air, see the leaves
that with one good blast would go,
you could believe
that standing in a late weave of light and shade
a man could suddenly want his life,
feel it blaze in him and mean,
as for a moment I believed,
before I walked on.
Hard Night
What words or harder gift
does the light require of me
carving from the dark
this difficult tree?
What place or farther peace
do I almost see
emerging from the night
and heart of me?
The sky whitens, goes on and on.
Fields wrinkle into rows
of cotton, go on and on.
Night like a fling of crows
disperses and is gone.
What song, what home,
what calm or one clarity
can I not quite come to,
never quite see:
this field, this sky, this tree..
does the light require of me
carving from the dark
this difficult tree?
What place or farther peace
do I almost see
emerging from the night
and heart of me?
The sky whitens, goes on and on.
Fields wrinkle into rows
of cotton, go on and on.
Night like a fling of crows
disperses and is gone.
What song, what home,
what calm or one clarity
can I not quite come to,
never quite see:
this field, this sky, this tree..
One Good Eye
Lost in the lush flesh
of my crannied aunt,
I felt her smell
of glycerine, rosewater
and long enclosure
enclosing me,
and held my breath
until she'd clucked
and muttered me
to my reluctant
unmuttering uncle
within whose huge
and pudgy palm
my own small-boned hand
was gravely taken,
shaken, and released.
Sunday: sunlight
oozing through drawn blinds
of the dining room
over fried okra
and steaming greens,
cherry yum-yum
and candied yams,
Navy knives and forks,
placemats picturing
national parks.
Bless these gifts
we're about to receive,
my uncle mumbled
and my aunt amened,
before with slow clinks
and shakes, amphibious
slurps and gurgles,
they dug untasting
in, bits of gifts
not quite received
tumbling down
laminated canyons,
improbable waterfalls,
far, clear mountains.
Nothing stopped
unless I stopped:
their mouths surprised
wide on half-finished
mouthfuls, my aunt
in unfeigned alarm
straining a full bowl
or meat-laden plate
in front of me,
little jiggles
shooting through
wattled, weighted
arms and my iced tea.
Exhausted, sprawled
on vinyl recliners
in the dim glooms
of the half-lit den,
they shouted down
the loud television
telling me
which neighbor's name
was in the news
that week, whose heart
stopped in sleep,
or some man by cancer
eaten clean away.
It's early yet,
they'd sigh and say
if I sighed or said
anything at all
about leaving,
nodding their heads
at me and nodding
noisily off
like a parody
of people sleeping:
my aunt's face crazed
with whiskery twitches,
her glass eye slitted
eerily open;
the unmuscled melt
of my uncle,
broad-skulled, flaring
forested nostrils.
The lamp, handcrafted
out of Coke cans,
flickered erratically
if I moved. The clock,
shaped like the state --
El Paso nine,
Amarillo noon,
and the vast plastic
where we were — ticked
each itchy instant.
Then it was time:
my uncle blundering
above me, gasping
tobacco and last
enticements;
while my aunt,
bleary, tears bright
in her one good eye,
fussed and wished
the day was longer,
kissed and sloshed
herself around me,
a long last hold
from which I held
myself back,
enduring each
hot, wet breath, each
laborious beat
of her heart, thinking
it would never end.
of my crannied aunt,
I felt her smell
of glycerine, rosewater
and long enclosure
enclosing me,
and held my breath
until she'd clucked
and muttered me
to my reluctant
unmuttering uncle
within whose huge
and pudgy palm
my own small-boned hand
was gravely taken,
shaken, and released.
Sunday: sunlight
oozing through drawn blinds
of the dining room
over fried okra
and steaming greens,
cherry yum-yum
and candied yams,
Navy knives and forks,
placemats picturing
national parks.
Bless these gifts
we're about to receive,
my uncle mumbled
and my aunt amened,
before with slow clinks
and shakes, amphibious
slurps and gurgles,
they dug untasting
in, bits of gifts
not quite received
tumbling down
laminated canyons,
improbable waterfalls,
far, clear mountains.
Nothing stopped
unless I stopped:
their mouths surprised
wide on half-finished
mouthfuls, my aunt
in unfeigned alarm
straining a full bowl
or meat-laden plate
in front of me,
little jiggles
shooting through
wattled, weighted
arms and my iced tea.
Exhausted, sprawled
on vinyl recliners
in the dim glooms
of the half-lit den,
they shouted down
the loud television
telling me
which neighbor's name
was in the news
that week, whose heart
stopped in sleep,
or some man by cancer
eaten clean away.
It's early yet,
they'd sigh and say
if I sighed or said
anything at all
about leaving,
nodding their heads
at me and nodding
noisily off
like a parody
of people sleeping:
my aunt's face crazed
with whiskery twitches,
her glass eye slitted
eerily open;
the unmuscled melt
of my uncle,
broad-skulled, flaring
forested nostrils.
The lamp, handcrafted
out of Coke cans,
flickered erratically
if I moved. The clock,
shaped like the state --
El Paso nine,
Amarillo noon,
and the vast plastic
where we were — ticked
each itchy instant.
Then it was time:
my uncle blundering
above me, gasping
tobacco and last
enticements;
while my aunt,
bleary, tears bright
in her one good eye,
fussed and wished
the day was longer,
kissed and sloshed
herself around me,
a long last hold
from which I held
myself back,
enduring each
hot, wet breath, each
laborious beat
of her heart, thinking
it would never end.
Outer Banks (I)
Rain to which I wake
Cold into which I go
Little song, little song . . .
And the coarse unkillable cordgrass
On the dunes, detritus
Too ruined to recognize
Bare shell that shelters nothing
Nothing tells
What it has undergone
The pelican plunges
And the water closes over it
Wind lays its blade along the beach
Leaving shapes the beach can't keep
Whiter than the gulls the morning
Cry of hunger
Cry of warning
Cold into which I go
Little song, little song . . .
And the coarse unkillable cordgrass
On the dunes, detritus
Too ruined to recognize
Bare shell that shelters nothing
Nothing tells
What it has undergone
The pelican plunges
And the water closes over it
Wind lays its blade along the beach
Leaving shapes the beach can't keep
Whiter than the gulls the morning
Cry of hunger
Cry of warning
Postolka
When I was learning words
and you were in the bath
there was a flurry of small birds
and in the aftermath
of all that panicked flight,
as if the red dusk willed
a concentration of its light:
a falcon on the sill.
It scanned the orchard's bowers,
then pane by pane it eyed
the stories facing ours
but never looked inside.
I called you in to see.
And when you steamed the room
and naked next to me
stood dripping, as a bloom
of blood formed in your cheek
and slowly seemed to melt,
I could almost speak
the love I almost felt.
Wish for something, you said.
A shiver pricked your spine.
The falcon turned its head
and locked its eyes on mine,
And for a long moment I'm still in
I wished and wished and wished
the moment would not end.
And just like that it vanished.
and you were in the bath
there was a flurry of small birds
and in the aftermath
of all that panicked flight,
as if the red dusk willed
a concentration of its light:
a falcon on the sill.
It scanned the orchard's bowers,
then pane by pane it eyed
the stories facing ours
but never looked inside.
I called you in to see.
And when you steamed the room
and naked next to me
stood dripping, as a bloom
of blood formed in your cheek
and slowly seemed to melt,
I could almost speak
the love I almost felt.
Wish for something, you said.
A shiver pricked your spine.
The falcon turned its head
and locked its eyes on mine,
And for a long moment I'm still in
I wished and wished and wished
the moment would not end.
And just like that it vanished.
Reading Herodotus
Sadness is to lie uneaten
among the buried dead, to die
without feeling a fire
kindled in your honor, that clean smell
of cypress rising and the chants, heat
increasing under you, into you, an old man
whose name the feasters weep and sing.
Confusion is to be born
into a people without names or dreams
to whom the dead must come in the daylight --
brief faces in the clouds, traces of familiar dust
to which you cannot call out, of which you cannot speak
as in the light wind those losses are lost again.
Suddenly, and without sound,
a god comes back, easing into our lives
as if he'd never left, opening
to our opened eyes those carved arms
as if that touch could be a tenderness to us.
Thus a man, a king, who sees a strange tree
burgeoning from the unveiled, inviolate dark
of his own daughter's loins,
wakes in high glee, doom
gathering in his chambers like early light.
So a woman who all night long has prayed
that upon her sons will descend
the greatest blessing that can descend to men,
finds in the first light they will not wake to their names,
their brows cooler than the coolness of dawn.
No telling how she answers this,
if after seeing her sons disposed of
in the custom of that country
—corpses torn by dogs, birds eating out the eyes
to sing from every tree what the dead see--
she curses her gods and desecrates fetishes
or falls to her knees that night breathing
an altogether original language of praise.
No telling if a man might carry
plunder and his own unsevered head
from the man-sized ants no man has seen
to the sweet tombs of a city where the dead rest in honey
always in search of something farther.
Does some dream country come to him at the last
—in the flash of metal, at the height of his own cry--
as to the slaves of certain nomads,
blinded so they will not know their homeland,
the birds one day become familiar,
the earth assumes old scents and contours
and the very air is suddenly sweeter than they can bear.
They are gone now, swirled
in the dark earth with the ones who,
seeing their slaves go mad, killed them,
who are themselves gone, their bones
partaking of the same silence in which lie
all the dog-headed men of the mountains,
headless men with eyes in their chests,
men so immense their shadows were as night,
men carved in marble to whom the gods gave only life enough
to let them fall to their knees . . .
Close your eyes
just this side of sleep and you can almost hear them,
all the long wonder of it, the lost gods
and the languages, the strange names and their fates,
lives unlike our own, as alien and unknowable
as the first hour on this earth for a womb-slick babe
around whom the whole tribe has formed a ring,
wailing as one for what the child must learn.
among the buried dead, to die
without feeling a fire
kindled in your honor, that clean smell
of cypress rising and the chants, heat
increasing under you, into you, an old man
whose name the feasters weep and sing.
Confusion is to be born
into a people without names or dreams
to whom the dead must come in the daylight --
brief faces in the clouds, traces of familiar dust
to which you cannot call out, of which you cannot speak
as in the light wind those losses are lost again.
Suddenly, and without sound,
a god comes back, easing into our lives
as if he'd never left, opening
to our opened eyes those carved arms
as if that touch could be a tenderness to us.
Thus a man, a king, who sees a strange tree
burgeoning from the unveiled, inviolate dark
of his own daughter's loins,
wakes in high glee, doom
gathering in his chambers like early light.
So a woman who all night long has prayed
that upon her sons will descend
the greatest blessing that can descend to men,
finds in the first light they will not wake to their names,
their brows cooler than the coolness of dawn.
No telling how she answers this,
if after seeing her sons disposed of
in the custom of that country
—corpses torn by dogs, birds eating out the eyes
to sing from every tree what the dead see--
she curses her gods and desecrates fetishes
or falls to her knees that night breathing
an altogether original language of praise.
No telling if a man might carry
plunder and his own unsevered head
from the man-sized ants no man has seen
to the sweet tombs of a city where the dead rest in honey
always in search of something farther.
Does some dream country come to him at the last
—in the flash of metal, at the height of his own cry--
as to the slaves of certain nomads,
blinded so they will not know their homeland,
the birds one day become familiar,
the earth assumes old scents and contours
and the very air is suddenly sweeter than they can bear.
They are gone now, swirled
in the dark earth with the ones who,
seeing their slaves go mad, killed them,
who are themselves gone, their bones
partaking of the same silence in which lie
all the dog-headed men of the mountains,
headless men with eyes in their chests,
men so immense their shadows were as night,
men carved in marble to whom the gods gave only life enough
to let them fall to their knees . . .
Close your eyes
just this side of sleep and you can almost hear them,
all the long wonder of it, the lost gods
and the languages, the strange names and their fates,
lives unlike our own, as alien and unknowable
as the first hour on this earth for a womb-slick babe
around whom the whole tribe has formed a ring,
wailing as one for what the child must learn.
Revenant
She loved the fevered air, the green delirium
in the leaves as a late wind whipped and quickened --
a storm cloud glut with color like a plum.
Nothing could keep her from the fields then,
from waiting braced alone in the breaking heat
while lightning flared and disappeared around her,
thunder rattling the windows. I remember
the stories I heard my relatives repeat
of how spirits spoke through her clearest words,
her sudden eloquent confusion, trapped eyes,
the storms she loved because they were not hers:
her white face under the unburdening skies
upturned to feel the burn that never came:
that furious insight and the end of pain.
in the leaves as a late wind whipped and quickened --
a storm cloud glut with color like a plum.
Nothing could keep her from the fields then,
from waiting braced alone in the breaking heat
while lightning flared and disappeared around her,
thunder rattling the windows. I remember
the stories I heard my relatives repeat
of how spirits spoke through her clearest words,
her sudden eloquent confusion, trapped eyes,
the storms she loved because they were not hers:
her white face under the unburdening skies
upturned to feel the burn that never came:
that furious insight and the end of pain.
Scenes from a Childhood
1.
Untouchable, the storm cellar door, its tin a pane of fire.
Long into the dark it’s warm.
2.
Little things live in shapes the stones weep:
blind worms, grubs like thumbs, roly-polies
rolled up in their stonelike sleep.
3.
The ant an aimed light cripples into ash
is lifted by the luckier others,
borne down
the eyeless socket in the ground.
4.
Light wind pricks light across the dark tank.
An engine of insects hums in the cattails.
A sandhill crane stabs its shadow.
5.
What hand moves the clouds?
To what touch do they come so slowly apart?
6.
It does not end, the dirt and the distance and the seared air.
Stare and stare
and even crows become the light into which they fly,
that pulse of false water where the world becomes the sky.
7.
Is it painful, the locust leaving itself?
Is that what in the briar of night they sing?
How hard to the highest treelimbs,
to the toolshed and shut doors at dawn
their likenesses cling.
Untouchable, the storm cellar door, its tin a pane of fire.
Long into the dark it’s warm.
2.
Little things live in shapes the stones weep:
blind worms, grubs like thumbs, roly-polies
rolled up in their stonelike sleep.
3.
The ant an aimed light cripples into ash
is lifted by the luckier others,
borne down
the eyeless socket in the ground.
4.
Light wind pricks light across the dark tank.
An engine of insects hums in the cattails.
A sandhill crane stabs its shadow.
5.
What hand moves the clouds?
To what touch do they come so slowly apart?
6.
It does not end, the dirt and the distance and the seared air.
Stare and stare
and even crows become the light into which they fly,
that pulse of false water where the world becomes the sky.
7.
Is it painful, the locust leaving itself?
Is that what in the briar of night they sing?
How hard to the highest treelimbs,
to the toolshed and shut doors at dawn
their likenesses cling.
The Funeral
It happens in a freakish early spring,
some little nameless place well off the highway.
From where we're standing we can't be seen.
How we've come to be here's hard to say.
It's lovely, though, the handcarved coffin, the hole
beneath like a shadow standing its ground;
the flowers, formality, and not one soul
missing, as if this town were less a town
than an excuse for funerals; this mute crowd
with its out-of-fashion suits and useless shoes,
the solemnity with which each head is bowed
as one by one, and row by row, they lose
themselves to a keen indigenous grief
that binds them cry to cry and tear to tear,
until its binding is its own relief.
To hear their prayer would be to come too near.
We're glad for it, though, glad for the heaven they hold --
we know they hold — like light behind their eyes,
and by their consolation are consoled
if consolation's what this feeling is
of having something in us jolted awake
like children half-rousing in a fast, dark car,
hearing the tires drone, the dashboard shake,
until it doesn't matter where they are.
And lovely, too, the singing when it starts,
out-of-time, hopelessly out-of-tune,
yet strong, encompassing, as if it came from hearts
that knew as well as loss what loss would be soon --
a stab inside of every dawn at first,
then a scent, maybe, a story someone tells,
and each day a little less, a little more lost,
until finally some dusk they find themselves
standing like strangers at their own dead pain,
without confusion, though, without bitterness,
as if within remembrance itself they sang
that to forget is also to be blessed.
It's over. A whir of gears, a pulley's creak:
the coffin clunks awkwardly into the earth.
Now there's some final ritual thing they speak.
And though it's cost us time it seems well worth
the loss, as like a huge black flower they peel
open from this death so different from our own,
though we can't say exactly what we feel,
and though it's way too late to make it home.
some little nameless place well off the highway.
From where we're standing we can't be seen.
How we've come to be here's hard to say.
It's lovely, though, the handcarved coffin, the hole
beneath like a shadow standing its ground;
the flowers, formality, and not one soul
missing, as if this town were less a town
than an excuse for funerals; this mute crowd
with its out-of-fashion suits and useless shoes,
the solemnity with which each head is bowed
as one by one, and row by row, they lose
themselves to a keen indigenous grief
that binds them cry to cry and tear to tear,
until its binding is its own relief.
To hear their prayer would be to come too near.
We're glad for it, though, glad for the heaven they hold --
we know they hold — like light behind their eyes,
and by their consolation are consoled
if consolation's what this feeling is
of having something in us jolted awake
like children half-rousing in a fast, dark car,
hearing the tires drone, the dashboard shake,
until it doesn't matter where they are.
And lovely, too, the singing when it starts,
out-of-time, hopelessly out-of-tune,
yet strong, encompassing, as if it came from hearts
that knew as well as loss what loss would be soon --
a stab inside of every dawn at first,
then a scent, maybe, a story someone tells,
and each day a little less, a little more lost,
until finally some dusk they find themselves
standing like strangers at their own dead pain,
without confusion, though, without bitterness,
as if within remembrance itself they sang
that to forget is also to be blessed.
It's over. A whir of gears, a pulley's creak:
the coffin clunks awkwardly into the earth.
Now there's some final ritual thing they speak.
And though it's cost us time it seems well worth
the loss, as like a huge black flower they peel
open from this death so different from our own,
though we can't say exactly what we feel,
and though it's way too late to make it home.