I’ve been a fan of Terrance Hayes for a long time and I’m stoked he won a MacArthur Fellowship (AKA a “genius grant”). You don’t need to know the Stevens poem (how many of us can really claim to know many of Stevens’ poems?) to appreciate this one, though you can read it here, keeping in mind, as Reginald Shepherd said of Stevens racism, “I don’t think his is a case that lends itself to easy condemnation or exoneration. I wonder if such terms are even appropriate.”

WORK

“Snow and Bottles for Wallace Stevens”

No one living a snowed in life
can sleep without a blindfold.
Light is the lion that comes down to drink.
I know tink and tank and tunk-a-tunk-tunk
holds nearly the same sound as a blue bottle of moonshine.
Drink and drank and drunk-a-drunk-drunk,
light is the lion that comes down.
This song is for the wise man
who avenges by building his city in snow.
I know what he said about the decorations
over the graves of our dead. Nigger.
How, with pipes of cold water
lining his cognition, does one learn
to bring a sentence to its knees?
Who is not more than his limitations?
Who is not the blood in a wine barrel,
the molten glass pressed into a mould as well?
The man who invented the bottle slept
on the bank of a frozen river the night before.
I too, having lost faith in language,
have placed my faith in language.
Thus, I have a capacity for love without
forgiveness. This song is for my foe
The clean shaven, gray-suited, gray patron
of Hartford, the emperor of ice shavings
and bottles bodied with echoes.

—Terrance Hayes
—found in Harvard Review

Bonus: listen to Terrance read this poem.

WORD(S)

longanimity. noun. Long-suffering patience; tolerance; forbearance. from Latin longus (long) + animus (soul, spirit).

“LONGANIMITY: The disposition to endure injury with meek forbearance while maturing a plan of revenge.” (Ambrose Bierce)

“Annunziata’s eyes clouded. A kind of scorn, a kind of pity, and a kind of patient longanimity looked from them.” (Henry Harland)

“Constancy is a Word too weak to express so extraordinary a Behaviour, ’twas Patience, ’twas Longanimity.” (William Warburton)

“I feel that I cannot much longer cope with —a— the present circumstances. I am aware that I should have more fortitude; more —a— longanimity; but–as the lamented Keats has it, ‘Misery most drowningly doth sing in my lone ear.’ The cup of joy, Miss Bethia, has become a poisoned chalice. The firmament outblackens Erebus; the brooks utter a gorgon voice.” (Laura Richards)

WEB

1. New to me, so perhaps to many of you, Quack This Way: David Foster Wallace & Bryan Garner Talk Language and Writing is a transcript of David Foster Wallace’s last long interview (held Feb. 2006)…and who better to have as final conversational companion than lexicographer, lawyer and language obsessive Garner, whose work Wallace reviewed in his phenomenal Harper’s Magazine article “Tense Present”.

2. Claire Rosen creates dark photographs of fairy tales starring herself. Sorry about the annoying Flash-based site.

3. “6 Works that Are Better as eBooks” (including Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and other luminaries).

4. Leonard Cohen just released Popular Problems (Spotify link; couldn’t find an alternative). In addition to having to be one of the best albums ever released by an 80+ year old, it’s just good…dark, poetic, melodic, gravelly…all the things you expect from Cohen.

5. Today in 1947, the logically challenged, Marvin Lee Aday, AKA Meat Loaf, is born. He would famously declare “I would do anything for love (but I won’t do that).” Perhaps he could write a book with Dan Quayle who, on this date in 1990, said, “We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur.” In fact, Meat Loaf was blessed with an amazing voice, starring first in major productions of Hair and The Rocky Horror Show (and the resulting movie), then recording, among others, one of the greatest selling records of all time (Bat Out of Hell). During his first studio recording he hit a high note that literally blew a fuse on some recording equipment and was immediately offered three different recording contracts…all of which he turned down.

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• Reader B. appreciates the excerpt from Fahrenheit 451 yesterday, saying: “One of the greatest openings to anything, ever.”

• Reader T. observes: “The Identity of Reader B. is the title of the next bestselling mystery suspense novel.” — Compounded by the mystery: is the comment above the same Reader B. or another? The Katexic Clamor is large; it contains multitudes.

I welcome comments, suggestions, thoughts, feedback and all manner of what-have-you. Just press ‘Reply’ or email to: clippings@katexic.com.

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