Tag Archives: X.J. Kennedy

One baby died, and one lives.

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When I was browsing works by X.J. Kennedy I found this poem by him that was published in The New Yorker in 1958:

On a Child Who Lived One Minute
by X.J. Kennedy

Into a world where children shriek like suns
sundered from other suns on their arrival,
she stared, and saw the waiting shape of evil,
but could not take its meaning in at once,
so fresh her understanding and so fragile.

Her first breath drew a fragrance from the air
and put it back. However hard her agile
heart danced, however full the surgeon’s satchel
of healing stuff, a blackness tiptoed in her
and snuffed the only candle of her castle.

Oh, let us do away with elegiac
drivel! Who can restore a thing so brittle,
so new in any jingle? Still I marvel
that, making light of mountainloads of logic,
so much could stay a moment in so little.

And in the same week, I read this one on Poem-a-Day:

Another Poem on My Daughter’s Birthday
by Craig Morgan Teicher

There must be soft words
for an evening like this, when the breeze
caresses like gentle fingertips
all over. I don’t know
how not to write darkly and sad.
But it’s two years today since
my little girl was born, cut safely
from the noose.

We meant nothing but hope;
how near death is to that.

Only children, only some children,
get to run free from these snags. She
was born! She lived and she grows
like joy spreading from the syllables

of songs. She reminds me of now
and now and now.
I must learn
to have been so lucky.

I take the bait and keep eating.

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Every day a poem comes into my e-mail inbox from The Poetry Foundation. Even this solitary Poem-a-Day is often too much for me to handle, and I either let my supply build up for days and/or I delete some poems after a brief scan. But on the occasional day I take the bait and end up reading several poems and stories about the poets.

A couple of monthsxj kennedy ago there was a poem by X.J. Kennedy that got my attention, because although I knew his name from a poetry textbook I own, as he was co-editor with Dana Gioia of that book, I hadn’t seen any of his own poetry before. I was predisposed to like him because of his collaboration with Dana Gioia whom I greatly admire (As you will see if you check out tags with his name here on my blog).

Kennedy was born in 1929 and wrote science fiction in his youth. His poem-writing seems to have come a little later, along with journalism work during the war, and teaching English. Here is a short poem from 1985:

     You Touch Me

      You touch me.

      One by one

      In each cell of my body

      A hearth comes on.

 

When I read that he had been writing a lot of poetry for children in recent years, I borrowed several books by him from the library to investigate.  A book of nonsense poems wasn’t my style, but The Beasts of Bethlehem is quite wonderful, with short poems from the perspective not just of the usual farm animals, but some critters less famous for being near the Christ Child, such as a beetle, a bat, a worm, and this:

HAWK

Before ChristP1100192, yesterday,
From clouds I dived, gave chase,
And fed. But in this place
Of peace I shall not prey

On living things. Those six
Young hares ripped from their burrow
Were lovely, though. Tomorrow,
Old plump hen, watch your chicks.

As you can see, the animals not only think to themselves about the Event, but are in conversation with each other.  Many also convey Kennedy’s sense of humor that is not without reverence. I have already bought three copies of this book so that I’ll be ready for next Christmas.

The Owlstone Crown is a novel Kennedy wrote for middle-schoolers, I think. It features children who accidentally fall into an alternate world where they help to rescue their relatives from slave labor. I was first off charmed by the presence of a talking ladybug, but it turned out to be a man ladybug who was a wisecracking tough character, and I didn’t like him much even though he was the type who has a good heart. I did see the book through to the end, but can’t imagine anyone to whom I couldn’t recommend some much better story.

My favorite discovery from X.J. Kennedy (if you Google him you can find out how and why he got those initials) I have kept for last. It is his Child’s Introduction to Poetry titled Knock at a Star. I wish I could have read the whole thing with my children, but it was published a little late for most of them, in 1999. So I bought a few copies for grandchildren who are at the right age right now, or will eventually be.knock at a star

The first section of the book is “What Do Poems Do?” and the answers are Make You Smile, Tell Stories, Send Messages, Share Feelings, Help You Understand People, and Start You Wondering. Each of those chapters includes ten or more poems, many by well-known poets and not specifically for children, which I appreciated. Too often I’ve seen collections that were so dumbed-down as to be insulting, and not a good kind of literary food for inculcating good taste.

Even the humorous poems include “Termite” by Ogden Nash. This one from the Understanding People section is by Valerie Worth

My Mother

My mother
Wasn’t like
Some others.

She didn’t
Make cakes or
Candied apples.

She sat down
Beside her
Sewing basket

And stayed
Up late
Reading poetry.

In Section 2 the question “What’s Inside a Poem?” is answered. Here a poem by Wallace Stevens illustrates that Images may be inside. And Word Music is shown through this poem by Emanuel diPasquale, “Rain”:

Like a drummer’s brush,
the rain hushes the surfaces of tin porches.

Beats That Repeat are found in one of my favorite “Opposites” poems by Richard Wilbur, and in others by Robert Frost and Gertrude Stein. The descriptions of poetic technique are brief and helpful, so we can move on quickly to the poems themselves.

There are limericks, of course, and songs (“Blowin’ in the Wind” by Bob Dylan) and haiku. And a last section on writing your own poems. I just think this book has everything for the child of eight or ten and older, and if I’d read something like this when I was young I’d be even more like that mother in the poem. I wonder just how late she stayed up?

Whether eager or not – books.

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There is a great deal of difference between
an eager man who wants to read a book,
and a tired man who wants a book to read.

— G.K. Chesterton in Charles Dickens

I can’t relate to the tired man mentioned in this quote, because if I am ever too tired to be eager about it, I don’t enjoy reading at all. Short of totally drained, my style of “deep reading,” which requires a pencil or red pen for underlining and note-taking even for novels, is what I most like to do when fatigue sets in. In the years when I was worn completely down by evening, having provided the education, meals and home base for a passel of children and a husband, the most calming thing was to get in bed with a book of theology.

But the comparison Chesterton makes leads me to think about uses of books. It sounds as though the Tired Man is using a book, whereas the Eager Man wants to engage with and receive from the author of a specific book.

All the same, when I am an Eager Woman I seem to need several choices, not always being in the mood for meeting up with any and every interesting author. My family have been very good to me of late, providing many of these options.

My sister-in-law gave me Feather Crowns by Bobbie Ann Mason, not a book I’d have picked up otherwise; I’d never heard of the author. The prose was lovely, and transported me to Kentucky in 1900, to the house of a woman truly great with child. When she gives birth to quintuplets her home and family become the center of a community effort on the part of the women to help her with the babies, at which point I could smell the cornbread and hear the household sounds and the birds outside her window.

The closeness of the community and the friendliness and openness of the country people that are initially so appealing in this story soon set off alarms in my mother’s heart, when complete strangers hop off the train and come right in without knocking, to pick up the babies without asking. This very domestic story became a thriller for me as I turned the pages wanting to find out how fame was going to affect the babies, the marriage, the community — and most of all, the mother. I can enjoy engaging with a writer of fiction if she does a good job, and Mason qualifies.

Poetry provides a different kind of connection with the author, a relationship in which I feel most like the receiver of gifts, though of course I can’t help but bring something to the encounter. That’s why I don’t bother with many of the poems that come my way: I don’t have whatever it takes to hear what is in that particular poem, and I can tell right away. On the other hand, maybe poetry books are the sort that I want to read when I am on the verge of exhaustion. A good poem can give at several levels, depending on my state of mind.

Mary Oliver has a higher-than-average success rate with me, so I’m looking foward to delving into this collection that was a birthday gift from my husband. I’ve posted some of her poems on my blog in the past, but right now I just want to share a quote from her that makes me feel a connection to her as a fellow-writer, too. The quote within a quote, from Wikipedia:

She commented in a rare interview, “When things are going well, you know, the walk does not get rapid or get anywhere: I finally just stop, and write. That’s a successful walk!” She says that she once found herself walking in the woods with no pen and later hid pencils in the trees so she would never be stuck in that place again.

Another kind of book for less energetic times is a good cookbook, and The Joy of Cooking has been perfect for leisurely hours of perusal throughout my married life. Mr. Glad accommodated my desire for the 75th-anniversary edition, so I’ll be ready when that mood strikes.

I get poems in my inbox every day from two poetry websites, and last month one of them was by X.J. Kennedy, whose name I recognized as co-editor with Dana Gioia of a poetry textbook I bought a  while back for the purpose of improving my receptivity to poems. I started reading about Kennedy and found that he himself has specialized in writing poems and stories for children.

So I borrowed a few of his books from the library and discovered some that I wanted to buy for my grandchildren. I read one of his stories, too, The Owlstone Crown, which I don’t think worth anyone’s time unless you have absolutely nothing else at hand.

My favorite by him was the children’s introduction to poetry that he wrote and compiled, Knock at a Star. I have now bought several copies on Amazon at one cent each, plus shipping, of course. The poems Kennedy collected are all of a sort that I would feel good about my children or grandchildren reading. I am not at home with the book at the moment so I will have to write another post about it when I can give some examples.

Where I am is at the home of Soldier and Joy and Liam. 21-month-old Liam and I are eagerly reading scores of books, but not always in the focused way I prefer. Often we get a page or three into the book when he gently closes that one and jumps down off my lap to bring a replacement from his bookshelf. But I am patient; so far I haven’t given up being an Eager Reader.

Linking up to Weekends With Chesterton

A Poet and Some Poetry

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I’d like to tell about Dana Gioia, who has been a great blessing to me by dana gioia sitehis writings and other contributions to the human community. He is a poet and literary critic, and served for several years, until a few months ago, as Chairman of our National Endowment for the Arts. If you are interested in poetry or arts education you may already be familiar with him. If not, you can read more here: Dana Gioia . The way in which I first met him is best told through excerpts from the letter I wrote in the spring of 2002:

“Dear Mr. Gioia,

“I was driving down the street one day listening to a man on my Mars Hill Audio tape talk about poetry. When the man mentioned that he lived in [my county] I nearly ran through a stoplight, so great was my wonder. That man, of course, was you. Since that day I have borrowed two of your books from the library, and bought Can Poetry Matter?, which I am still reading. I am delighted to have you here, contributing to the literary wealth of the area, and even if I never get to meet you, I consider you a friend and teacher…

“We always had our children memorize poems as part of their lessons in humanity as well as in literature, spelling, and diction. One of our daughters took up this project on her own and memorized “Horatius at the Bridge” when she was about twelve. Recently on a long car trip my husband asked if one of us might have some poetry to recite, and she revealed that she had memorized “The Walrus and the Carpenter” while also working on her degree in biology.

“…I recently read an article by Steven Faulkner in an old Touchstone magazine, “The Workshop of Worship: On Recovering Poetry for Our Children.” In it he laments the loss of poetry as a way, as Plato said, “to bring order to their wild little souls.” Do you have children? If so, you no doubt make good use of this activity! I must admit I had never thought of it the way Plato does, but reading Faulkner’s essay relieved me of my guilty feelings for not doing much more than introducing our children to the sound of poetry.

“He points out that the youngest will have no idea of the meaning, anyway, but that is not important. It is the rhythm and music and dance of it that educate, and it is a shame, he says, if someone first learns poetry by way of analysis of its meaning. I am curious as to whether you know of Faulkner and of Touchstone magazine? I imagine a network of people in the poetry world who nurture and inspire one another, but I can’t know how wide-reaching it is. And how about Mars Hill—do you have a subscription to their audio magazine? It’s partly the chance to hear the audible voice of thinkers and writers that makes me love those recordings; it’s sort of like eavesdropping on some brainy people sitting at a café.

“Since that first discovery of you and your books, I have heard the Mars Hill segment you did on Longfellow, too, and I was encouraged to leaf through all the anthologies in the house to find his poems to read. Then I realized anew just how important it is to read poems aloud — I seemed unable to attend to them, just sitting alone and reading silently. So I must eat my dinners quickly and read to the rest of the family while they finish; and my younger daughter and I read aloud together during our “school time” in the mornings.

“I have always loved poetry, enough that it makes me sad to think how little I have read….I am glad you are boldly and eloquently bringing light to [the current disinterest in poetry in the general population], and even entering into discussion on the topic at [a local bookstore], I see! I hope to be there to hear a talk that will probably be way over my head, but will be exciting nonetheless.

“In the last few years I have become acquainted with the Eastern Orthodox Church and their richly poetic liturgy, as well as prayer-poems of some of their monastics. Perhaps that has influenced me to pursue poetry generally. This morning I read this, from Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich (translated from the Serbian):

I repent for all the slayers of men, who take the life of another to preserve their own. Forgive them, Most Merciful Lord, for they know not what they do. For they do not know that there are not two lives in the universe, but one, and that there are not two men in the universe, but one. Ah, how dead are those who cut the heart in half!

I repent for all those who bear false witness, for in reality they are homicides and suicides.
For all my brothers who are thieves and who are hoarders of unneeded wealth I weep and sigh, for they have buried their soul and have nothing with which to go forth before You.

“….Would you ever consider teaching a class on poetry appreciation? ….And do you have any ideas for me on the best way to organize my own reading of poetry? If you think nursery rhymes and such are foundational, I probably have that part under my belt!”

By the time he received my letter it was the afternoon of the mentioned event, and he phoned me right then to tell me that yes, he would be glad to help homeschoolers. Also, in answer to my last question, that I might like to read the poetry textbook he had co-authored with X.J. Kennedy, An Introduction to Poetry.

After that I met him a couple of times before he moved to Washington, D.C. in the service of the nation’s art programs, intending to come back to California in two years. The poetry appreciation group never materialized, because I couldn’t drum up enough interest.

Just last month Pippin gave me a book of Gioia’s poems, and as I read an old favorite, “California Hills in August,” I was reminded of part of another letter I wrote to Dana Gioia a bit later:

“Oh, I just noticed that your poem “California Hills in August” is in the Introduction to Poetry. I think it was the first of your poems I read. I love it because I grew up surrounded by those hills…, and I tromped around on that stickery grass and sledded down on old ladders, trying to avoid the cow pies. I think, though, that all the time I was gentled by it, as I think you convey. The child just gives in to the heat and drought and lives fairly contentedly as one more creature in the ecosystem.”

Here is the poem, from Daily Horoscope, which you can also read on his website:

California Hills in August

I can imagine someone who found
these fields unbearable, who climbed
the hillside in the heat, cursing the dust,
cracking the brittle weeds underfoot,
wishing a few more trees for shade.

An Easterner especially, who would scorn
the meagerness of summer, the dry
twisted shapes of black elm,
scrub oak, and chaparral, a landscape
August has already drained of green.

One who would hurry over the clinging
thistle, foxtail, golden poppy,
knowing everything was just a weed,
unable to conceive that these trees
and sparse brown bushes were alive.

And hate the bright stillness of the noon
without wind, without motion,
the only other living thing
a hawk, hungry for prey, suspended
in the blinding, sunlit blue.

And yet how gentle it seems to someone
raised in a landscape short of rain –
the skyline of a hill broken by no more
trees than one can count, the grass,
the empty sky, the wish for water.

©1986 Dana Gioia