More from Ben Borgers
More in literature
Erica Light takes after her mother, the late poet Helen Pinkerton, in her thoughtfulness and generosity. She has sent me a box of books, including four collections of poems by R.L. Barth: Looking for Peace (1981), Simonides in Vietnam (1990), Small Arms Fire (1994) and Reading The Iliad (1995). None of these had I seen before, though many of the poems are familiar from other editions. Some of the non-Vietnam-related verse in the first volume is surprising. I could hear J.V. Cunningham talking in the next room, especially in the epigrams. Here is “A Brief History of Reason,” subtitled “Aquinas to the Moderns”: “Evil is nothing. Then, by their finesse, Nothing is evil, and men errorless.” And this is “The Jeweler,” “for the memory of Yvor Winters”: “Each facet, sharp and bright, Despite the turning hand Immersed in the pure light, Divides light, band from band.” What treasure Erica has given me. Along with the Barth came the Melville House reissue of Chekhov’s novella My Life in the Constance Garnett translation, a brief monograph on Paul Klee by Joseph-Émile Muller, and a mint-condition first edition of Joseph Epstein's 1991 essay collection A Line Out for a Walk (a title he takes from Klee). Erica left a slip of paper in the Epstein collection at Page 268, in the middle of “Waiter, There’s a Paragraph in My Soup!” Here he writes: “Anyone reading an interesting passage in a book asks, if often only subconsciously, Is what I have just read formally correct? Is it beautiful? What does it mean? Do I believe it? Along with these questions, a writer asks two others: How technically, did the author bring it off? and Is there anything here I can appropriate (why bring in a word like steal when it isn’t absolutely required) for my own writing?” Erica’s gift reminds me of her mother's poem “The Gift”: “I had a gift once that I then refused. Now, when I take it, though I be accused Of softness, cant, self-weariness at best, Of failure, fear, neurosis, and the rest. Still, I am here and I shall not remove. I know my need. And this reluctant love, This little that I have, is something true, Sign of the unrevealed that lies in you. Grace is the gift. To take it my concern— Itself the only possible return.” Helen’s poem can be found in Taken in Faith, (Swallow Press/Ohio University Press, 2002) and A Journey of the Mind: Collected Poems of Helen Pinkerton 1945-2016 (Wiseblood Books, 2016).
David Levering Lewis digs into his own origin story The post Family/History appeared first on The American Scholar.
An interview with Kathryn Anne Edwards.
In 1993, I was assigned to write about the opening of a Buddhist “peace pagoda” in Grafton, about twenty miles east of Albany, N.Y. A photographer accompanied me, a Marine Corps veteran of the Korean War and decades of work at the newspaper. We parked and approached the stupa, a dome-shaped structure that resembles an oversized pith helmet with a spike on top. I was greeted at the door by one of the monks who asked me to remove my shoes before entering. While I was taking them off, the monk asked the same courtesy of the photographer, who refused and started an argument. Soon he was shouting and refusing to enter the building. I asked him to cool off and photograph the exterior of the temple while I went inside and talked to people. I apologized to the monks, did my interviews and we drove back to the office where I wrote my story. I never had a solid explanation for the photographer’s behavior. I’ve been reading Sir Thomas Browne again and remembered the embarrassing incident described above in Book V, Chapter VI of his Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or Vulgar Errors (1646). The passage describes ancient customs associated with Passover: “The custom of discalceation, or putting off their shoes at meals, is conceived to have been done, as by that means keeping their beds clean.” Here is the OED’s definition of the rare word: “The action of taking off the shoes, esp. as a token of reverence or humility.” Some Masonic organizations also require discalceation during certain rituals. A coda of sorts: One morning I had to work an early shift at the newspaper. While still in the hall outside the newsroom I heard shouting – not an unusual event around the city desk. The photographer I mentioned above and a reporter, also a Korean War veteran, were hollering at each other – very loud and angry. I walked over to referee. They quickly settled down and I asked what the problem was. They explained that they had a difference of opinion over the proper operation of a flamethrower. Even they had to laugh.