Wednesday
3rd October, 2007
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A Thought for Today
Every generation gap should have some kind of bridge - even if it's only made of love.
This
One Does It For Me!
Ken,
One of my most favorite books was "Beyond the Boardwalk."
Having lost it some time ago I'd appreciate you posting anything from
this wonderful volume.
Janice Nelson
My pleasure, Janice. It's
one of my favorite books as well due to it containing a lot of Rod's
African related work.
Here's the introduction
along with a most appropriately entitled poem.
Introduction - Beyond the Boardwalk
A poet is a keeper of the language. He must repair but never rape the
words that form his native language. He should improvise but never
bowdlerize, invent but in no circumstance add or help to make indelible
the bastard words that advertisers coin. Nor should he be an
advertisement for himself. The euphemisms used by men treating syllables
as soldiers should be killed by every poet’s pencil. Murdered by his
inattention.
Poetry is personal, or should be. When a poem isn’t heard a different
way inside the head of every man who reads it, it is not a poem. Poetry
should let some light in where there is darkness, but it should never
cover up or hide despair, human misery or suffering. Rather it should be
a ladder leading those who suffer out of the pit and up the well. A
bridge is what a poem should be. From the poet to the people - traveled
both directions.
Here are a few things a poet isn’t. He is not a minister, a prophet, a
politician, a pessimist, a peacock, an ostrich, a guru, a god, an
isolationist, a tightrope walker or a mechanic.
Here are some things a poet should be. A saver of things, a neighbor
friendly without forcing it, a musician who knows that words are
orchestrated the same as notes on paper, a farmer, free, fundamental but
not unbending, sure but not unyielding, childlike though never simple
minded, sorry, straightforward, honest, humorous, happy-sad, sad-happy,
and silly when he wants to be.
Poetry is no excuse to lie, nor is the making of a poem just an exercise
of words. Each poem should begin, have a proper middle and an end - much
the same as every man ( and Everyman’s life ) does.
Poetry should live, bouncing off the printed page as needed. Poetry
should promise and fulfill.
A poet is a keeper of the language, little more. That is responsibility
enough.
The words in this book were started in Oakland, California more than
twenty years ago and finished at The Pines in New York in September,
1975. Some of them will be a premiere of sorts for those who think I
write only of the lonely and the loner.
Having said a poet is not meant to be a seer or a crystal gazer, how can
I explain that I wrote the poems in Campaign Promises nearly a full year
before Watergate ? And A Message to Those Leaving with it’s reference to
‘The Quadraphonic Oval Office’ was read by Roy Leonard in Chicago to his
radio listeners a full eight months before the tapes were publically
known to have existed in the White House, and published in a magazine
several months before that. I consider an explanation irrelevant and I
don’t have one.
The poetry in To the Last Man Carrying the Last Gun has had very little
re-writing since its inception in 1953. It is an excerpt from a much
larger work entitled ‘Elephant in the Rice Paddy’ written about my
experiences in Korea and Japan.
The Safari poetry was written on my first trip to Africa in the fall of
1975.
Most of Love Letters is very new especially the Eldon poems and Juan.
Through the Autumn Field was recorded as part of the album ‘The Earth’
and Body Surfing with the Jet Set, as part of my ‘Sea Trilogy’.
Southern California seems to contain my most native poetry ( the subject
matter and style people associate with me ).
Boardwalk II was the last poems written for this book and like the
traveler in it I feel I have journeyed some distances since writing
Boardwalk, I.
It’s hard to let go of a poem, but some of you by caring have made it
easier.
Rod McKuen - The Pines, 1975
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