Clockwatch Review Vol. 4 No. 2

featuring

poet Rita Dove

singer Suzanne Vega

artist Romare Bearden

Volume IV, Number 2

A Journal Of Th e Arts

ILLINOIS WESLEYAN DtC 30'988 UNIVERSITY U8HAR:£S

J ames Plath e ditor Elizabeth Balestrieri Mary Ann Emery Ronald J . Rindo associate editors G erald Hovelson e ditorial assista n t Clockwatch Review. a journal o f the arts, i s published twice yearly, and indexed in Contemporary Artists, the Index of American Periodical Verse, American Human ities Index and the Ann ual Index to Poetry in Periodicals. Subscriptions: $6 per year, single copies $3 (Wisconsin residents add 5 percent state tax). Manuscripts and art submitted must be original and previously unpublished, and wil not be returned unless accom­ panied by a self-addressed stamped envelope. All correspondence should be sent to : 737 Penbrook Way, Hartland, WI 53029. Future rights to all work published in Clockwatch Review belong to the individual authors and artists, and any reproduction of material can be done only with their permission. Member, CCLM, MIPA. Cover: Romare Bearden, The Ch ina Lamp, collage. Photo courtesy of the artist.

© 1988 by Driftwood Publications, Hartland, WI typeset and printed by Mastercraft Press, Platteville. WI bound by Badger Bindery, Milwaukee

WEJBSTJERS THE READER'S BOOKSTORE

Offering the best of contemporary fiction, including Ellen Hunnicutt's two books, Suite for Calliope and In the Music Library.

2559 N. Downer, Milwaukee, WI (414) 332-9560

Open Monday-Saturday, 9:30-midnight; Sunday, 12:00-5:00

CONTENTS

POETRY SPOTLIGHT

FICTION

Rita Dove

V . K. Gibson

32

S titches The Ground We Walk On Mississippi

5

Dark Side of the Moon

Ellen Hunnicutt

23

Old Men

J . W . Major

POETRY S usan Kelly-DeWitt

9

MUSIC

F ungi

Greg Kuzma

10

Claire Hill

William Doreski

12

S u nday Brunch

Stuart Dybek

Undertow

13 19

ART 60

The Fish

Romare Bearden

Daniel Bourne Atmosphere

Suzanne Vega Jeature

20

Smelt Fishers Nydia's Alba

John Ficociello

37

The Walls Are Like Paper

62

Mr. Jeremiah's S u nset G u itar The Pepper Jelly Lady

interview Artist With Painting

22 34 46 48

And Model Morn ing Work Train

52

HEMINGWAY FE-

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KEY WEST'S ANNUAL CELEBRATION HONORING THE WRITER & THE MAN JULY 18-JULY 24, 1988

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SHORT STORY COMPETITION A $1,000 Cash Prize will be awarded to the winner of the Hemingway Short Story Competition, now in its eighth year.

Any original, unpublished work of fiction - 2500 words or less - may be submitted, along with a $10 entry fee.

Stories should be typewritten and will not be returned.

All entries must be received by July 10th, 1988.

The authors name and address should not appear on the manuscript - only the title of the story. The follow­ ing information must be printed or typed on a 3" by 5" index card and included with the manuscript and the $10 entry fee:

NAME, MAILING ADDRESS, TELEPHONE & TITLE OF STORY

SEND ALL ENTRI ES TO: Hemingway Short Story Competition c/o Hemingway Days Festival P.O. Box 4045 Key West, Florida 33041

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION CALL: 305-294·4440

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WINNER OF THE 1987 HEMINGWAY SHORT STORY COMPETITION

Dark Side

Of

Th e Moon

by V.K. Gibson Tonight the moon's so bright it almost hurts my eyes . It's two a . m . and the boy and girl down the lane have started again . Surely they must levitate i n love . They log m a n y hours in the air , t h e y are tireless , they will straddle t h e night once more . I ' v e gotten o u t o f b e d and , a creature o f habit , have gon e to my desk . I want every thought in my brain to spew out like a ticker tape in a stock market crash . Up from my roiling thoughts surfaces the im age of human beings , young men in couples and groups , walking together downtown .

Key West is a variety of town s , according to the time of day , and right now it is a village of thieve s . The boys will be doing what the y fondly call "making the rounds , " trying to steal that m agical , extra hour which lies hidden between midnight and dawn . They want to take it home with them , take it to bed , wrap their clean limbs about it . This extra hour is a charmed fare , a flight to some m ythical , half suspected , final stop called Paradise . Alas , I cannot join them anymore. I have , as they say , m issed the plane . The only thing in my life that now makes the rounds is the Hunter ceiling fan over my head . It whirls as I write this , m aking me feel slightly chilly , although the temperature on this sub-tropical island is in the eighties of Fahrenheit . I'm dressed in the white silk ladies' pajamas which someone got for me at Fastbuck Freddies . My attire does not represent some queer sense of irony , or camp . These days I dress for com­ fort . My body speaks for itself and what it says is not pleasant, or campy .

Body . . . body . . . Oh! The other night I dreamed that a mighty whisper blew the tin roof off my house . In the dream someone -- my Father? - - told m e that I could determine the date o f m y .liberation b y counting the spots o n m y body . Perhaps the wind from my dream i s rustling the banyan trees outside my window even now . The banyans know everything . These house-size plants spend their lives dripping feelers which turn into ropes , arm s , legs . No death h angs between those sinuous thighs which root themselves to the earth . In this way they walk about the Island , five feet in twenty years . I can scarcely i m agine their roots , which burrow into the coral bedrock so industriously that the underground portion of the trees are broader than the visible parts . One of them is fifty feet high and eighty feet in circumference , upheld by dozens of great and small trunks . Its root system m ust encompass an entire block , penetrating and choking sewers and tapping the lore of our bowels . The trees know my secrets better than any lover . But trees are safer than boys these days . Except , of course , for the paper playmates . On the desk , next to my notebook, is the pornographic m agazine which I asked my brother , Brad , to get for me . I had thought to run off a batch by hand , gazing at the slick photographs of handsome fantasies : boys next door , surfers , midtown whores , pizza boys and soda jerks , cowboys and kid brothers . . . There's a vast industry for people like m e ; those who , for various reasons, cannot or will not reach o ut and touch someone . My apologies to the phone company for borrowing their slogan , but plagiarism is the least of my indiscretions . Brother Brad , who sees salvation lurking behind every signpost of convention , would carefully 5

delete that borrowed p hrase , divide this rambling narrative into paragraphs , would be mindful of its beginning , middle , and end , would put in and take out words until his head h urt . But I know my real guidelin e : to relieve myself .

We are all borrowed phrase s . I've never been overly concerned with beginnings or middles , and it is only recently , the past year , that I'm bothere d by endings : I am dying . (I've just lifted up my pajamas top to look at the spots o n my stomach and chest . In this light they resemble patches of tar on creamy alabaster . Should I obey my Father and count them?) My attention shifts to the torso reproduced on the cover of the porn mag : a stud about to lower his chic Calvin Klein shorts : naughty hints of things between the covers . He seems vaguely familiar and I try to place him among all the young men I've known . So many boys , so many rest stops , so many ways . Their names have dropped from my mental diary like loose postage stamps from the album I owned in my childhood . There were stamps from scores of nations : Algeria , E gypt , Morocco . . . I see that I have North Africa on my min d , memorable because of all the brown , accommodating youths I encountered during my first Grand Tour , taken ten years ago , when I was twenty-two . There's nothing left of those early adventures but the faintest remembrance of musk, the curves of upturned buttocks which might also be the crowns of hills in the Holy Land in the cool hours of an evening . Floodlights go on and off in my head and with each illumination I see a different . . .1 want to say "person , " but there is m erely a succession of human shards arranged upon piles of Moorish rugs , or atop immense antique beds , or spread urgently across sex-stained and torn mattresses in otherwise empty rooms : here a pair of splendid legs , there an e xemplary bac k , and now a wonderful manchild's face whose eyes are glazed with the submissive power of the sexual victim . Enough body parts for a hamlet of bitter-sweet nothings . I shake my head and they withdraw like props in a skinflick , p ulled out of camera range by hidden hands . I stare at my own bed , its rumpled sheets . Someone will make it up tomorrow . My friends have be足 come my hateful and loving domestics . Yes , they turn like barbecued chickens in the heat of tenderness and loathing . They come each day to check on me , to restock my larder , to tidy up the house , to transport me to the doctor if I have an appointment, to make sure that I take my medication . My medicine is very good for them . Whenever I take it they feel much better . They do their best to cheer me up . In the past I've "known" most of them , and now they're afraid of me , afraid for themselves . Yet they com e , they perform their kind足 nesses . (Why? Would I do the same? I'll never know . But now , of course , I would like to think so . ) Even my brother has come to Key West to stand by me .

This is obviously a temporary dislocation . We have never been close , and I realize that his motivation is a horror of that ultimate gap , that blankness and separation which far exceeds the distance that has characterized our relation 足 ship . We have always found it convenient to not worry excessively about "fami足 ly . " We both have suffered the same denial of the promised lan d , and remind one another of our years of wandering in the wilderness . Our life stories share the same prologue , and communication between us is a buckled , twisted , b loodied belt with only one side , a loop without end . The story? Our Father Which art in Texas disowned me when I told Him the truth about myself, when I was twenty and in the throes of what I took to be love , the sort of und ying love the young are brutally taught to expect : True Love . I believed that my .infatuation was worth any demonstration of sincerity , any risk . I wanted to 6

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shed what I felt was a three piece suit of lie s , to give myself totally to the wide horizons of devotion . I remember floating in that first boy's arms , flying with him , giving and taking for the first time those physical liberties which see m ­ e d s o wicked a n d s o pure both a t t h e same time . H i s smooth skin against mine , his sweet breath in my ear -- those things were heroic then! After my silly con­ fession to Father , and His rejection , I traveled with my beloved across the con ­ tinent , to California . Within three months we had lost sight of one another amid the golden hoards of gods on the beach at Malibu . I like to think that he still graces those pagan sands in glory , ageless and half divin e . Had what we shared really been love? Again , now , I would like to think so . Brad , who is infinitely more sentimental than I, categorizes his first experience as "unadulterated lust , " a passive/aggressive grappling , with himself under the high school athletic coach in the locker room after classes. Brad will never forget this encounter . His journal details every moment of that surrender of innocence .

The very hairs on his first trick's head are n u mbered by the pathetic calculus of misplaced nostalgia . I think Brad is still searching for True Love in that event , hounded by a suspicion that it was lost in the folds of those moments when passion had smothered reason . He had shut his eyes , you see , and love slip ­ ped past him and ran away! It calls to him even today , always remaining just out of reach , haunting . . . Oh! My house is haunted! It was built by a sea captain over a century ago . The rooms are tall and everything is made of Dade Coun­ ty Pine , a very hard wood containing much resin . The termites do not like it . They prefer oak floors , good books , furniture . Dade County Pine was much in demand in times past but is now virtually extinct . That's the problem with being hard. There's something to be said for tenderness . I almost wish that my own little termites , those viruses which now lazily riddle my bod y , would eat me down to the last mortal crumb -- but qUickly! -- like greedy children at a birthday cake . But they have sailed the world in cakes . My life has been a pastry cart . And , which sweet thing killed me? Brad's flings are as rare as moon landings . I have known a thousan d . Oh , freedom , what have you done to me! I mourn that glittering , doomed decade of the seventies , when we ap­ plauded ourselves like the jaded crowds at resplendent La Scala! The noise still swells , but is now the sound of hands slapping faces , the fluttering wings of dying swan s . Brad confesses that he's known only five men intimately . He writes to them regularly - - carries their photos in his wallet . Lucky Brad , safe in the arms of alienation , doubts , and the sort of romantic ideals which can n ever be realized . It's been a year since the first spot of tar appeared on my perfect body . But tender Brad would go in a month , conSiderately saving everyone all this tro uble . He'd make a fine spook for this house . Sometimes I think I see them, those earlier residents of this , my last home . I fancy there's a nice old lady sitting in a rocking chair , over there in the corner . And a group of working men at a card table , playing rummy , drinking beer , their faint tableau intermingled with the atoms of my bed . Sometimes they pause , they listen .

I've realized that ghosts are haunted by the living . I think I'll enjoy being a ghost .

I picture myself popping from my shattered body like a baby from a womb , into the gossamer arms of a poltergeist midwife , to begin a new , clean ex­ istence which will last as long as this island dangles below America . A p ure voyeur , I'll take my pleasures in second-hand thrills . First thing , I'll glide down the lane to peek through the window of the little garage apartment where the 7

boy and girl live . My aviators of amour! They're very youn g , so young I have to wonder if their arrangement is legal . There's no sign that they attend school .

The boy works at his uncle's garage and the girl makes sea-shell souvenirs for tourists . Their home , not much larger than a horse stall , is too small for company and visitors sit outside in old aluminum chairs , or sprawl on blankets : brothers and sisters , cousins and uncles and aunts , mothers and fathers . Life in a Key West lan e . Their situation , which would be perceived as a tragedy in m any other town s , attracting social workers and even the police , seems idyllic here . How I adore this place for permitting such a thing! Brad would say the kids are in love . It's nice to think so . I suppose one day they'll make a baby .

I can hear one of them now , as I write . Her (or his?) rhythmic animal cries are leisurely rising in a crescendo : "Oh . . . Oh . . . Oh-h-h!" They have seized the fabled extra hour of the day. I'm addicted to their routines , which please me as m uch as the n aive conceits of my own first love . I've dissected them with all my doubts , yet there's no hint that they will ever fall from grace an d s uffer the decay of rapture into disillusionment . The prognosis is forever .

Almost , I am seduced into abandoning my cynicism before it becomes eter ­ n al . It's as if their nocturnal frenzies and daytime domesticities have flown through the ceiling of mortal life and onward to . . . whatever unspoiled thing there is above the common , fragile understandings which frame our hopes, to some lost and legendary touchstone beyond the sky where we can believe that life is worth - - everything! Thinking this , I am mysteriously uplifted . I am tired , I am sick, I am dying , yet I get up from my desk and stand by the win ­ d ow . The old woman in the rocking chair smiles like a personified cloud , the men at the card table lift their misty eyebrows benignly and toast me with their beers . I slowly take off my silk pajamas and stand nude in the ivory light which floods the room . Mr . Moon glows yellow beneath the black parasol of the night .

He winks at me -- and suddenly I realize where True Love has hidden all these years! I must tell Brad! Love is being held captive on the dark side of the moon .

All we have to do . . . is to spread our wings , like the children down the lane .

To soar above the stone-hearted cities and their human cocoon s , their deserts of souls , their lakes and rivers of people , above the seven seas and the pirates who sail them , le?ving behind all those bitter histories which inscribe the maps of betrayal and innocence lost . Sweet hope! I run my hands over my body and dare to think that I am beautiful again . I am happy , I am drunk with moon ­ shine , and for a while I can fear no evil . Yes! Yes! It's time to count my spots!

V . K . GIBSON

FUNGI All night , the flared lids rouse themselves .

The nodes erupt , dull premonitions splitting the ground between frayed tips of fescue smooth brown heads cloistered together in shadows. austere as monks O h , to unravel the simple mysteries One by one m y friends go down among the long , white corridors of roots t heir names slip away (so quickly!) in an avalanche of days all night the lavish rain cripples the blossoms which shoot like stars from knobbed limbs .

SUSAN KELLY-DEWITT

9

CLAIRE HILL This light is here now.

Were I to call I would tell you how it is , how the yard drenched in it , sits , and a bird crossing. A dog barking .

What will be forgotten out of this? What will I know tomorrow? What will I keep ?

Tonight as the light goes new arrangements , indoor things w ill catch and hold me.

New assignments from some boo k b e given , perhaps to relaxa glass of beer , then sleep for hours and odd dreams into another day . Thus is t h e slow creep without harmony or any sort of strict notation , a grand sort of wasting away from one point of vie w , or one min ute , then instead the whole thing bunched bac k a n d given over to us once more.

I note the losses , a few.

I see the clothes in drawers that no longer fit , the toys my son and daughter broke or lost. Perhaps out of those sad things some residue exists ,

10

a patch of color , a liking for a certain sound like the click of the p ull-toy Mark dragged around until he got tired and fell down . And of course the old , the literal authentic ones , with wrinkles , who did not have them when I looked , and a little stoop to their walk , or some security of mind into which like people lost in a forest they eventually fall victim of . For three weeks n ow she has been here , Claire Hill , my wife's mother , cleaning , scrubbing , making food for us , while Barb heals. The house wakes up under her touch . The pillows fluff and strut up u n der the covers. Dust is made to make tracks , and down the h ot air register she fishes o ut old shoes someone dropped.

She is like memory itself awaking in the world from a long sleep.

She is what industry if made kind can fin d still left to love and keep in the sold world .

GREG KUZMA

11

SUNDAY BRUNCH Antique chin a , eggs and sausage , homemade soda bread . Addled by champagne punch I lean into the conversations the way a kid o n a dirt bike leans into a turn.

Someone's speaking French . I reply in Italian , crude but practical .

The youngest son of the host is writing everyone's name in Greek o n a scrap of notebook paper .

He's practicing his alphabet .

H o w can I keep my mind inside this cluttered room? The china grins like brand-new dental work .

Sausage toughens on a silver d ish .

If I could explain the shudder of eggs cooling in scrambled heaps I could extrapolate a theorum and explain why the glossy light of January predicates the deep brittle gray of human brains .

I have to look inward and assume that the smalltalk surfing around me s uggests a greater radius, one large enough to sketch a worl d at least as attractive as the one in Plato's cave , where zero weathe r h as suspended a l l metaphor in favor of p ure sensation-rendering speech improbable , at least , and the low glacial hills as solvent as our aging flesh .

WILLIAM DORESKI

12

SUZANNE VEGA the cutting edge of folk By day give th anks By nigh t beware Half the world in sweetness The other in fear When the darkness takes you With her hand across you r face Don't give in too qUickly Find the th ing s h e 's erased from "Night Vision"

When Minimalism first em erged as an art movement in the mid-60's , sing-along , foot-sto mping , we-sh all-overcome folk music was in its heyday , and singer Suzan ne Vega was you nger than "Luka , " the nine-year-old protagonist i n her top-40 song about ch ild abuse . And in the e arly 70's. when Raymond Carver and others began to adapt the spirit of the visual movement to literature , Vega was still ma­ joring in dance and painting at New York City's famed High School of the Perform­ ing Arts. Then came another false start , in literature and theatre at Barnard Col­ lege. Now , having worked her way up from playing churches and coffeehouses as a s o l o p e rform e r , V e g a bri n g s Minim alism t o the world o f music . Her no­ frills lyrics and clean , precise melodies have an edge to them that has cut right thro ugh the curre nt folk sce n e .

"Mostly , " says Vega , "what I'm tryin g to do is look for points of view that I don't think have been uncovered before in songs , and I'm trying to talk about fe elings or things that I think are vital , but keep them hard and clear. If I fin d myself laps­ ing into sentimentality in my writing , I try to strip it away as qUickly as I can . These days I'm trying to use the language as though it were a piece of wood or something , and I craft it, I hone it down , I san d it , I polish it , and I make sure th ere are no cracks , no extra pieces or frills that might fall off. I try to keep it as com pact as possible. And to me , language is very physical . I feel like I ' m sculpting it , like it's a tangible thing . I use words for the way

they feel in m y mouth , a s well a s for their meaning."

In the Iron bound section Near Avenue L Where the Portuguese women Come to see what you sell With the clouds so low The morning so slow As the wires cut through the sky

Vega grew up in a house where there was always an acoustic guitar , and bot h p arents were concern e d with word s . Her Puerto Rican stepfather was a teacher / n ove list , while her G e r m a n - Swedish mother worked as a computer an alyst .

"There's always a few people who are wat­ ching out for how people use language , " she says , "and i n m y family i t was always very important . " But Vega's imagery and n arrative se n se are equally sh arp , made tense by melodies which rely heavily on m inor chord s , and a voice which is always on the edge: between whispering and talk­ i n g , between talking and singing.

Sometimes it's a sweet siren-like voice off­ set by a staccato rhyth m , while other times the melody is sooth ing , and the voice tense . And her subject--the back-alley side of urban life--is something people would r a t h e r i g n ore , even in t h e ir d a i l y newspapers .

"In 1 98 1 when I was first begin ning to write in that style , audiences weren't use d to that subject . If you were playing a folk club they would expect more traditional m u sic , or a sing-alon g . And instead I would come out and sin g 'Cracking' . " For those early audiences raise d on abstract 13

anthems of love a n d peace , Vega's music was more un settling than it was inspiring.

But ironically , that has changed. "Now that I sing for a more rock 'n roll crowd , my music is considered to be a sort of gentl e alternative". which is something I'm not entirely comfortable with e ither. I would l ike it to retain its edge and bre ak n e w ground." Putting i t back i n t o folk perspec­ tive she adds , "Joni M itchell likes to ex­ plore the edges of things--I e xplore the c enter. " Milwaukee, Wisconsin--In the glitzy, MTV world of 80's pop music, with its extravagant light shows, choreographed videos, and stadium sound systems three stories high, Suzanne Vega is an enigma: an un­ pretentious singer-songwriter with wit, charm, and an appeal that is rooted in her music and her lyrics.

Described as "New Waif" by Folk City owner Robbie Woliver, Vega's folk-rock is distinctive, the kind of music Joni Mitchell might perform, wrote one critic, if she were also Lou Reed (though Vega lacks Mitchell's feathery soprano and Reed's earthy sexuality). Established and fine-tuned in the folk clubs of Manhattan and Greenwich Village, Vega's musical art is a fusion of her sparkling acoustic guitar work, her hypnotic, vibratoless voice, and her stunningly fresh, poetic lyrics. All three merged beautifully in her concert at the Performing Arts Center on July 14, 1987.

"One thing I remember being struck by as a child--and I liste ned to a lot of fol k m usic , growing up--was that the songs that were considered the larger issues were v ery noble , but I didn't fe el moved by them. I guess I have this need to be honest about where you come from. I grew up in New York in an ethnic enviro n m e n t , a n d to me life was hard , a n d there was n o point in pretending that it was like Leave It To Beaver when it wasn't. So I felt , in my twelve-year-old m i n d , that I had no room for this sort of foolishn ess or frivolity of singing about 'Che lsea Morning' and n i c e b owls of fru it with the sun pouring in , " Vega says.

"If I were to listen to a song about South Africa , I can fee l intellectually motivate d or I can say , 'Well , yes, apartheid is something we m ust stop.' But the fact i s that I don't c o m e fro m there , I haven't 14

grown up there , and the things that stir my p assion are the things that are more local.

And I believe that's how every political m ovement start s , is with o n e person hav­ ing an idea or a deep feeli n g , and it transforms or can move other people once you have that fee ling."

Her debut alum , Suzanne Vega (A&M Records , 1 985) , sold 250 , 000 copies i n the United States , and w e l l over a half­ million copies overseas, where she became an instant sen satio n. "Marlene on the Wall" was a top-20 single in Europe , an d Vega was suddenly attractin g concert crowds of screaming admirers , includi n g , at one point , "2000 drunken Irishmen" who sang along. Although she had the usual dreams of success--Vega quit danc­ ing , in fact , because she felt she wasn't o utgoing enough to break out of the chorus line --stardom makes her feel as un­ c omfortable as she made her first au­ diences feel in Manhattan folk clubs.

"It's a little disquieting , " Vega says.

"Suddenly I fin d I'm a lot more successfu l than I thought I would be , and it kind of took me by surprise , because people now respond to me as a celebrity. I mean , you have to accept it and be happy for it, but it is a little disquieti n g , because partly they're responding to the media. They're responding to the fact that they've read about me in the paper a n d seen me o n televisio n , and this makes t h e m excited to see me on stage." She would, of course , m u c h rath er have the a udience focus on her m usic.

Wearing a black dress, dark nylons, and dark shoes, Vega strolled casual­ ly onto the Uihlein Hall stage in front of a four-piece band and bravely opened her show a cappella with "Tom's Diner." Standing in a single dim spotlight, she sang quietly, hands alternately locked behind her back or gently clutching the microphone, like a nervous young girl singing alone for her father at home in the living room.

With a little imagination, she might have been a Dickens' character sing­ ing for her supper.

But that uneasy, waif-like persona quickly disappeared when she strap­ ped on her acoustic guitar and with the help of her band launched into a two-set show of other songs primari­ ly from her latest album, Solitude S tanding (A&M, 1987). She per-

formed standing, without showman­ ship or racy dance steps, filling the gaps between songs with witty asides and explanations. The crowd remain­ ed seated throughout the perfor­ mance, erupting into applause at the close of each song, then falling into reverential silence when Vega began to speak or sing again.

What makes Vega's music all the more impressive is that she never listened to con­ te mporary m u sic in her youth. "I started singing when I was sixtee n , without ever having seen a concert , so I didn't have a clue as to what was out there." When s h e w a s nineteen s h e finally atte nded h e r first concert , but only because someone had an extra ticket. She went to se e Lou Reed , without knowing who he was. "At first I h ated it , " she says, "but it kin d of stuck with me. Finally I bought Berlin a n d brought it h o m e and listened to it , and i t just g a v e me a hint as to a l l the stuff that was out there that was valid , you kn ow?

I felt suddenly that I could write a song that h ad a really hard edge to it , as opposed to feeling that I had to make it palatable for the audience." That appropriation has led to others.

Q: Many of the songs from your first album combine medieval and modern imagery. Do you see life in the Middle Ages as a parallel to modern urban life?

afraid of traveling backwards and forwards. I'm not afraid of mixing contemporary, modernistic, and futuristic things with traditional things. To me it's really vital that you do that, in order to keep the songwriting alive and interesting.

By her own adm issio n , Vega's first songs were "horribly corny , " written when she was fourte en. "I was listening to a lot of Woody Guthrie , Pete Seeger, and Cisco H o usto n --I fo u n d this collection of folk m usic in the thrift shop; it was like some­ one was throwing out their fo ur-volume set of Folkways m usic , a n d so I took it h o me a n d liste ned to it--a n d so the first song I wrote was a sort-of cou ntry song about m y you ngest brother , how he got into fights , but how I would love him a n yway. I remember singing it for m y brothers a n d sisters , and t h e y were not , " s h e laug h s , "overly impressed. I guess the second song that I wrote was a long sort­ of ballad about a woman who leaves her home to fin d her freedom , and her fathe r in resp o n se commits suicide by drowning in a river. I reme mber being very please d with the song; it took me two whole days to write it , and therefore it was really ter­ rific." But she has matured qUickly.

A s a songwriter, Vega displays freshness and remarkable versatility.

The angst-ridden yarns of unrequited love, leftist political propaganda, and whimsical sing-alongs that pepper the repertoire of most folk-singers are ab­ sent from Vega's canon. Instead, she offers songs about stifling urban op­ ("Ironbound/Fancy p ression Poultry"), the ambiguities and inade­ quacies of language ("Language"), and the complex emotional riddle of love and war ("The Queen and the Soldier"). Her lyrics are marked by an intensity and economy of expression, a storyteller's grasp of the dramatic, and best of all, the intellectual depth and subtlety of fine poetry.

A: Well, I think that to some degree when I was writing "The Queen and the Soldier" I was really look­ ing for an archetype--a woman in power. And there really are no archetypal women in power here in America. You know, you can have a teacher or a mother, but it's not the same thing. And some­ how a queen seemed to fit it per­ fectly. I think there's something timeless about some kinds of music and symbols. I mean, I like Gregorian chants. I like to listen to them, and to me they have as much validity, if not more, than other kinds of music that are more contemporary. So I don't have any hestitation about going back to them and taking the elements that I think are really good, and using them in some way. If some­ thing's good, it's going to be good no matter what time it's in. I'm not

"Each one is differe n t , " says Vega, "b ut usually it begins with the seed of an idea . .. and then I aim for the perfect idea of the song in m y mind , which sounds a bit abstract. But when I wrote 'Cracking , ' for example , I thought, Wow , I really want to write a song called 'Cracking.' AliI had was the title , and I wanted to write it from th e point of view of a woman who was 15

cracking, but I didn't want to sort of stand o n stage a n d say , 'Oh m y God , I'm falling apart!' In stead I wanted to describe a lan d­ scape that was like the woman's inner state , and to me it was very exciting to c o m e up with the idea of having her say , 'And something is cracking , I don't know w here , ' because it was obvious that she was cracking .

miss. " I wasn't using character in t h e first album as m uch as I was using the voices of things , " she says . "Like 'Small Blue Thing' . . . 1 was trying to write and sing in the voice of a small blue thing . With 'Un derto w , ' some people thin k , Oh , she's being really sexual , or aggressive . But what I was thinking of was a real un dertow .

What would an undertow say if it were go­ ing to sing a song? Which seems rather Simplistic or childlike , b ut it was a fascinating idea to me . I think that the small blue thing and u n dertow are aspects of m yself, just as Luka and Caspar Ha user and Calypso . There's always some sort of e motional paralle l , even though the specifics of the circumstances might not be t h e sam e , a n d usually they're not at all .

So those songs are also saying something about myself . I'm not saying what they're saying--I'm not sure that I know, some ­ times . I pick these characters for a certain reason , and I'm not even sure what the reason is . I feel a sympathy for them , or I feel like they say something about myself in some way , but I always fee l they're shy with the audience . " S h e has been a practicing Nichiren Shoshu Buddhist--her family's religion-­ for thirteen years , and to some extent this has shaped her music . "I think it's a m istake to treat your audience as though they're your best frie n d , to tell them all t h ese details about yourself that they may not want to know . . . so therefore , I put it in a form that I think they can respond to , and a form that takes it outside of myself .

"Buddhism has affe cte d the way I perceive the world , which to some degree affects how I write . Partly because I'm a Buddhist is why I don't write confessional s ongs . I mean , you chant in the morning and the evenin g , and you go to these Bud­ d hist meetings , and you h e ar other peo­ ple's experiences . . . and you realize that m ost people want the same things , or similar things out of life . And I think that was a big step for me , in learning that .

Before that I felt very isolated , and I felt l ike I had s uffered more than anyone else on earth--you know , a very sort of adoles­ cent thing--b ut I think it made me more likely to want to put my songs in a story form , as opposed to a confessional I am feeling like this writi n g . "

Q: In your first album there's an air of escapism, and cinematic references that do not appear in your second album.

A:

Yeah, I guess that's true. think it's partly because I was working a day job and rather wist­ fully watching every Marlene Dietrich movie I could get my hands on on Saturday nights.. and also trying to find my own identity in the Village, and to some degree being frustrated with my life: working a day job, and having these yearnings to be bigger than life. In the last two years I've grown somewhat. Now instead of playing Dietrich or Bacall, I can play myself, you know? Like the last video I did, I get to play Solitude as a charac­ ter, which was really exciting be­ cause I get to plan her down to the last detail: what she's going to wear, what kind of make-up, what kind of hair ..

Q: There does seem to be a shift to dramatic monologues in your second album. Have you been in­ fluenced at all by Rober t Browning?

A: Not Browning, but definitely T. S. Eliot. I remember for me it was a huge deal when I could finally understand what 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" was all about. And this is through the theatre, because I had a teacher who would not allow us to come onstage with anything other than Shakespeare or Eliot as mono­ logues. We couldn't do anything contemporary at Barnard, so I got very deeply into T.S. Eliot because I didn't feel like doing Shakespeare.

Vega is still excited by the d iscovery of new personas , and sees a connection be ­ tween her two albums that liste n ers might

The beams and bridges Cut the light on the ground 16

Into little triangles And the rails run round Through the rust and heat The light and sweet Coffee color of her skin

(Caspar Hauser's Song)" Vega ex­ plained that Hauser was a boy who spent the first seventeen years of his life in a basement in 18th century Germany. Vega puts herself in Hauser's character, imagining his perceptions of that experience: "In the night the walls disappeared/In the day they returned. " In the song, after seventeen years of clutching a small, wooden toy horse, Caspar Hauser emerges and discovers that "what was wood became alive. "

Bound up in iron and wire and fate Watching her walk him up to the gate In front of the Ironbound school yard Says Vega, "Language is a difficult thing. I remember being a kid, and my father would ask me how I was feeling about something, and it would take m e half-an-hour t o begin to talk about how I felt, you know? I would just sit there for half-an-hour qUietly because I couldn't find the words to begin with. But I remember always having that frustration." One of the reasons that two years separated her albums was that Vega was wrestling with language. "It's very frustrating," she says, "but I guess I feel it's my job to get as close as I can to the source of actual ex­ periences. I've heard it argued that your experience is shaped by your language, or that you don't really h ave any experience without language--which I disagree with.

There are things that people experience all the time that there are no words for. And so therefore, my job as a writer is to ex­ perience these things and find a way to translate them into language, which means stripping away all cliches or things I might h ave heard in the p ast to express these things, and just go back to the original source, which is experience, your direct contact with the world. It's as though I'm an animal with no language, and I have to translate my experience into words."

Introducing "Language," Vega noted that words are often incapable of ex­ pressing what we feel, what we are trying to explain, that they are "just the crust of the meaning/with realms underneath. " In that short lyric she captures the essence of Platonic metaphysics, the notion that with our language we live in the world of shadows, while the Truth rests unap­ proachable in the world of forms.

Other songs belie her literary train­ ing. "Night Vision" was inspired by "Juan Gris," a poem in French by Paul Eluard. "Calypso" is the temp­ tress from Homer's Odyssey in which Odysseus comes from the sea and stays on an island with her for seve n years before leaving. Introducing the hauntingly beautiful "Wooden Horse

"All the personas are rather defensive," Vega admits . "But in a song like 'Luka,' for example, I think I give a voice to peo­ ple who are in that situation, and that's be­ ing validated by a lot of the letters I've got­ ten and people who've come up to me saying, 'You have sung how I have felt'...which makes me feel that therefore I'm not j ust writing a defensive song, but I'm writing from a point of view that need­ e d to be expressed. And when I write a song like 'In the Eye,' I do hope that I'm writing it from the deepest place inside of me, and so therefore it will correspond to someone else's. It disturbed me at first that I never wrote in that song, 'I would fight you back, or pick up a stick and hit you with it'--which I might, in real life--but it just seems to me that if you make someone acknowledge that you're a person, and n ot a chair or a piece of wood or an ob­ ject in the environment to be moved around, then it may get all the much harder for them to do whatever it is that they're doing to you, whether it's killing you, abUSing you, or whatever. So I thi n k that's at t h e heart o f almost all the songs .

To try and assert that feeling of being a h uman being and being alive and having choices and having freedom . See, to me a lot of the songs are not depressing . The song about Caspar Hauser is very liberating, in a way ; it's a song about a per­ son who felt like a thing and became alive, a person who felt like an animal and became a human being... with all those dangerous things that happen when you're a person."

She steps off the curb and into the street The blood and the feathers near her feet Into the Ironbound market "Undertow" is still Vega's personal favorite, because it expresses her desire to 17

d on't exist. That's a problem with a lot of people in America. Yo u don't allow y ourself to feel things as complexly as h uman beings can feel them."

say a great deal with the least amount of words, images, a n d narrative elements.

"The lin e s I like best are 'I wanted to learn all the secrets from the e dge of a kn ife , from the point of a n e e dle, from a dia­ mond, from a bullet,' because I'm always trying to learn the secrets fro m the edge of a knife; I'm always trying to condense a n d become more economical. It holds true for the writing, and it also holds true for my c h aracters. I inte n d for a lot of my songs to have m a n y layers of meaning.

L ike "Ironboun d," for example. I could have written a whole alb um about what it m e ans to be bound by iro n , married, or to be confined by your sm all town, to be a weed and entrapped in netting, any kind of grille...it's a common urban image to see living things trying to grow up in a very in­ flexible e nviron m e nt."

Perhaps because of the confident feminine stoicism apparent in so many songs, but particularly evident in "Calypso" and "In the Eye," Vega appeals, if one can draw any conclu­ sions on the basis of her Milwaukee show, especially to young women, who easily dominated the audience.

Of course that generalization may not necessarily hold. At one quiet junc­ ture between songs when Vega, ap­ parently stunned by the enthralled silence of the crowd, asked if people were having a good time, a young man seated near the back yelled, "I love you, Suzanne!"

Musically, the performance was solid. Taking its cue from Vega, the band avoided flashy showmanship and concentrated on album-perfect music. Occasionally the band over­ powered Vega's soft voice and guitar, and I'm sure many others in the au­ dience were thrilled when she gave the band a break to perform the lyrical "Gypsy" alone with her guitar, just like the old days.

Vega closed the concert with two encores, "Marlene on the Wall" with her full band, and then a hypnotic rendition of "Night Vision" with Vega on guitar and Anton Sanko on syn­ thesizers. As the house lights came up, the musicql reprise from "Tom's Diner" played. softly through the speakers, and the crowd wandered happily into the warm Milwaukee night.

Q: When you were studying litera­ ture, which writers spoke to you?

Which helped shape your own writing?

A: D. H. Lawrence. I liked his writing because it seemed to be able to evoke certain feelings in you as you were reading it. And he did that by repeating some of his phrases, and by his language. He was very aware of the currents that pass between people in sort of unspoken ways, which was very impressive to me. There's something very liquid about his writing; it's very atmospheriC. And then the other writer that I really liked, who was sort of the direct opposite of that, was John Steinbeck, who was always very clear and sharp, and his charac­ ters were always realistic and down-to-earth. At least they were sort of drawn clearly from the out­ side, whereas D.H. Lawrence's were always drawn clearly from the inside.

"There' s a need, I think, in America to simplify th ings, and to make them happy an d end n icely. We all watch television as o ur norm, in a way, and if you start think­ ing that life is like The Mary Tyler Moore Show an d it's wrappe d up in half-hour segments, you lose a sense of perspective, you distort your reality. I think that's part­ ly where mental illn ess comes from, because of this pressure to be happy or to tie everyth ing up with a nice bow. Then when life isn't like that, you don't know h ow to deal with it . You just break. So this is my way of dealing with it...in my songs."

In "Night Vision ," a song about a mother who sings advice to her child b efore watching him fall asleep, the philosophy behind Vega's own somber at­ m ospheres and earthy characters emerges.

"Yo u ' d like to protect people from the things that are o ut there, but you can't always, so it's better to teach them how to see the dangers and the bad things, an d to deal with them and not preten d that they 18

7- 14- 87/8-9-87 James Plat h R o n ald J. Rindo

UNDERTOW [ believe right now if [ could [ would swallow you whole [ would leave only bones and teeth We could see what was underneat h A n d y o u would b e free then O nce [ thought only tears could make us free Salt wearing down to the bone Like sand against the stone Against the shoreline [ am friend to the undertow [ take you in , [ don't let go And now [ have you [ wanted to learn all the secrets from the edge of a knife From the point of a needle from a diamond from a bullet in flight [ would be free then [ am friend to the undertow [ take you in , [ don't let go And now [ have you [ wanted to see how it would feel to be that sleek and instead [ find this h unger's made me weak [ believe right now if [ could [ would swallow you whole [ would leave only bones and teeth We could see what was underneath And you would be free then , free then

[ am friend to the undertow I take you in , [ don't let go and now [ have you [ am friend to the undertow [ take you in , [ don't let go and now [ have you ooh SUZANNE VEGA Š 1 985 Waifersongs Ltd . / AGF Music Ltd . (AS CAP) 19

SMELT FISHERS Midnights , they set out lines along the city's edge : n ets , baited with lamps , the glow of kerosene attracting silver stars , spawning constellation s a mong which old m e n fly underwater kites .

STUART DYBEK

20

NYDIA'S ALBA O utside for the world to see (should it come down this goat path) black panties hang rainsoaked on a clothesline i n early mist h ummingbirds prying open morning-glories Nydia , you fly a flag of anarchy STUART DYBEK

21

I\) I\)

Romare Bearden, Mr. Jeremiah 's S u nset G uitar, 1980, collage, 14"x 1 8" .

Photo: eeva-inkeri , courtesy of Cordier & Ekstrom, Inc. , New York City.

O ld Me n

by Ellen Hunnicutt I was crossing Baltimore Avenue from the bus stop to where the apartment buildings start on Forty-eighth Street when I saw lara standing in front of the Presbyterian Church . I never knew how she looked to other people , if they saw her as I did , someone always about to go mad . It was early December , j ust dusk . Philadelphia was shabby with its dull gray imitation winter . The church bulletin board was already announcing Christmas programs and I wondered if people would think lara with her wild smile was standing there waiting for carol singing that would not come for three weeks . She raise d one hand and waved , an uncommitted gesture , giving me a choice . I could come over and talk to her or go on home . I crossed back , hoping I looke d preoccupied , like the women coming home from offices, stepping off the buses in tailored suits and walking down the avenue in the middle of their lives . I was eighteen and I never wanted to look like those women until I saw lara , and then I always did .

She said , "Lillian ! " as if I were a wonderful treasure she'd j ust discovered .

Once I'd liked that about her , that ability to always seem astonished , as if the world were new each moment . I saw she was wearing gloves with the fingers cut out , like golf gloves , except she'd done the cutting herself . She said , " I spent two hours reading about Poe's time i n Philadelphia . " Her smile got wilder, hotter . "I found a library where you can walk into the stacks . They don't ask you for titles and send someone . They let you handle the books yourself. How can you know anything you can't touch?"

I looked at the gloves, with her bare fingers poking out , and then at her face . She'd chopped off her long dark hair . This made her frail body look even thinner . Her pinched face was bluish white , more stark because she'd put on eye makeup and bright lipstick . She looked startlin g , theatrical . I tried to feel concern for her , as I once had , but all I could feel was the burden of her . "Do you want to come home with me for supper?" I asked . ''I'm going to warm up soup . " Just then the lights came on in the church , illuminating the large stained glass window . It depicted Jesus as a shepherd . The sheep looked like little clouds that had drifted down from the sky and settled on the groun d .

"And I can make u s sandwiches . " But she laughed . The laugh was filled with delight , as if she'd just won a prize or solved a p uzzle , as if my coming back across the street had been an o utlandish thin g . "That woman at the Poe house is a liar . " This was gently said , as if being a liar was not a very bad thin g . "Poe lived in many place s besides Philadelphia . " "But she said that , lara . The woman said exactly that . " "Not persuasively . She skewed the truth . I want t o know about Poe's tim e in Philadelphia . " "You make it sound like a prison term . Are you coming with me? I'm hungry . " 23

"I can't , " she replie d . "A gentleman is picking me up for a meeting . He's very involved with Poe . I met him at the library . " " A meeting?"

And just then a car drew to the curb . I could see she'd waited to tell me about the man until the car arrived , so there would be no time for an explana­ tion . Her gentleman was white-haired and portly , perhaps sixty , boldly dress­ e d . I caught a glimpse of bright plaid , pinks and greens . Then Zara got into the car and it wheeled off into traffic . "Be careful!" I called . She glanced back at me and wrinkled her nose . I think this was meant to be a reassuring smile .

The vivid lipstick shone in the dim rectangle of the car window . I didn't have time to worry about her .

What I remember most about that year is not having any time . Rushing .

From my flat to the bus, to classes and rehearsals at school . I remember the icy green fear that comes with plunging into new m usic without adequate prac­ tice . It was my first year of college , my first year in the East , and I didn't have any hours or minutes to put on my life like a new garment and walk around in it , breaking it in . It was like playing a game in which everyone knew the r ules but me . I tried to keep going by thinking of words . I'd hold up a word in my mind like a sign and try to make myself into it , words like intentionality, v e risimilitude, momentum, or determinant.

Back home in Youngstown I'd been considered a serious pianist , someon e with a future ; but the first week I was in Philadelphia another student in one of my classes , a young man with an enormous bush of black hair , said , "Al l of Mozart is optimistic , even somber passages ; while all of Dvorak is essential­ l y melancholy . " He said Dvorak's m a laise was politically motivated , tied to the rise of nationalism . Such a thought had never occurred to me , and never would . I could see the world was made quite differently than I had supposed .

Back home , playing Mendelssohn's A n dante a n d Ron do Capriccioso from memory , with speed and good articulation in the Presto had seemed enough , had seemed , in fact , exemplary .

When I wasn't thinking of word s , I was preparing myself to explain Zara in case she appeared at school : She's a friend and by coincidence we both m oved here at the same time ; I played her accompaniments in Youngstown and we both decided to p ursue careers in Philadelphia ; she's between jobs because there's so little work for mezzo s . All of these things were true without telling the whole story, that Zara with her odd ways had , quite simply , attach ­ e d herself t o me . S h e was almost t e n years older , a n d there h a d been others before me , some of them men . She was vague on details . But this time--she said she was very sure about it--she had found her lifeline . Me . She needed to be near me . There was really no sensible explanation for any of it . In fact , she never appeared at school , never intruded into my circle of school associates in any way , but I was in daily fear of her , that people would take us for gays , that they would think me as unstable and eccentric as she was .

Neither of us had ever lived in Philadelphia before . Because of the funeral of a relative , I'd arrived two days late for the fall semester . Zara was already settled in an efficiency apartment two blocks from the small flat my parents h ad rented for me . On my first day in the city , she cooked sloppy Joe's for supper , on her small , dangerous-looking gas stove , and I was her guest . As we ate , traffic roared by beneath the window . She said , "You adjust to the 24

noise very qUickly . " Then she told me about the buses connecting with the subways , like a native giving information to a newcomer . As she talke d , she sat with her thin body slumped in her chair , looking very tired , out of breath , as if preparing for my arrival had exhausted her. I thought , By eating her food I'm making it worse , putting myself in her debt , but I didn't know how not to eat it . [ kept thinking, This isn't the way people are supposed to live .

When she couldn't find a singing job , she told me she was done with music .

For good . On the strength of a little Spanish learned Singing Spanish songs , she found a job teaching English as a second language to Hispanics in a community o utreach program . This was both fraudulent and unbelievable , fraudulent because she wasn't qualified , unbelievable because the city was filled with peo­ ple looking for work , people who seemed to be qualified for everything in the world , certainly languages .

After she began teaching , all she talked about was her job . She'd meet my bus and walk me to my flat . Sometimes she'd be sitting on the steps of my building , waiting for me . She liked her students . She told me she was really teaching them to write autobiograph y . "When they apprehend the thread of their lives , " she said , "their ideas will easily find language . " She would sit in her apartment or mine and draft elaborate lesson plans . Everything just became more and more unbelievable . One day she took the score of A ida to school with her and sang the mezzo's role in Italian to her students , asking them to listen for similarities to Spanish . "They liked it , " she told me . " [t helped them see that all languages are related . " She felt Hispanics were precocious i n religion . "They name their children Jesus , " she said , "hay-saas, because they aren't afraid to apprehend God directly . " "You told them that?"

"Yes! And they understood at once . " I couldn't understand why they didn 't fire her . One of her students had been convicted of petty crimes and was in the class because the court had ordere d him to improve himself . lara took a special interest in him . One day she said to me, "Language deficiency is the cause of all crime . Language gives us the world . " [ said , 'Things aren't what they're cracked u p to be . " I don't know why I said it , except to put a distance between us . It was a phrase my grandfather liked . [ knew the words sounded funny coming out of my mouth . I wasn't surprised when lara laughed .

"You should marry someone with Latin blood , " she said .

There was no predicting what she would say , and I had liked that at first , the way she made everything fresh or funny, always provocative . But the things she said never went anywhere . It got old , had gotten old , before we moved to Philadelphia .

I told lara about Mozart and Dvorak . We were sitting on two little chairs she'd found at a flea market . She'd sewn pads for the chairs and placed them by her window to catch the sun . She could be a real housewife when she wanted to be .

"Dvorak!" she cried , as if she'd just remembered how nice it was to think about him . "He was most proud of his choral work . Stabat Mater. Te De u m .

But the boy i s wrong . " She said this a s i f she were very old and the head of 25

something , a chairman , perhaps a scholar . "The past is rewritten for the pre ­ sent by the ear . This is true of everything , but especially music . The modern ear transforms everything for modern needs . I shouldn't say the boy is wrong .

That's too harsh . Irrelevant is the word . His ideas are irrelevant . " I was tired to death of her pretensions . "You go sit i n the damned class!"

I said . "Sit in the damned class and bu llshit everybody , lara! " I just wanted her to go away .

Everything in my life was tentative , hedged with contingencies . Nothing ran in a straight line . My theory teacher was an older man who reminded me a little of my grandfather, short , plump , rosy . When he taught us ranges , he said the viola played in the tenor clef , which I knew was wrong . The viol a played in the alto clef, in Philadelphia as well as Youngstown . But no on e said anything , no student objected , not even the boy with the bushy hair . I looked it up in two sources . The sources said the viola played in the alto clef .

But I didn't say anything . I was afraid some subtle reasoning beyond my grasp was operating , that I'd failed to notice a significant fact .

My family had always lived in a quiet suburb . Now , in all of the city, there was no silence . It was not just the noise of traffic . In the flat beneath mine , an elderly man believed his elderly wife had a lover . He sat all day in an open window , even in winter , and called to men passing in the street , 'There's your sweetheart!" He directed the words to the men , then glanced behind him into the dim space of the flat , like someone making difficult , important judgments .

He shouted to all men , young or old . Toward the end of the day , his voice grew hoarse from the shoutin g . When his tall bony wife appeared in the hallway, she said it was like taking care of a child . She said he was a good man and she wanted him with her to the end .

I told lara , "Even at school there is nothing but noise . When you have so many people playing m usic , in so many roo m s , all at the same time , it just becomes noise . Chaos . " This wasn't really true , but I needed to feel superior to something . lara was sitting at my kitchen table making an attendance chart for one of her classes . She wrote in the Hispanic names with a bright blue marker , giving the letters little flourishes , doing it all lovingly , like someone's mother . She wouldn't discuss music anymore . She had decided to be literary , in order to present language to her students . She said , "Chaos is effective in literature if it points to its opposite , if it implies order . " She had been reading about science fiction as utopian literature . This was before she got into Poe .

I had to admit lara had her good points . She didn't ask , What do you want from life? She never actually tormented me .

One day she said , "I don't know where old women walk early in the morn ­ i ng . " We were sitting in the Triangle Cafe , halfway between our apartments , having supper . I was drinking coffee and lara was eating Fre nch fries , folding each one in two before popping it into her mouth , eating rapidly. She'd decided she should try to gain weight . "I don't mean bag ladies who move so slowly , " s h e said between bite s , "so reluctantly , but women who keep a brisk pace , eyes forward , eager to reach their destination s . Nearly every place I've ever lived , I have seen some old woman walking , early in the morning . Do they go out to tend the sick? To care for animals?" ¡''I'm too busy to notice . " 26

"Lillian , do you realize when we grow old we may have no teeth?" She paused to chew several French fries , as if grateful for her own teeth . "There is an old woman who walks by my apartment bUilding each morning now . ..' As she walks , she moves her lips slightl y , as if she were talking . Sometimes she seems to be singing . She might be saying special words that have to be said at each stage of the walk . People do that , use language as code . I told m y students to think of language as code . But I really think she is just trying to keep her dentures in place . " I never saw the women walking . I had only lara's word o n it .

It must have been the following week that we went as tourists to the Edgar Allan Poe house and lara whispered , "See that woman? She's the one who walks by my building each morning . " lara insisted this woman was i n charge of the place . I could tell she wasn 't , because she was carrying her p urse with her . She was a visitor , just like us , but someone who visited often and had a real interest in the place . Maybe she didn't have any other way to spend her days . I said , " Don't say anythi n g foolish t o her . " " I recognize those jogging shoes , " lara whispered with a triumphant smile .

I don't think Poe held any special significance for lara initially . He was simply a writer , and she had become literary . In fact , she had wanted first to visit the Walt Whitman home in Camden , but my tight schedule left me few free hours for sightseeing . We settled for historical sites in the center of the city , Independence H all , the Betsy Ross House , Christ Church , and the home of Edgar Allan Poe .

The woman in the jogging shoes was m uscular and energetic . She had con­ stantly to watch her elbows and hips to avoid colliding with the bric-a-brac in the small rooms . She said the home wasn't impressive yet but foundation money would be coming soon . Elaborate restoration was planned . "This house , " she said , and she did struggle with dentures as she spoke , "will soon be a fine place . " The house was pleasant and interesting , nineteenth century rooms that looked authentic to me . I couldn't imagine what more was need­ ed , nor how additional money would be spent . Poe had , the woman said , lived here only a few years , but they had been important years .

When we were back on the sidewalk , lara said , "But there is no money coming . Don't you see that? The woman is inventing . She's inventing all sorts of things!"

"She's rewriting the past for modern needs , " I offered . lara laughed . " It's not the same . This woman is merely indulging foolish fancy. There's no integrity involved . It's like playing jazz . You can't simply play any note you like , any note at all. Jazz always holds to something . " "You never played jazz , " I reminded her , "because you never played an instrument . You never even sang jazz because you don't have the range . " But lara had caught fire . Poe had become her cause , second only t o her students in importance . As we walked down to the subway , she said , "Lillian , from small , concrete objects we can intuit larger ideas . " She said all people could do this if they kept alert . She called the process elegan t perception , and said she planned to return to the Poe house and take photographs .

Being a student had made Philadelphia smaller for me . When my parents brought me to the city to find an apartment , and before that to visit , as a child , 27

the place had seemed to belong to me utterly . Now I stood in a relationship to things , streets and alleys , homes , office buildings , department stores . I could stand in certain places and feel hostility reaching out to me . Indifference . It had never occurred to me there would be places to which I could never be admitted .

At Thanksgiving , I did not go home . It would have meant taking Zara along and explaining her to my family , especially my grandfather . He was a prac ­ tical man who had been won over grudgingly to my m usical ed ucation . I could imagine his calculating eyes moving from Zara to me and back again , and his u nspoken judgment : So , then , it has come to this .

Zara and I ate a family style dinner in a small restaurant she had found on Chestnut Street . She said , "Only six places in the city are open for the holi ­ d a y , and this is the best one . " I had no idea if her information was correct , but the food was wonderfu l . We sat at long trestle tables and served ourselves from wooden bowls Zara insisted on calling "trenchers . " "J ust like King Ar­ thur ," she said , as if King Arthur had some special significance on Thanksgiving .

The restaurant was lighted by candles mounted in lanterns . "Just like Paul Revere , " I said , intending sarcasm , but my voice slipped , turned childlike , and shaped the utterance into a question .

And suddenly we were laughing at the silliness of everything . "Waiters in George Washington suits , " said Zara , "and a computerized cash register . This is the chaos of pre-discovery . This is the beginning of the world!"

I laughed until tears coursed down my cheeks , until my ch est ached , as I had laughed at Zara at the beginning of our friendship . "For that I am thankful , " I said , when I was able t o draw breath . The d a y h a d become magical .

Over turkey and mashed potatoes, Zara told me everything was falling in ­ to place for her . "First there was the Poe woman walking by my windo w , as if beckoning to me . " Then , on her first foray into Poe research , she had turn ­ e d up what she called a sign , a talisman . "Poe enrolled for a short time at the University of Virginia . He studied Greek , Latin , French , Spanish , and Italian . " Languages , " I said . " Gree k , Latin , French , Spanish , and Italian . . . as se­ cond languages . " It was her role , Zara said , to finish the work Poe had started . "If Poe were alive , he would be working as I am , to unite all humankind through language . " "Maybe , " I said . "Maybe anything i s possible . " But I had eaten too much food . My body felt heavy and unpleasant . The room was close and suddenly too warm . "The University of Virginia is not in Philadelphia , " I said , and the magic was gone , vanishing as SWiftly as it had come .

Before the end of the semester, I was required to declare a major emphasis .

My advisor , a youngish woman who taught harmony, stopped me in the hall one day . "You should approach the head of the piano department for an evaluation , " she said . As she spoke , she tapped the papers she was carrying into alignment and did not look directly at me . "I understand you did quite a lot of accompanying before you came here . What sort was it?"

"For singers , mostly . The music community in Youngstown wasn't that large .

We did all sorts of things , whatever jobs we could get , whatever was needed .

I'm a fair transposer . " I made the last statement reluctantly . Of all solOists , on­ ly singers cared much if an accompanist could transpose . Instrumentalists almost 28

always preferred to play the music as written . I had only been in college a few weeks . I was not yet ready to resign myself to a career accomr>anying singers .

"And reading?" the woman aske d , raising her head to nod to someone pass­ ing by . It was plain she had little interest in me . In these weeks I had worked unceasingly , done nothing but work , but now I realized my work had impress­ ed no one .

"My teachers emphasized building repertoire , " I replied , "but I can read .

I wouldn't be here if I couldn't read . " The woman was not moved b y this declaration . "There i s n o reading re­ quirement in the entrance audition , " she reminded me . "There is only repertoire . " lara never learned many objective facts about Poe , but she took her scraps of information and made what she could of the m . What she made was like a religion . The word faith appeared in her conversations more and more .

I had never considered myself a religious person , nor even a complicated one . I knew my own selfish heart . Once I was asked to play "Whispering Hope" on organ for a funeral . I looked out at the gathering of simple , good-hearted folk , then I leaned on the tremolo until people wept . My teacher would have been scandalized by such melodram a . But I'd just seen the minister work the crowd ; why shouldn't I? People are clever in different ways . I never claimed to be more than I was .

For lara , everything was complicated . Sometimes she would repeat a state­ ment over and over , as if exploring it for hidden significance . She would say something like , "In Philadelphia, Poe spent much of his time as an editor . " Then she would say it again , shifting the accents , the phrasing . Ph rasing was the word for it . There was still a lot of the singer left in her .

But she stopped wearing makeup and began appearing in dark clothing , in imitation , I think, of the somber pictures she had seen of Poe . Life was theater for her . That was nothing new; every singer I'd ever met thought that way .

What was new was her stark , colorless appearance . Singers liked to look dramatic ; they liked color and jewelry , and were seldom without it . They liv­ ed as though they might at any moment be asked to step on stage .

One evening as we walked home through the gloomy dusk , lara said , " Here's the significant thing . Poe studied all languages at once . He didn't take them up one at a time . That's a Populist notion . It's democratic, to be sure , but it goes further . It averts democracy's one failing , the tyranny of the majority . " I was sick o f it . I sai d , "You'll always b e all right . You'll always find a way .

But I won't . I'm never able to invent anything to break my fall . " lara said , "Break m y fall . Break m y stride , " chanting the words . Then she laughed .

Another student , Rachel Varn ach , hired me to play her accompaniment .

She was to sing the Cuban song, "Siboney , " at a women's club luncheon out on the Main Line . This was in the first week of December . I didn't think it was a suitable song . It didn't fit the season or the occasion . It didn't fit anything .

29

And it was out of date , a song no one sang anymore , an old page in an old repertoire book .

B ut Rachel was set on "Siboney , " which she insisted on pronouncing see­ b y u n - aigh . She said the song was her luck . We were both freshmen and it was the first time either of us had been offered money for performing in Philadelphia . It was Rache l , of course , who was offered money . In turn , she p aid part of it to me .

At school , we became instant celebrities . There were many students in the city and few opportunities to perform . I assumed my advisor had recommended m e . Still , I was pleased . Rachel told everyone she'd been practicing "Siboney" when the lucky phone call came . She was determined to sing it .

Rachel was overweight , florid , loaded with jewelry , heavy with makeup .

She was precisely everything Zara no longer seemed able to be . When we m et in a practice room to rehearse , she told me people worried too much about d iet . "Tell me , " she said , "do you really think you're going to live forever a nyway?" She wondered how people could eliminate meat from their diets and then eat Jello . Didn't they know Jello was a meat product? "So many t hings , " she said , "are based on ignorance . " Rachel could not master the syncopation i n the song . Actually , she had a good bit of trouble keeping time at all . "You have to hold the word tune. " I told her, playing it on the piano . " Hold tooon for two full counts . The jerk comes on that they . " "The jerk?"

"The jolt . The bump . Think of it as a dotted rhyth m . " With a pencil , I mark­ ed accents on the score , trying to show her where the beats fell, how the ac ­ cent was pushed off the third count . " ' 'Tyoon!'' sang Rache l , letting g o of it halfway through the first count .

"Toon!" I sang , slamming down the melody note , hammering out the strict rhythm in the left hand .

"Are you sure?" she asked .

"Otherwise it won't come out even . " I played it , showing her it wouldn't come out even . ''Tyoon!'' she sang desperately , missing it . Her plump face had begun to perspire .

"Tooooon!" I cried .

Rachel said , " I think the programs have already gone out for printing . " ' Try this , " I said , "tune-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight, but hold the note o nly through fo ur. " "What did you convert it to?" she asked . " Eight-eight?" " I guess so . " "Can you d o that?" ' ' I'm not sure . It works . Tune- two- th ree -fo u r th at they . . . " ' 'Tyoon - two- three-fo u r that they . . . " Rachel sang hopefully .

If I played a little pattern of jabbing seconds in the left hand , I could hold her to the rhyth m . We made it .

When the perform ance was over , Rachel was ecstatic , and generous . "You did it , Lillian ! " she crie d , as we buttoned our coats and gathered our music .

I had thought ambition was composed of secrets . In playing music , you went 30

out and acted as if you knew what you were doing even when you did not .

You got the job done , and went on to the next job . But Rachel told everyone at school I had saved her life . "Lillian did it by pounding out those spicy littl e seconds!" she declared , with such warmth , such charm , I became envious .

She made me wish I had a musical imperfection like her struggle with tempo , to set the rest of me off in bold relief. It would have made everything else about me seem perfect .

With my pay , I treated Zara to supper at the Triangle Cafe . I wanted her to succeed at gaining weight . If she looked less white , less pinched , less pitiful , I might be bold enough to ask her to go away .

When I told Zara what had happened with Rachel , she said , " Every honest singer will admit a large debt to accompanists . " She was trying to be nice , just as Rachel had been nice .

It was two days later that Zara drove off with the man in the plaid coat , and never returned . She'd left a note for me with the woman in the flat under min e , the wife of the shouter . The note said she had discovered she needed to be with Alfred . It was a substantial need , and she had to be with him in a substantial way . She did not call him her "lifeline . " I don't think this came from tenderness toward my sensibilities , but rather because "substantial" made the sentence scan so well . She was still phrasing , still a singe r .

S h e abandoned h e r students . Later I heard she was gone t w o weeks before anyone at the school reported her missing from her job .

I wanted Alfred to be a Poe scholar . I wanted him to be frivolous an d dangerous . But I recognized his last name , which Zara had written elaborate­ ly , joyfully . Alfred managed a small opera company in New Jersey . He had , quite simply , given her a job . She closed her note by saying, "Lillian , you were the best accompanist I ever had . " Then she wrote "best accompanist" twice more , as if her foolishness had been crucial and reasoned .

ELLEN HUNNICUTT

31

STITCHES When skin opens where a scar would be , I think nothing but "So [ am white underneath !"

Blood swells then dribbles into the elbow .

All that preparation for nothing! [ phone the university to explain . My husband storms in , motor running , p ales , and packs me off to Emergency .

Wear a red dress for the first time in a year, and look what happens .

Yo u were on your way to class, you had a plane to catch after- the bulging su itcase knocked you off- ce nter.

The doctor's teeth are beavery , yello w : he whistles as he works , as topsoil p uckers over its wound . Amazing there's no pain--j ust pressure , as the skin's tugged up by his thread like a tro ut , a black line straight as a seamstress' nightmare : foot-tread p edalling the needle right through .

Yo u just can 't stop being w itty , can you?

Yo u can 't help it.

O h , but [ can . [ always could .

RITA DOVE

32

p oetry spotlight R ITA DOVE Born in 1 952 , Rita D o ve w o n the 1 9 8 7 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Thomas and Beulah ( Carnegie-Mellon Univ . Press , 1 986) , and the year before was awarded the Peter L B . Lavan Younger Poet Award of the Academy of American Poets (chosen by Robert Penn War ­ ren) . She was a Presidential Scholar in 1 9 7 0 , a Fulbright/Hays Fellow from 1974- 7 5 , a Teaching/Writing Fellow at the University of Iowa from 1976- 7 7 , and the Portia Pittman Fellow in English at Tuskegee Institute in 1982.

Dove also received a Breadloaf scholarship in 1 97 3 , an NEA fellowship in 1 9 7 8 , and a Gug­ genheim fellowship in 1 983 . Her publications i nclude a collection of short stories, Fifth S u n ­ d a y (Callalloo Fiction Series, 1985) , a n d two

collections

of

poetry ,

Muse u m

(Carnegie­

M ellon , 1 983) and The Yellow Ho use on the Comer (Carnegie-Mellon , 1980) . She is current­ ly Professor of English at Arizona State Univer­ sity , poetry editor of Callaloo, and a member of the board of the Associated Writing Program s .

Photo : Fred Viebahn

M y first commitment to poetry is to the

m ake me happy , must h a v e its o w n m usic . A

language that creates it -- molds it , really , like a sculptor finding the ibex in the marble. Though I ponder the ultimate inefficiency of words, I also believe that they're the best of what we have to articulate thought , and so I grit my teeth and p lunge in to the elbows .

My second commitment -- but so necessary that the first cannot exist without this one -- is

piece like "Mississippi" is as much a song as it is a p hilosophical testimonial (with the ap­ propriate Southern/biblical cadence) . "The Ground We Walk On" takes the heavy myth of the bat and sends it out like a bad kite across the psychic landscape . "Stitches" is a smart­ alecky

poem

dealing

with

the

shock

of

d isassociation (How do you look at yourself be­ ing sewn up? -- very carefully) , as well as the never-to-be-shaken childhood notion that you're

to moral necessity, which sounds pious and star­ c h e d ; but I simply mean that poetry must be

responsible for your own bad luck -- go against a personal ritual (never wear red , people will

about something and must be honest . There's a lot of leeway in that and there are many truths, however . . .

When I get stuck in the writing I ask the poem

think you're a loud hussy) , and your karma will get you .

to help me out . If I can , I ask the language to

Distinguishing characteristics? I like color, and

set me in the right direction . I look up the deriva­ tion of troubling word s , I look for new syntac ­ tical ways to orchestrate ephiphanies . I ask short

use a lot of it in my poe m s . I suffer from the Calvinist work-and-guilt syndrome . As a world­ class cynic , I believe in magic as the supreme art of sleight-of-han d . As the composer Ned Rorem wrote in his diary : "You only get what

lines if they're not telling me something ; I ask long lines if they're trying to cover something up . You see , everything , as Robert Lowell said ,

you put into your miracles . "

is trying to get down to what you really fee l , which takes some manipulation .

The image is as necessary to me as breath , but it has no voice per se ; and the poe m , to

RITA DOVE TEMPE , JUNE 1987

33

Romare Bearden, The Pepper Jelly Lady , 1 98 1 , collage, 18"x 14" .

Photo : eeva-inkeri, courtesy of Cordier & Ekstrom, Inc. , New York City.

34

THE G ROUND WE WALK ON H ave you heard about bats storing themselves in attics all winter , u ntil the spring evening you're watching TV and one slides under the door like a sheet of bad news?

T hose stories are true .

Every time you think you hear a cry , one of them has stirred in the eaves .

Never put your foot down without looking : what America calls "the darker side of truth" h as worked its way out and is moving over porous ground , a shadow and its shadow .

RITA DOVE

35

MISSISSIPPI I n the beginning was the dark moan and creak , a monstrous sidewheel m oving through . Thicker then , the scent of lilac , scent of thyme ; slight hairs on a wrist lying down in sweat .

W e were falling down-river , carna l slippage a n d shadow melt .

It felt like standing on the deck of the New World , before maps : tepid seizure of a breeze a n d the spirit hissing away . . .

RITA DOVE

36

Th e Wa lls A re L ike Pap e r

by J . W . Major Sometimes in the night Billy has the feeling that his father is pulling on his nose . He can feel his father's fingers there , first gripping it like he's thinking of pulling it right off , the way Billy remembered his father pulling nails out of wood with the other end of the hammer, a little pause while he frown s . Then h e pulls and squints . He looks determined , like it's something to fix , like something he's been thinking about fixing for a long time . Billy has so much blood in his head that he can't hear . He doesn't make a soun d . Like all the times his father beat up on him he never made a sound . All the sound he m ade his father couldn't hear . Put it that way . He's not going to let him hear .

His father keeps listening for him but he isn't going to let his father hear him .

His father was shopping in the super market and fell back against the rows of canned vegetables and never was alive again . It was in the Grand Union .

When Billy thinks about his father clutching at h is heart the way people have heart attacks on television shows , he thinks about how funny it must have look ­ ed with all the cans falling on top of his father's head .

His mother says , "The walls are like paper . " Billy can hear his mother and her lover Farley . His mother moans like something is going through her body too fast and she doesn't want to stop it . You can hardly hear Farley . He speaks in a low voice , seems like he's trying to keep his voice low and even . When they're finished with what he knows is sexual intercourse , Billy hears the snap of his mother's Cigarette lighter . "I'll quit one of these days . But not today .

You gotta die someway though . " "Not me , " Farley says .

"What do you mean not you . You're human . " "Not me . " "You too , lover boy . " "Not me . " Billy imagines them both grin ning , his mother blowing smoke a t the ceiling .

Then he can't hear them for a long while . It's the way men and women on soap s , are , just lying in bed holding each other and not saying anything . What they do makes them quiet and thoughtful .

Billy gets up and fries two eggs and sets each one on top of a piece of toast .

He pours a glass of orange juice . As he eats he pictures himself having breakfast .

He imagines himself looking like Farley . He eats slowly , staring straight ahead , his eyes full of Farley's knowledge of the world , his elbows on the table , his head just above the backs of his hands joined at the knuckles . Then he hears the key in the front door and in a moment Farley is looking at him as though he knows Billy's been impersonating him .

"Up and eating , " Farley says , never seeming to address Billy directly .

"You out?"

37

"I wasn't in so I guess I was out . " Farley runs water into a pot and then puts it on the stove to boil . "Instant , " he says .

"You could brew it , " Billy says .

"Yeah . " But Farley seems to be thinking of something else . He leans against the counter looking at the water come to a boil . When he sits down at the table , he watches the steaming coffe e , like he was waiting for it to say something .

"My mother out?" " Getting her hair done . Shopping . " Farley sits i n his own silence , keeping Billy out . Farley only comes out so far , sometimes not at all . He gathers all the air and silence into himself .

"It looks like a nice day , " says Billy . " S u n shining, kind o f warm . " He smiles.

Farley doesn't lift his head , saying , "You happy about something? How's school?" " All right?"

"Yeah? Your mother says you're a shit-poor achiever . Junior high's kind of early to be rated up there as a champion fuck-up . " "I'm not a champion , " Billy smile s , but Farley keeps his eyes lowered .

"Not that I'm being fatherly . " Farley stretches his arms . He has weight lifter's arms , tinged with reddish hair . He tends bars days and when he gets off he . heads for the gym and works on the bar bells and Nautilus machines . "I'm c urious. What do you do?"

"Nothing . " "Just nothing? life i s long without things to do . life is stupid enough without having things to pass the time with . You ever think about the future?"

"Sure . " "What d o you think?"

Billy pretends to give it serious consideration . Now Farley is looking at him and waiting . It's the kind of question Mr . G ato , the G uidance Counselor , asks .

Billy has to shape his face a certain way . Sometimes he tries to see the future , like it's something that can actually be seen . He wants to say , I can see the p ast but not the future . It's like the times he tries to concentrate on school and the harder he tries the more the teachers' words become one long sound glued togethe r . "Why do you cut these classes?" Mr . G ato asks . "I just do , " Billy says . '.'It's easy . I j ust go out the front door . " He smiles , holding behind his teeth any further explanation that might get out .

"What's the matter?" Farley asks .

"Nothing . " Farley looks u p at the ceiling . "Your life , " h e says and moves his body back to show Billy that he has nothing to do with anything so personal as somebody's life .

"I think I might quit school , " Billy says .

"Smart move , " says Farley , not changing expression on his face . "You're just the right age to make your way in the world . Must be a million jobs waiting for you . They'll snatch you right up . " Billy smile s , but Farley turns to look at the side wall . Then h e looks at Billy and winks . "Maybe you'll become President of the US of A . " " Could be , " says Billy smiling .

"It's not really my business , you know , " Farley says , getting up . "I might 38

be only some kind of temporary resident here . For ali i know . I'm gonna go inside and read the news of the day . " Billy remains i n the kitchen , conscious of Farley turning the pages o f t h e newspaper .

"Your father had the right idea , " his mother says .

"Only what's the result?" Farley asks .

"I'm talking to my son if you don't min d . " "Suits me . " "What's this from the school? I gotta g o u p there? U p t o your old shit . Ever since his father died . His father kept him in line for your information , lover boy . " Farley shrugs . "Why you telling me?"

"Maybe you could have some positive input instead of standing there an d wising off . " "Your kid . That's what you just said . " "You don't have t o stand there o n the sidelines and wise off i s what I' m sayin g . " Farley arches h i s back a n d t h e n leans against t h e refrigerator . "Talked to him this morning as a matter of fact . Gave him the benefit of my world l y e xperience . " "There's the wise ass tone . " "I'm n o father . I told you the deal from the start . " ' Thanks . " His mother lights a cigarette . She's just come from the beauty salon and she fills the kitchen with hair lacquer and perfume . She has her six or seven bracelets on and her four necklaces and all her rings . She's got on a bright green pants suit and backless high heels . She squints at Billy through the smoke . "What is this shit cutting classes? You cutting classes?"

Billy nods .

"Once I had to go up about him in elementary school because he shit in the corridor . " She suddenly starts laughing , one hand on her hip , and the n j ust as suddenly stops , taking a drag on her cigarette . " How'd I end up with you?" She looks like she just swallowed something she thought was something e lse . " Nice thing to say , " says Farley . "My oId man said something like that once too often and I hauled ass . Just waited for the right time and split . " "Let him split . Let him haul ass , " she mimicks . "I'm not cooking anybody's dinner tonight . " "Not that you did last night . " "Funny . " His mother leaves the kitchen and goes back into her bedroom .

Farley is still leaning against the refrigerator . " Nice place to live , " he says .

Two nights later they're sitting at the kitchen table eating Big Macs , frie s , a salad h i s mother made . " Y o u can't eat a l l crap , " h i s mother says . " B u t I ' m tired a n d I can't c o m e h o m e from Gedley and Gedley and t h e n be the nigger cook and maid on top of it . " "Good for you , " says Farley .

B illy sips o n his orange j uice . His mother still hasn't gone u p t o the school .

Mr . Gato said he called home but there was no answer . He wanted to know whether his mother could be reached on her job . "She can't take calls there , " 39

Billy told him . Then Mr . Gerber caught him leaving the building and brought him to the dean . Mr . G ato asked him , "Where you think your life is headed , Billy? Seems to me at this rate down the tubes . I want your mother up here tomorrow or I give her a call and really let her know what's what . I have a feeling that calls from the school are not exactly what she likes to get . " " H e wants you u p a t the school , " Billy says , looking at Farley .

"Me?" Farley says .

"He can't look me in the eyes , " his mother says . "When do you suppose I could get up to the school? I'd like to stay gainfully employed , if you don't mind . " B illy shrugs .

"I don't get you and I never did , " his mother says , wiping a piece of lettuce from her bottom lip .

"You explain to them your mother works and can't get up there , " Farley says . " Him explain? He wouldn't have to explain if--what's the use of talking . This is a life-long curse . " "Yo u explain?" Farley asks his mother .

"What's that supposed to mean? You mind keeping your mouth shut? You're right . You're not the father. His father knew how to handle him . " "Seems to m e h e left a problem . And if you want to know m y opinion , which I'm sure you don't , it disgusts me to see a so-called grown man beating up on a little kid . " "You don't know shit , lover boy . You're the expert o n the sideline over there . " "You said you had trouble anyho w . The kid was trouble anyhow . Where's the solution? My oid man hit me, smacked me around , hit me all over the fljck­ ing lot . What does that prove? When I was old enough and strong enough I punched him in his face with my fist . That's a little anecdote from my past . " Billy's mother says nothing . She bites furiously into her hamburger . "You want to know something , " she says after a while . "I always wanted to hear n ice things about him but I never did . He was never a normal kid . The teachers said things were always disappearing where he was or he was crapping in the corridors or he pissed on the pipes in the bathroom or played hookey . Once he was missing for two days . And when you go up to the school the way they look at you like you raised a freak . " She has little bits of saliva in the corners of her mouth and she's crying . Farley squints , picking up a French fry and chew­ ing it slowly . "You're working nights now , " she says . "Why don't you go up to the school?"

Farley nods . "Who am I supposed to be? The father?"

"What difference does it make?" his mother says , moving her lips to one side of her mouth .

Billy thinks he can hear his father coming down the hallway. His mother h issin g , "Knock the shit out of the bastard . " Knock the shit o u t of the bastard.

Billy waits . He knows she wants him to cry . I'm not me , he thinks . I'm the things he hits . Then it won't hurt and he won't cry . He waits , knowing she's listenin g .

It's Farley going t o the bathroom . When he goes back t o the roo m , his mother says , "How many time's that?"

40

"You counting?" Farley says .

Then silence , then his mother takes a deep breath . "I like that , " she says .

"You're my weakness , " Farley says .

Farley has left the door open and Billy can hear them as though he were listening to them on a radio in his room .

"You say one thing and do something else , " his mother says . "Why you going up to the school with him?"

"Wait a minute . You asked me , didn't you?"

"I asked you other things too and you didn't do them . Why are you doing this and not the other?"

"What are these? Tests? I fin ished schoo! . " "If I'm what you say I am to you , why do you oppose me? Why don't you do what I say?"

"I'm not the kind to do what they say just because they say . " "But you said you love me . " "Who said?"

"All these things you say are your way of saying something like it . " "You said it . Something like it . " For a long while all Billy can hear i s his mother blowing smoke . Then she coughs . "Kill yourself , go ahead , " says Farley .

"Perfect for you . " "If you think so . " "You sure like fucking me , don't you?"

"You sure like getting fucked . " "Not always , lover boy . Not always . Sometimes I keep thinking how you let me down . Then I'm not exactly turned on . If you really want to feel the pleasure I can give you in the fullest sense of the word , then you'll do what I tell you . " . "When I first laid eyes o n you sipping whatever it was you were sippin g , I never thought y o u were weird . I never figured y o u for a weirdo'. " "You sure figured m e for a fuck . " They both laugh . Billy can hear them moving around o n the bed and laughing . After a while his mother says , "Why don't you go in there and d o what I tell you . " "Weird , " Farley says . "Suppose I say I'll think about it . " "Yeah , that's you . You'll think about it . There wasn't once h e ever said h e ' d think about it . Think about i t wasn't in h i s vocabulary . " "Just your type . " "Just m y type , lover boy . " "What were the tears about tonight?"

"They were about what they were about . " "Now you got to show m e how bad you are . All right. I know the rules .

I know what I'm into . " "Good for you . But I think you got a yen t o play Dad d y , much a s you deny it . " Farley tells Mr . Gato he i s Billy's step-father-to-be . Mr . Gato smiles a n d looks at Billy . "He's really a good kid . Only he doesn't know what's good for him . "

41

Farley shrugs .

"I take a special interest in Billy because he has a lot of potential , " Mr . Gato says .

"When'd they get their report cards last?" Farley asks . He has on a light blue suit and a dark neck tie . He looks younger and like he's had his hair cut , b ut Billy knows he hasn't . Farley scratches the back of his neck and squints .

"You didn't see it?"

"His mother might have . I'm not sure . " "You show that report card to your mother?" Mr . Gato asks .

Billy lifts his eyes as though he's trying to remember . He can see himself sitting on his bed , holding the report card on his lap and first imagining the handwriting of his mother. Then he can't remember signing it . "She said she didn't want to see it , " he says . "She said you see one of mine you've seen them all . " He smiles at Farley and Farley grin s , then scratches the side of his face . ''Then she didn't see it?"

Billy shakes his head . ' ' 'You think this is funn y , Billy?" Mr . Gato says , giving Farley a glance as though he wants to show Farley how the matter should be treated . "You haven't p assed any subjects . You just walk out of school . You think you're getting away with something . What do you think you're getting away with? Nobody cares if you throw your life away . Do they?" Mr . Gato asks Farley the last ques­ tion and Farley shakes his head , shrugs . ''That's what I try to tell him , " Farley says .

"You see , he cares about you , " Mr . Gato says . "But if you don't care about yourself . . . " He looks at Farley again .

Farley says , ''That's what I tell him , " scratching the back of his neck . Billy can see little bubbles of perspiration on Farley's forehead . Farley turns around and looks at the door , then moves his eyes along the top of Mr . Gato's desk .

There are manila folders and a box of sharpened pencils , an appointment book , sheets of mimeographed notices .

"What are y o u going to do? What we do is meaningless if you don't do anything . Your mother and Mr . Green can punish you all they want , but if you don't care - - you know what I'm talking about?"

Billy nods .

"Is there anything you want to say?"

Billy shakes his head .

"Nothing?"

Billy shakes his head .

"You want to step outside , Billy . I want a word with Mr . Green . " "What did h e say?" Billy asks .

Farley is driving . He has his neck tie off and he looks amused by the people and traffic on the streets . "What did you think he said? Asked about problems at home . We got problems at home?"

"What did you tell him?"

"I told him we're one big happy family . " "You really said that?"

"I said I didn't understand why you're pissing your life away at an early age .

42

Why are you? Why don't you just go to classes and do what they tell you?"

"I want to , " Billy says .

"If you want to--then what is it?"

"It's a waste of time . " "You got so many better things to do?"

"I don't learn anything . " "I felt the same way . There's nothing t o learn . But then who a m I ? Who the fuck am I?" Farley says it softly and laughs . For a while he's shaking his head and laughin g . "The fact is , " he says . "I can offer the best advice because I know what it is to be nowhere . " That night a s they eat L o Mein and spare ribs , his mother wants t o know how it went with Mr . Gato .

Farley looks at Billy and Billy stares straight ahead , taking up strands of Lo Mein on his fork .

"All right , " Farley says .

"Meaning it's all been solved?"

"Rome wasn't built---" "I got news for you , " his mother says . "I got big news for you , lover boy .

I can see it all . Nothing is solved . I can see the eye contact between you two .

But the news I got for you , lover boy , is old news . This is garbage over here . " She points to Billy with her thumb , keeping her eyes o n Farley . She's breathing h ard as she chews , trying to catch her breath so she can speak . "Garbage .

I'll explain in a minute when we're finished . " "You talk like that and then say when we're fin ished?" Farley says .

"I don't want to ruin the meal . " "Weird . " They keep eating i n silence , Farley shaking his head , his mother's lips mov­ ing from side to side , chewing angrily . Billy's eyes move from Farley to his mother . He tries to keep thoughts and pictures out of his m in d . It's not me , he thinks . I'm just a thing there that she's thinking about . That's your job , she said to his father . That's your job . Billy tries to keep his father's face out of his min d , but his father keeps nodding and nodding , slow and patient , his large tired eyes growing smaller as his mother's words sink deeper into his head .

After a while Farley picks up one of the cardboard containers and looks in ­ side . "All right . We're finished . What's the news?"

His mother sits up straight and stares at Farley . She looks like she's tryin g to hypnotize him . "How d o you like living in t h e house with a thief?"

"Is there a yes or no answer to a question like that? What are you getting at?" ' That , " his mother says , pointing to Billy . "That's what I'm talking about .

That . " "You steal something?" Farley asks Billy .

Billy shakes his head . He keeps his eyes on Farley , making sure he can se e no part of his mother . "She's saying that , she's j ust saying that . " " I had twenty dollars under my jewelry box i n the drawer , " his mother says .

"It's gone . You take it?"

"Yeah , I took it , " Farley says . "What do you mean she's j ust saying that?" he asks Billy .

"Why talk to him? And what do you think he's going to say?"

43

"You sure you had twenty dollars under there?" Farley asks.

"What do you mean , am I sure I had twenty dollars under there? What am I supposed to be doin g , making this up? I got news for you. This kid's got a bad character. It's not the first time. He took money from his father. But his father made sure it n ever happened again , and it wasn't by sending him to group therapy. " "You take twenty dollars?" Farley asks Billy.

Billy hasn't moved his eyes from Farley. "No. She's just saying it. " "Why's she just saying it?"

"What are you supposed to be , the fucking psychiatrist?"

"Why?" Farley asks Billy.

"She hates me. " Farley stands up and starts picking up the cardboard containers. ''To tell you the truth , I never bargained for all this domestic conflict. " "Where are you supposed to be going?" his mother says.

"Too complicated , " Farley says , dropping the boxes into the trash container.

"You gonna believe him?"

"That's beside the point. It's getting too deep. I didn't mind moving in. I didn't even mind the kid. But this is definitely too much. I'm in the middle of something here. " "You're on his side. " "You're missing the point. " "Yo u 're missing the point. " "That's probably true too. Yeah , I am missing the point. What is the point?

I've been asking myself. " Farley looks down at Billy's mother. "You know what I think? You did something to this kid. You and your late husband. There's something really wrong here. " Farley goes back into the bedroom and starts opening drawers. " "Just like that , you prick , " his mother screams. "See what you do , " she screams at Billy , bringing her fist down on the table in front of Billy's eyes.

"He'll be back , " Billy's mother says. All he can see is her dark shape against the glary light of the hallway. Billy is in bed , sitting up and looking at her as she stands in the doorway. "If you remember , they always come back. " Her voice is calm , so calm that he expects that she's going to do something. But he knows she won't come near. It's never her that comes toward him. It's his father or the others. The others stop existing after they go. They go off into lives he can't imagine. It's only his dead father who stays real. "Don't think he won't be back , " his mother says calmly and then moves off. Billy can hear her making the sounds she makes before she gets into bed. She opens a drawer and closes it. She winds the alarm clock. Then she goes into the bathroom and brushes her teeth. He hears her gargling. When she's alone she does everything in order , calmly and sadly. She goes back to the bedroom. He knows she'll keep a light on and her door open. "Keep your door open , please , " s h e says. Billy doesn't move.

He can hear things in the apartment , wood creaking , the refrigerator hum­ ming. He tries to picture Farley , but he keeps seeing his father in the living room , lifting his head back as he sips beer from a can. His father places the beer down and smiles at something on the TV screen. Then his father gets 44

up and comes into Billy's room and turns on the light . His father smiles . He looks like a regular father smilin g , like a father on TV . He says , ''I'm going to do a little number on you in honor of her birthday . We both know what she's doing for her birthday , don't we? Then when she comes home , I'll tell her about what I did and she'll be real pleased , right?" " He'll be back , " his mother says in a low , sleepy voice . " Don't think he was being such a nice Daddy to you because he liked you . " Billy says nothing . Then h e says , " He went u p t o the school with me . " " Because I told him . " " I hope h e does come back , " Billy says .

"If he comes back he comes back to me . He's sure not coming back to you .

You got a lot to learn if that's what you think . " After a while Billy falls asleep and wakes u p to hear Farley's voice . Must be a dream , Billy thinks . But then he knows it's really Farley's voice and he's talking to his mother in the bedroom . Farley is talking low and even and his mother is saying , "That's right , lover boy , that's right . I'm just what you want . " Billy gets u p and closes the door and waits .

J . W . MAJOR

45

V I S U A L J AZZ : an interview with painter

Rom a r e Bea r d e n

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Douglas, and members of the Harlem Ar­ tists G uild .

While earning a living as a case worker for the Department of Social SerVices, Bearden began to paint highly stylized Southern scenes in tempera on brow n p aper, and had his first one-man exhibi­ tion at the studio of modern dancer Ad Bates in Harlem . Two of his early works, The Visitation ( 1 94 1 ) and Woman Pick­ ing Cotton ( 1 940) were also included in an exhibition of "Contemporary Negro Art" at McMillen, Inc . During this period he was introduced to painter Stuart Davis, who helped foster an interest in Cubism and the connections between art and m usic .

From 1 942- 1 945, Bearden served in the U . S . Army's 372nd Infantry Regiment, and following his discharge, had a one­ man exhibition in Washington, D . C ., "Ten H ieroglyphic Paintings by Sgt . Romare Bearden . " In another one-man show at the Samuel M. Kootz Gallery in New York City, Bearden's "Passion of Christ" series drew the attention of The Museum of Modern Art, which purchased "He is A r i s e n " ( 1 945) for its p e r m a nent collection .

Bearden went to Paris in 1 950 on the '

Born in Charlotte, North Carolina on September 2, 1 9 1 4, painter Romare , Bearden has traveled great distances, both geographically and stylistically .

He went to p ublic school in New York City, where his father worked as a sanita­ tion inspector for the Department of Health, and his mother was the New York editor of the Chicago Defender and founder/first president of the Negro Wom e n ' s D e m ocratic A s s o c i a t io n .

Bearden's childhood was spent in a n eighborhood where celebrated musicians walked the sidewalks, and class mattered as much as street-sense . This was a world of rent parties and music, with the Savoy Ballroom only ten blocks from the Bearden home . Here he learned the value of style, and the energy of improvisation .

Bearden attended high school in Pitt ­ sburgh, Pennsylvania, where he later wrote that he learned drawing from a boy n amed Eugene . In 1935 he received a B . S . from New York University, and work­ ed briefly as a cartoonist . Two years later he began studying with George Grosz at the Art Students League, and joined the "306 Group," an informal association of black artists living in H arlem, including Jacob Lawrence , Norman Lewis, Aaron 46

G . I . Bill to study at the Sorbonne , where with painters Georges Braque and Constantin Bran­ cuse , and fellow Americans living abroad , writers James Baldwin and Albert Murray .

Returning to New York , Bearden trie d to write songs for a living , while contin u ­ ing to paint , a n d a s a member o f ASCAP saw many of his songs published . But he began working again as a case worker for Social Services a year later, where he con ­ tinued to work until 1 966 .

In the mid-50's Bearden's paintings became almost exclusively non -figurative ; after marrying and traveling i n Europe with his wife , Nanette , he returned to figurative painting, and became interested in the paintings of the Dutch Masters .

In 1 963 Bearden helped to form the "Spiral Group , " which met informally at Bearden's Canal Street studio , and a year later Bearden was appointed Art Director of the Harlem Cultural Council . Though a group collage project on Negro themes never materialized, Bearden himself began creating collages . Then , encouraged by Arne Ekstrom , Bearden put together an exhibition of his collages and their p hoto enlargements for Cordier & Ekstrom , Inc . , the N e w York City gallery where Bearden's work is still shown . Shortly after this "Projections" series was also displayed in Washington , D . C . , Bearden received a Grant in Art from the National Institute of Arts and Letters .

Since that time , Bearden has made the collage his principle instrument, improvis­ ing up and down the scale of visual space with a repertoire of media images and e lements incorporated from Byzantine , Dutc h , African , Chinese , and Japanese art . Picasso may have elevated the collage from folk to high art when he began using c ollage elements in his Cubist works around 1 9 1 2 , but Bearden has shown in m ore than twenty years of working with the medium that it can be more than a dis- . j unction of images bound by juxtaposition to create a loose unity . Bearden's collages are composed as if they were entirely painted ; often the found images are almost indistinguishable from the painted surfaces , they are s o well integrate d .

I t was Cezanne w h o said , "There i s a h e became acquainted

logic of colors , and it is with this alon e , and n ot with the logic of the brain , that the painter should conform . " Clearly , Bearden adheres to this philosoph y , for what is most striking about his work are his use of color and space . His palette has gone from the m uted earth-tones of his first paintings to the brilliant hues saturated with light that project his most recent collages as if they were slides . And Bearden's space--while it suggests his combined urban and rural i nfluences in collages which are dense , conjeste d , and confused at times , and open , highly readable on other occasions­ -always m anages to convey the emo­ tionality of the human fig ures that in habit his picture planes .

Bearden has had two major retrospec­ tives of his work , one at The Museum of Modern Art ( 1 97 1 ) , the other at the Mint Muse u m , Ch arlotte , North Carolin a ( 1 980) , in which collages from his major series were shown . These include "Projec ­ tions" ( 1 964) , "The Prevalence of Ritual" ( 1 97 1 - 73) , " Of the Blues" ( 1 9 74) , "Mecklenburg County" ( 1 97 7-80) , "Pitt­ sburgh Memories" ( 1 978) , and "Jazz" ( 1 979 80) .

In addition to his collages, Bearden has worked in watercolors (particularly scenes of SI . Martin , where h e began summer­ ing in 1 974) , designed sets and costumes for plays, created m urals and mosaics for buildings, and illustrated books and record album covers . He is also a writer, having received a grant, from the Guggenheim Foundation to write a history of Afro­ American art . His books include collabora­ tions with fellow painter Carl Holty , The Painter's Mind (New York : Crown , 1969) , and writer Harry Henderson , Six Black Masters of American Art (New York : Zenith Books , Doubleday , 1972) .

47

C LOCKWATCH : A hitch in the ar­ my , your experience as a New York City Department of Social Services case worker, a year studying at the Sorbonne in Paris , working as a songwriter . . . people's lives on paper tend to look like collage s . Is that why you're drawn to this medium?

Romare Bearden , A rtist With Painting A n d Model, 1 98 1 , collage, 44"x56" .

Photo: eeva-in keri, courtesy of Cordier & Ekstrom, Inc. , New York City.

BEARDEN : (Laughing) I never thought o f i t that way . I painted for a long time at first in oil and a little bit in watercolor ; I didn't do collages, but I had sort of an idea of more than one person working on a painting at one time . There was an artist in Paris nam­ ed Kinchichi , a Japanese sculptor , and he and his girlfriend used to travel with a big pad and colored crayon s , and t h e y would p u t down something in the pad wherever they were- -say , in a cafe--and then just pass it to everybody , and they would all make some sort of mark in it . It was kind of interesting , you know? So I thought , m aybe we could do something like that . And m y w ife h a d s o m e magazines--like Harper's Bazaar and Vogue--and I was looking through them . One of the artists did lan d ­ scapes o f homes and that , s o I took those out . Everybody was enthusiastic - -these were fellows from the Spira l group--but when it came time to meet (laughs) , I was the only one there . So I started putting things down anyway, and the next thing you know , I was doing collage s .

North Carolina) was kind of the place that I knew, and some parts of Harlem were fresh in my memory , so those h ave been , since the mid-60's or so , the themes of my work . Mecklenburg I return to again and again , and then with the jazz themes .

C LOCKWATCH : You grew up in a neighborhood where Fats Waller was a close friend of the family , and many vaudeville performers lived . . .

B EARDEN : Well , that was at 1 54 West 1 3 1 st Street in New York , an d right across the street , going toward 132nd , was the Lafayette Theatre , and above that a rehearsal hall . So all the musicians , entertainers and so forth -- Bill Robinson , Duke Ellington­ -were all in and out . I was constantly hearing that music and dancing of that kin d .

C LOCKWATC H : Many have called your work the visual equivalent of the blues, or jazz . Was this a conscious ap­ propriation of method on your part , or was it more of a cultural influence?

CLOCKWATCH : I n a fairly recent review of your work , E . L . Klein wrote that your latest gro up of collages sug­ gests the themes and im ages that characterized your early work . She seems to think that you've come ful l circle . D o you?

BEARDEN: Well , when I was in Paris , I was on a street called Rue de Feullintens , and there were a lot of students , and there were side streets , and so they all looked like Ma urice Utrillo paintings . So I said , I wouldn't atte mpt doing that , you know? That belongs to him . It's just like someone going to Tahiti now to paint , where Gauguin would always leave his stamp . But Mecklenburg (County-49

BEARDEN : I took , some time ago , a watercolor of mine to Stuart Davi s , w h o I'd become friendly with , a n d asked h i m what he thought of it . And he said , "Look at the left side of your p aintin g , and the space there . . . and look at the right side . Everything is just the same . You've got to have some variety . " So he said , "Listen to Earl Hines . " (Laughs) So I listened to Earl Hines . I listened so long the records got worn down , and I didn't hear if he was playin' "Sweet Lorraine" or what . . . I didn't hear the melody , but just the spacing in between , and so forth . And that was a lesson for me .

I don't guess you'd get it in high schoo l , but I still adhere to that . This was in the early 50's , when I was still kind of a student .

I always hum a melody when I'm painting . If I went da-da-da-da-da-da ­ d a , it would drive people crazy , (laughs) . But you make a melody : dum-da-de-da-dum-de-d a .

C LOCKWATCH : What else about your paintings do you see as being jazz-oriented?

B EARDEN : There's a man named J a c k s o n T u r n e r , an A m e r i c a n h istorian who wrote about the settlers in early Texas , and he said they had n o water, and so they devised the windmill . They had to improvise to live in this lan d . This is kind of an American thin g , improvising , making due . Maxwell , the great English physicist , had set the equation for m agnetic s , but here you have an Edison who put those things to prac ­ tical use . The thing about jazz music that differentiates it from the others is improvisation . like , you sit down with Mingus or someone . . . and start i m ­ provising a n d moving off . A n d i f you can't do that , they m ight say , "Come back when you're ready , " you under­ stand? But improvisation is part of it .

And then I take from jazz the spacing, like in Earl Hines .

B EARDE N : I stopped that because alth o u g h t h e y were fo u n d o b ­ jects . . . . Y o u see , t h e faces , people would say , "How many magazines did you have to look through?" A lot of them were corn , which could serve as teeth , or moss , which could serve as a person's hair . And so the faces were m ade from disparate images . I could make a building--just cut out the brick and gray pavement and so on --but I stopped doing that now , just cutting them out , and I use paint along with it . "Cora's Morning , " it's a woman in bed , and the sun is coming in . The sunlight is yellow , but it's mostly p ainted .

CLOCKWATCH : Yet the images and painted surfaces are so well integrated .

They're more powerful now , although someone who's not an art expert m ight not be able to explain w h y .

B EARDEN : But y o u have feelings.

Feelings can work wonders . You don't have to be an art expert .

C LOCKWATCH : Some critics have seen elements of the Dutch Masters in your work : Steen , Vermeer . . . .

B EARDEN : Not Vermeer . Pieter de Hooch . But since you mention Vermeer, I want to correct something here . I think he and Re mbrandt were the two great painters . But it is often best to be influenced by a good p ainter , rather than someone like Rembrandt , or V e r m e e r , or Raphael . . . y o u know? You're dealing with someone else's perfection . So it's de Hooch , or some of the others- ­ Terborch , or Jan Steen- -that [ study . [ feel I can get more from them .

CLOCKWATCH : On the topic of spacin g , your latest collages seem less d ense , and you've integrated your m edia im ages with larger areas of p ainted ground . What's behind that development?

B EARDEN : Well , I always feel that I'm really a Cubist , and that space pro­ jects the figures . I wanted to project them a little further .

C LOCKWATC H : And that's why you've gotten away from collages that are totally composed of found objects , images cut from magazines?

C LOCKWATCH : That's accessible?

50

about those things . You see , you're always just looking for the next p ainting .

BEARDEN : Yeah . Because with a Rembrandt or a Vermeer , what can you do with them? But what I do study is Rembrandt's drawings , because they have not been tampered with like his oils , with so much varnish .

People wonder about his mysterious light and things , but the Night Watch , for instance , has been cleaned , and they found it's a dayligh t scene that's full of beautiful color . And if they did that to more of his paintings you would see not only that he was a great painter , but that he was also a great colorist . But see , I look at his draw­ ings and the late watercolors of Cezanne because here you can find two painters who can compete on the same level as the great Chinese m asters of the 9th , 1 0th , 1 1th , 1 2th centuries .

C LO CKWATC H : backwards .

Forward s ,

not

B EARDE N : That's right . You've got it .

CLOCKWATCH : You once said th at you're trying to explore , in terms of the particulars of the life you know best , those things common to all c ultures . What about your work do you see as being cross-cultural?

B EARDE N : Well , let me give you one example . I have a painting I call S usan n a h At The Bath . It is in an in­ terior like those you'd see in Meckle n ­ b urg , and there's a lady , a young woman who's just finished taking a bath , and there's an elderly lady holding a pan . There's an open door and there 's a bird looking in . And you see , here it is in Mecklenburg , and I c all it S usa n n a h At Th e Bath , although the old masters--Rembrandt , Tintoretto--a lot of them used that theme , and it relates to these people in the past who are not living in M ecklenburg where I was . Most of them would have the three men who were looking at Diana/Susannah , but I put the bird there instead . . . and then you see masks on the faces , a kind of African mask on the woman's face . So then the bathing that she's doing is not just a cleansing thin g , but something ritualistic in the sense of something go­ ing way back to the Euphrates and the cleansing of the soul . So these things , w hile it is Mecklenburg , it moves out­ side into the things that I've told you .

CLOCKWATCH : You're also a great colorist . What , as you see it , does col­ or do for your work?

BEARDE N : Well , let's put it this way : color , form , s p a c e , s h o u l d b e identical .

C LOCKWATC H : You use color to formally organize your paintings?

B EARDEN : Yes .

CLOCKWATCH : Your knowledge of art and your incorporation of various styles and cultures into your own work is quite varied . If you had to identify the influences which have most shaped your work , what would they be?

BEARDEN : I have a show in Boston now , and somebody there asked me the same kind of thing . (Laughs) "When you die , " you know , "what do you want on your tombstone?" or something like that . I don't even think 51

CLOCKWATC H : What have you learned about the collage through all the years that you've been experimenting with the medium?

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some kind of history figures through the serpent . The train is a counterpart to the life that black people live d , because black people lived near the railroad tracks , they often worked on the railroad , the railroad could take them from Memphis and bring them to New York , or if they didn't like it , bring t h e m back . So it was a technological figure , almost counter足 p arting the life that the people were liVing .

You know , the artist di Chirico uses the train , but his father was a train man . When he was younger he used to take him riding on the trains , an d as figures they were kind of surrealist , or at least philosophical . . . they kept coming back . But this was a factor , the train , you know . . . whistle and all .

When I was a little boy we used to go to the depot and , we called it , "watc h the good trains go by . " You knew from the whistle , the way certain men h it it , "That's so and so , " or "That's Plant driving . " You knew from the way they hit it . The train was very important .

BEARDEN : Well , one : to attack . I have a young fellow to help me now .

I've been in an automobile accident and I can't lift so well , and some of the collages are quite heavy . And I told him , you must attack . . . attack your p aintings . I don't mean in the sense of a George Patton or a Romme l , or some general , but you must not be timid . You have to take chances .

That's the only way . Instead of doing the same kind of painting that was perhaps successful before , take a chance .

CLOCKWATCH : You've also said that you try to let the picture unfold itself . How do you do that?

BEARDE N : Well , I start with only the rectangular shapes . You see , that is classic , but it hinders a lot of move足 ment like you'd see in the Baroque spiralling . . . you don't use that . But you can't have everything (laughs) . And so I put these shapes down . I think of painting as putting something over something else . Then I see , you know , what could happen here if I put a figure , or now paint it , or move it around . . . and as you get going , it's kind of mystical . The rooster might come in , or those symbols that I use - 足 the snake , t h e rooster, t h e train--after a while they kind of flo 'f' , because you're dealing with the t hi"ngs that are symbolic and meaningful to y o u . I'm sure that Utrillo did those things- 足 Utrillo , and Gauguin and the rest .

When you have something that is yours , you know , the painting then begins to help you .

CLOCKWATCH : The snake , rooster, and train--are these symbols personal , or are they rooted in black history?

CLOCKWATCH : And the rooster?

B EARDEN : Well , the rooster signals the new day .

CLOCKWATCH : Did these symbols that you use , did they choose you? Or did you consciously select them?

B EARDEN : I think the first part .

CLOCKWATCH : Are there any limits to the images and techniques that an artist can borrow? What is left?

B EARDEN : I thin k , probably , that as we move into the next century , most of the artists will be using computers .

B EARDE N : Wel l , the serpent is always in some kind of history . . . or 53

C LOCKWATCH : To actually create their paintings?

B EARDEN : Yes . You see , my studio is out on Long Island City , and so about four or five years ago I was waitin' for a train . It was around five o 'clock , and the station was a bit crowded because there were a lot of factories aro und there . And for some reason , the train was half-an-hour late . And the people broke up the sta­ tion . Smashed the lights , you know?

It was bedlam .

Now , suppose two hundred years a g o , in t h e t i m e of G e or g e Washington , people would h a v e to row across the river , or walk . . . i t wouldn't be until the next day when they'd get home . But you see , with the invention of the machin e , man's capacity for patience has decreased , because we get there so qUickly . And no artist--I think I can say this p ositively--could paint like Van Eyck or Durer , those precise old masters .

No one could do that any more , or some of the great tapestries--like the u nicorn tapestries and others--where they p ut a hundred different flowers in it , all correct . We don't have the pa­ tience for that . And as time increases , the patience becomes less and less , because our nervous systems . . . When you get on the train , you know , the grinding , the noise--you can't hear like the Indians used to a hundred years ago . We've gained , and we've lost .

to this century , but as he grew older , the work , he put less and less in it .

Everything he put in it was important , b ut maybe they , like a juggler , maybe they juggled twelve balls and we might n eed only three or four now , to be "just right . " If you look at Matisse , an d look at a face , it's not drawn like a Holbein , with exact imagery there .

C LOCKWATCH : For a while you painted in a more abstract style , and then returned to the images again , is that true?

B EARDEN : Well , I paint more abstractly now. But people misuse that word . What you should say is non­ representationally or representational­ Iy . Some of the old masters are far m ore abstract than the painters who use nothing in their works , who are . . . .

Well , let me put it this way : Say you're doing what people would say is abstract , and painting the top of your painting yellow , and the bottom of it blue . One third is yello w , and the rest blue . You painted sunlight! So I would use the word non-representational .

The abstract , or abstraction , is the knitting together of all the composi­ tional factors in a painting . You put a tree in it , or a moon , you see , but you are painting in the abstract . I just wanted to make a distinction . The reason I say non-representational is b etter , because while you have nothing in it that would indicate lan d ­ scape o r anything like that , y o u still paint the n atural force of the sun . So you have to be carefu l . The French painter Ingres , his drawings are far m ore abstract than oddly even com­ puters . But when you turn him upside down and he's painting what seems to be every crease in a woman's garment or a man's pants . . . . They just misuse the word .

C LOCKWATCH : Are you implying that the art of previous periods , with its greater patience and attention to detail, that this earlier representational art is of a higher quality than that art which is being produced today?

B EARDEN : No , n o . It's different. Ar­ tists change . Van Gogh and Cezanne were great painters ; Cezanne lived in54

C LOCKWATCH : Some of your . earlier works were influenced by words, by the poetry of Garcia Lor­ ca . How did the experience work for you , in trying to incorporate elements of literature into painting?

you could look in and see people e ating , a couple makin' love . . . things like that , you know? That might have gone on in the building . The cassette tape wasn't music . It was a fire engine comin g , people talking . . . .

B EARDEN : In this particular case , I just did the work and I looked at the poem and found words that might fit it . For instance , I had something of a bull coming . All those works are un­ fortunately gone , so I have nothing now to refer to , and it's hard to remember exactly . In the poem , I think it said "from far off the gangrene is coming , " and I could then put it there . I did this before I had seen an actual bullfight . When I was studying in Paris I went to Spain on a holiday and saw a bullfight . And I thought , I don't think I'd ever do this again . I didn't like it .

CLOCKWATCH : Wasn't that the on­ ly time you used sound in conjunction with the visual images?

CLOCKWATCH : When you ap­ proach a painting like that , when you've found inspiration in a poem , or a song , do you go for a particular incorporation of feeling , or ide a , or just the image itself? I'm thinking here of your enormous collage , The Block, which , aside from being quite a depar­ ture from your normal scale of work­ ing , also included so u n d--a cassette tape of street sounds, church music , blues . . . .

B EARDEN : Yeah . When I had the retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art , they liked it . But a lot of people found it disturbing .

C LOCKWATCH : Is that what you intended?

B EARDEN : I rather liked it . I don't know where the tape is now , but that's why I did it .

CLOCKWATCH : Was that some ­ thing you could only do once? I mean , you couldn't do a whole series of p aintings with accompanying tapes, could you?

B EARDE N : No , no . That was just a o ne-time shot . The Block has been shown quite a few times . It was up there recently , but they didn't play any tape with it .

C LOCKWATCH : The fact that it's larger than most of your paintings , does this indicate that you intended for it to be your G u ern ica, your epic work?

B EARDEN : I did The Block because I was visiting a friend of mine named Albert Murray , who just wrote a book called Good Morn ing Blues, about Basie , and I was across the street and I was looking , and I said , "Albert , get me some paper . " And I just kind of made a sketch , just a thematic thin g : there was a funeral parlor , a barber shop , and so on . And I said , ''I'll xray it , " you see? Suppose the bricks weren't there , or the windows , and 55

B EARDE N : No . After the drawings , you see , there was a whole block of b uildings that I wanted to include , so i t h a d t o b e longer . And I have a mural in Berkeley City Hall that is much larger than that , and another m ural and collage at Bellevue hospital , and that must be twenty-four feet or so , by twelve or fourteen feet high .

C LOCKWATCH : Jacob Lawrence , one of the social realists , was an associate of yours . You've mention ­ ed your Cubist influences , but I was wondering if you absorbed anything from the social realists?

regimes , but it was demanded that p ainting m ust reinforce their ideas . If it was a gun , then it must be a gun .

That , to me , is social realism . I don't see Jake doing that .

I think that certainly artists in the 30' s , during the time of the Great Depression and WPA , a lot of the ar­ tists dealt with such themes . . . but they weren't compelled to do so , you understand? I'm not painting to tell you how to act in life . I'm painting to try to tell you how I felt about something that happened , and to touch people's souls in an artistic way .

B EARDEN : He is one of the last painters who uses a narrative . Say , he takes the life of John Brown and does incidents of that , or Harriet Tubman .

H e might do sixteen or twenty pain­ tings like that , with incidents of their l i v e s , l i k e the C h i n e s e w o u l d sometimes have scroll paintings . You u nfold it , and a n arrative continues .

C LOCKWATCH : After graduating from NYU you worked briefly as a car­ toonist , as many artists have done .

Why is this so often the first step?

C LOCKWATCH : Although he also uses exaggeration and caricature , his p aintings are thought of in terms of their "message , " while your own are considered expressionistic . Do you ac­ cept this distinction , or is your own work closer to Lawrence's in some ways?

B EARDE N : I think art is made from other art . You've heard people say , of October , "The trees are all turning different colors , it was so beautiful, I wish I was a painter , and I could have painted that scene . " Well , artists are n ot affected . They're affected earlier, by what they see . In other words, you want to become an artist because of another artist , and not so much because you want to get out and paint this beautiful landscape every Oc­ tober . That might come later, you understand? But your initial thing is the cartoon because it imitates the things that you've seen early in life , like . . . oh , Snoopy the dog , and such .

B EARDEN : I would say neither of them . I don't think he would make anybody vote for Reagan or Carter , or whatever . Television and movies can do that much bette r . But he painted out of what he felt about t h e h istory o f black people in this coun­ try , which had often been neglected .

H e was inspired by these things , he did it very well , and I think that art has gone away from that , in the 50's with abstract expressionism and things , and h e had the courage to continue his own way , in what he felt .

You know , I think that social realism would be some of the Russian films that propagate their philosophy, the Marxist philosophy . Or , for in ­ stance , the work that you see so often in the Soviet Union , of people h arvesting . . . and the work of Hitler . I think he ran most of the artists out, but it's the same kind of paintin g . Different

CLOCKWATCH : Who was your ear­ ly influence?

B EARDEN : I was helped a lot by an artist-cartoonist named E. Simms C ampbell , who was one of the first black cartoonists to show work in The New Yorker, and magazines of the time . I think he had a strip in the H earst papers . . . he was very good .

56

C LOCKWATCH : How are your own childhood memories and jazz in ­ fluences altered through this process?

And then later I studied with George Grosz , and he showed me how to draw . He said , " Look at Hol­ bein , look at Durer , " and then I became more interested in wanting to paint.

B EARDEN : (Laughs) Well , people will have to judge that in time . It too k them a hundred years to see that Van Gogh was a great painter .

CLOCKWATCH : Myron Schwart­ zman wrote that you've "sifted the details of your childhood me mory so that the listener is given a new perspective with each retelling . What in one interview sounds like an ex­ tended recipe for watermelon cake sounds , in another , like the essen c e of t h e blues . " He says you're both a modern ist a n d a n idiosyncratic painte r .

CLOCKWATCH : Basically , I just ask­ ed you to be a critic of your own work .

B EARDEN : I do that every time I paint , because , you see , modern p ainting--unlike the painting of the Renaissance , where you see drawings

by Raphael or some of the masters , and the finished paintings were pret ­ ty much carried out like that--modern painting , Picasso , Matisse , I've see n some photographs of the m , their first impression s , and there are maybe twenty of the m , they change . So it is based on starts , destructions, and new beginnings . Find that core in there and the simplicity , through elimination , of the things you want . [ think that's how paintings go .

BEARDEN : (Laughs) Idiosyncratic? I know the meaning of the word , but I don't know how he means that . I was a painter who I think found a way-­ my own way--of paintin g , and I deal mostly with , say in the recent twenty years or so , images of my childhood in Mecklenburg , and with music . Afro­ American classical music , or jazz , if you want to call it that .

C LOCKWATCH : A 1976 article in the Charlotte Observer told of your at­ t e m p t t o l o c at e y o u r g r e a t ­ grandfather's house . "It's a parking lot now , " you said at the time . What some critics call the unrecoverable past , is this the area where art is t h e m ost active?

CLOCKWATCH : You once said that art celebrates a victory . Do you still believe that?

B EARDEN : Ummmhmmm . What I meant by that , you know . . . . Van Gogh , part of the interest in him is he's not only a great painter, but he gave you an ear , and other things , you know? But if you look at his work , obviously he was a tormented man , and I read one of his letters to his brother .

He was talking about a cafe that he went to , how the people came in , and he was describing it like Balzac . But when he painted it , he painted it in colors like sherbet ice cream , i t w a s so beautiful. S o that was his victory . You know? This happens . When I get to the canvas , I become somebody else .

B EARDEN : There are things that come to me very clearly about the past , but then a lot of art has to be im­ agined too . I painted a lady named M audell Sleet , maybe three or four times , and every picture of her , or col­ l age , is different (laughs) . In the three of four pictures of her , there wasn' t any likeness . My memory was just , this is how Maudell Sleet feels to me right n o w .

57

C LOCKWATCH : At one point you actually responded to a critic in order to correct misassumptions about how you created your collages . But this raises an interesting point . To respond like that is to acknowledge , at least to yourself, that the artist's intention is crucia l . In literature , it has bee n popular to completely discount the ar­ tist's intention , and only consider the work as it stands by itself. How do you think critics should approach a work , whether it's a painting or a novel or a poem?

is creates space . Modern writers are now trying to approach their work m ore spatially , as if their texts were canvases . What advice would yo u h ave for experimentors who are try­ ing to match up these two art forms?

B EARDEN : I think it would be wonderful, because out of experimen ­ tation comes realization . In the first part of this century they needed to get away from what was saccharine--I'm talking about painting now- -of the French Academy which was still domi­ nant then . Which prompted some of the artists to look at a work not con­ sidered like Raphael anymore , like African sculptures . There's a poem of Constantine Cavafy--although he was of Greek ancestry , he lived in Alex­ andria most of his life--and he wrote about events in ancient Rome , the Byzantine Empire , and so forth . He h as one poem , I guess , where the poet is looking out of the window and he sees all these townspeople going out , and he inquires and is told that "the barbarians are coming , and we're going out to appease them , to give them gifts , make them citizens . " And so later in the evening the same crowd comes straggling back , and they said , "We waited all day , we travelle d , and there were no barbarians . " And the poet said , "Well , that's too bad . " Sometimes w e need the barbarians .

Now with African sculpture , the lack of sentimentality they found was of value , an organization of the figure and face in another way .

B EARDEN : Well , I'm not too much into art criticism or art history . Most ar­ tists like the painters that you take something from . Maybe we've had too much of the zealousness of ex­ planation , like structuralism , and all these things . They're talking , but you gradually see Balzac disappearing . So I think that if they could deal with the poem , the novel , or the painting on its own terms, and how they feel about it , is the best way .

C LOCKWATCH : One article stated that you wrote poems at one point . I s that true?

B EARDEN : Not poems , but I do write . I just had a book accepted with a friend of min e , Harry Henderson , both of us together, by Random H o use . It's a book mostly about the black artist in the 1 9th century , an d those up to about 1 940 . There would have to be a second volume to go any further, because there's so many ar­ tists now to make a survey . I can write a bit with some help in grammar and construction . I like to write .

C LOCKWATCH : So writers and painters should look for unfamiliar elements to appropriate for their own use . Has primitivism been the most useful appropriation for you?

C LOCKWATCH : Another frien d , Stuart Davis , i s said t o have helped you realize that in a painting, color has both a position and a place , and that

B EARDEN : (Laughs) There's no primitivism anymore . Everybody's 58

looking at television and it's all gone .

You just look at all art that's any good , and there's similarities between all of them . I like to use it because of the break in the structure of the figure , the daringness , and the fact that the work h as such presence .

CLOCKWATCH : You've mentioned sameness , but the art world now s e e m s overly p r e o c c u p i e d with newness .

ty . So while , you see , I've disciplined myself to work six hours a day , if necessity prompts you to work six to eight straight , you'll do it . You're working under other driving forces .

The necessity of something you have that you have to tell people , or show people , that's imperative . And this is what you work from .

1 1 - 24-87 1 - 15-88

B EARDEN : Well , you know , we've got to have a new Miss America every year , but it's always the same girl (laughs) . Do you understand what I m ean?

CLOCKWATCH : Yeah , it's like an essay by E . B . White , "Once More To The Lake , " where a father takes his son to the lake of his boyhood , and , h aving aged , is surprised to see the same mayflies , rowboats , and bathing c ampers . The same , but different .

BEARDEN : Now there are more peo­ ple , and in the art world things get weeded out . I saw in Paris once a show of impressionists , and there were so many that you never heard of. And most of the mistakes that they m ade , they still had the realism , and t h e n s o m e d ots of i m p r e s ­ sionism . . . they didn't g o all the way .

So that was the fault of most of them .

They weren't like a Pissaro or a Manet or a Monet or a Degas . They stopped at this point .

C LOCKWATCH : One last question : what about discipline and the artist?

B EARDEN : Well , there should be no such thing as discipline for an artist .

Discipline is for a football team , or an army . The artist works out of necessi-

59

THE FISH for

van

Tilb urg

W ere we the guests of earth And they our hosts , this party Would be a different matter, Wouldn't it? But as it is , There we sit , staring at the tank As they circulate , Houdini-like .

It's a wonder you don't join them In their floating , showing your disdain For gravity , moving in deafness , traveling Within one dark sound As the fish who float up by your ears : The neon brights , the Yucatans , A n d several iridescent tetras-­ Oboe-like , translucent as silkscreens .

H ere before you , you have all The tortuous movement of a party- ­ Figures i n a p urple room , talking In language that uses a long-forgotten alphabet .

All night you lie suspended In a room , prone but perpendicular , still P anicky like the others here , Thinking of the inner ear , a little out of balance , A n d craving a moment's peace .

60

You start to stare at these fish That swim through the alcoves of nerve Within you, and you start to give them names Like Alpha, Beta, Nu, confusing them With your own, and start to see them As novel and attractive creatures In a world gone suddenly sensible, The sound there more like that of chromosomes Than psalms, perhaps the language Of another species.

The party slows until You border on communication.

Each element in this new landscape Is transparent too, and someone wants to talk, Though their lips will not form for you, Though they open and they close.

These are the last trenches of the deaf And seeing is about to prevail.

You share here with these others What you always were unable to give name to-­ And what gave you the sense of names, That let you share What cannot be given outright.

This makes the waters a little less threatening, Though less forgiving too.

You are not so alone like this, So all alone.

JOHN FICOCIELLO

ATMOSPHERE H ere between stacks of ethnic gadgets and instant gourmet dinners , the owner reports "Our last Punjab wok was bought yesterday , " a s i f anticipating our disappointment . Glass breaks in the back of the store , near the Romanian crystal . She winces , cranes h er neck over the blue cash register .

"Christmas help , " she says with a m artyr's sigh .

B ut soon her fingers return to the keyboard .

The gurgle of the terminal innards totters on the threshold of speech .

"Our n ext system will have a woman's voice . " As we talk , I a m burping slightly , as politely as possible . An hour ago , in a landscape of wicker and primitive ferns , we made a trip to the roughage trough , your name for the salad bar , before the green pasta and chicken livers wrapped in bacon . Our waiter p Ointed at the wine from "Possum Run , " a n Indiana vineyard , a n d although w e said no , we nodded how good that the grape was challenging the soybean in our state agriculture in the same way we applaud that natural fibers have come back if for a little more in price .

At nine the fountain stops , the lights flicker .

Cages slam down over jungle-wear displays .

"The store is clOSin g , " a hidden voice harps .

A woman race s , her opossum litter of bags flops on her hips . This is frenzy , the first bipeds to forage in a land without sunshine or rain .

DANIEL BOURNE

62

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CONTRIB UTORS DANIEL BOURNE teaches at Western Illinois University , and has poems forth ­ coming in A merican Poetry Re vie w , Salmagundi, River Styx, Carolina Q uarterly, Alaska Quarterly Review, and Another Chicago Magazine. He spent two years in Poland on a Fulbright fellowship , and has published translations of Tomasz Jastrun in various small press magazines . A chapbook , "Boys Who Go Aloft , " is available from Sparrow Press .

WILLIAM DORESKI has had poems published recently in The Massach usetts Revie w , The Literary ReVie w , Georgia Revie w , and Outerbridge; essays in CEA, Critic, and ESQ. He teaches literature and creative writing at Keene State College in New Hampshire .

STUART DYBEK won the 1 985 Nelson Algren Award , and a story of his also appeared in Prize Stories: The 1 98 7 O. Hen ry A wards. His publications in­ clude a collection of fiction , Childhood And Oth er Neighborhoods (Viking, 1 980) , and poetry , B rass Kn uckles (Univ . of Pittsburgh Press , 1 979) . Dybek teaches creative writing at Western Michigan University , and at Warren Wilson C ollege in North Carolina .

J OHN FICOCIELLO lives i n Cincinnati with his wife , Patrice ; h e writes for the U . S . GAO , and for his. own sake .

V . K . G IBSON lives in Key West , Florida , where he won the 1983 Hemingway Short Story Competition . " Dark Side of the Moon" was the 1 987 winner .

ELLEN HUNNICUTT is the author of a novel , S uite for Calliope (Walker & Co . , 1 987) , and the winner of the 1 987 Drue Heinz Literature Prize for her collection of short stories, In the Music Library (Univ . of Pittsburgh Press , 1987) .

S USAN KELLY-DEWITT is a Poet-in-the-Schools in California, and the editor of Quercus, a poetry journal . She is also a painte r , and recently had her first show .

G REG KUZMA teaches poetry writing workshops at the University of Nebraska , Lincoln . He has new poems in Poetry , Poetry North west, and The Kenyon Revie w . Two collections of poetry just p ublished are A Turning. (Stormline Press , 1 988) , and Verticals (Lattitudes Press , 1 988) . His own Best Cellar Press j ust released Altern atives, A n A me rican Poetry A n thology .

J . W . MAJOR is an English teacher at Bayside High Schoo l , in New York .

He has had stories published in Epoch, Den ver Quarterly , Mich igan Quarterly Revie w , Prairie Schooner, Georgia Revie w , and The Massach usetts Re v ie w .

H e says , "I'm putting together a collection a n d working o n a novel all my life . "

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