Phoenix - May 1964

THE PHOENIX Lit&r&ry Supplement to the Orange & White Vol. 59, No. 57

May 26,1964

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Contest Issue

Editor Patricia Sutherland

Section Editors FictionJo Ann Marinelli PoetryNick Mathis Art__________________________ Melinda Kirk

Staffs Managing Editor_______ ___ Judy Fagg Make-up ___________ ___ ________ —--- ---------------------- Pam Saylor Business ManagerDorothy Conger Advertising Assistant —____ Tom Dickens Circulation _______________________________ Alice Waggoner Publicity:Carolyn Austin

The Phoenix is published quarterly by students of the University of Tennessee as a literary supplement to The Orange & White. Separate copies are sold for fifteen cents. Copies are five cents if purchased enclosed in The Orange & White.

Contributions or any correspondence intended for The Phoenix should be addressed to the appropriate staff member or to the editor at Box 8690, University Station, Knoxville, Tennessee, 37916.

Advisors Business: Prof. Frank B. Thornburg, School of Journalism Editorial: Dr. George T. Wright, Department of English

The Phoenix Page 12 Editor’s Comment 12

Area Events

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About The Contest Winners

FICTION 13

Other Things, by Robert J. Higgs, first place winner Preface to winning entry by Dr. Francelia Butler

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The Old Woman, by Henry Herlong, second place winner

LITERARY CRITICISM 15

Concepts of Political Order in Richard II: A Harmonic Analysis,

by Albert Wilhelm, first place winner Preface to winning entry by Dr. James I. Wimsatt

POETRY 17

Picasso’s Human Comedy, by Curtis L. Harris, first place winner Preface to winning entry by Dr. George T. Wright

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Automobile Accident: From Impact to Recovery, by Joanne Levey, second place winner

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Jews Art Oft Hard-Put to Love, by Joanne Levey, third place winner

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Pastoral, by Bernie Leggett

ART 14 “Desolate Tree,” by Judy Kelley 17

“Still Life No. 2,” by Melinda Kirk

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Print by Professor William Loy, Fine Arts Department

26 '’’“Student Center Coffee Drinkers,” by Albro Newton Covers by Melinda Kirk: “Rock Quarry” and “The Offices”

Editor's Comment

Area Events

The Phoenix has had its ups and downs this past year, but we like to think that even our lowest points were still higher that past lows. We have suffered from internal chaos and external misunderstandings from moves to reorganize. Any time reorganization is attempted, problems are certain to occur. Those problems should be lessened and finally elimi­ nated by next year’s competent editor and staff. Perhaps then The Phoenix will reach its anticipated goal and become the integral part of campus life that it should occupy.

In this issue of The Phoenix the selections are again varied in an attempt to find those things which should constitute the core of a campus literary magazine. As always, an established feature of the Spring issue is the publication of the winners of the Bain-Swiggett Creative Writing Contest. This year’s judges and The Phoenix staff feel that these winning entries are indicative of the steadily improving quality of creative writing on our campus. Some of the material is experimental, some standard. Whatever your particular fancy, we hope that you will find it in this offering of The Phoenix.

It seems to me that a literary magazine should be long oh material and short on editorials. Following this thought, an editor should know when to stop editing and when to start presenting. But first there must be an idea . . .

The sky darkens to a frown as the greybrown stormcloud spreads to the drumrolls of thunder. The explosions rip into the ears and the light flashes fasten themselves to the eyes. Then the soft sound of water falling in bits, washing, wetting the air.

Thinking out the window at the rain, looking through each drop to one beyond, I watch one tear in its descent. And another. One strikes the windowpane and pauses there, unsure of the best road down.

Slowly it winds until others join it, force it to coalesce into a large trembling pearl. It gains the bottom of the window, then the ledge. Quivering, it takes a deep breath—then jumps to the World below. And mixes with the mud of the earth to nurture perhaps a weed, perhaps a flower, perhaps a tree.

An idea is born.

Gatlinburg’s 2001-seat Hunter Hills Theater, the scene in the last few years of “Chucky Jack,” will be used in the summer for a series of outdoor Summer Music Festival opera and comedy productions to be sponsored by the School of Music, Union College, in Barbourville, Kentucky.

Plans call for faculty members of the Methodist college to conduct classes under the 120-foot wide stage of the outdoor amphitheater while simultaneously offering the students prac­ tical dramatic experience in such productions as “Oklahoma,” “Tosca,” and “The Student Prince.”

The academic study and internship training will be held from June 29 to August 28. Broadway and Metropolitan Opera Company stars will probably have the lead roles in the nightly performances, scheduled for June 20 through Septem­ ber 7.

Top music students from throughout the nation will form the nucleus of the productions, with the students filling the orchestra and minor roles in all productions.

Contracts for the use of the theater have been signed by Union College officials and R. L. Maples of Gatlinburg.

Maples is owner of the theater. Dr. Donald Maxwell is direc­ tor of the Festival and the Union College School of Music.

Tentatively scheduled are “Oklahoma,” a Rodgers-Hammerstein musical, for two nights weekly; a musical comedy, “The Student Prince,” to be presented by students two nights a week; and on Sundays, special religious programs with such performers as Mahalia Jackson and George Beverly Shea, one of the Billy Graham singers.

The outdoor theater was not being used last year, but a series of name performers made appearances there in 1962.

Hunter Hills was built several years ago for the presentation of the Kermit Hunter play, “Chucky Jack,” depicting the life of John Sevier, the first governor of Tennessee.

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Thanks, DR. GEORGE T. WRIGHT and

PROF. FRANK B. THORNBURG from The Phoenix Staff

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About the Contest Winners Robert J. Higgs, 32, is a graduate student in English.

Formerly from Lewisburg, he now lives in Knoxville. He says reading and sports are his interests. He served in the U.S. Air Force before entering graduate school.

Curtis L. (Kurt) Harris, of Memphis, is a senior major­ ing in mathematics and minoring in philosophy. He was edi­ tor of the 1962-63 Phoenix and has also had work published in an anthology of Memphis poets. He is a member of the Back Door Creative Writing Workshop led by Jerry Wright.

Kurt, who is attending UT on a scholarship, plans to graduate in August, after which he wants to enter graduate school in communications sciences and philosophy.

Mrs. Ralph (Joanne) Levey, from Oak Ridge, is a senior in English and attended Newcombe College in New Orleans where she majored in psychology before changing to English.

Although she says she writes mostly for herself, she de­ scribes herself as being influenced by Emily Dickinson, among her favorite poets, and cites Robert Frost, W. D. Snodgrass, and Edward Field as other favorites. Joanne plans to gradu­ ate in 1965 and to teach college English. She has three chil­ dren, and her husband is a chemical engineer.

Albert Wilhelm, from Camden, is a junior majoring in English and philosophy. He plans to attend Graduate School after graduating in the spring of 1965, then teach in college.

He says his non-academic activities include bridge, hiking, and camping.

First Place: Short Story Division

Other Things

By ROBERT J. HIGGS (The short story has undergone a strange mutation. A few decades ago it had a predictable form: it stood firmly on its lively commencement, clearly-de­ fined conflict, exciting climax, and speedy conclusion. Drooping weakly be­ hind these “four C’s” was a brief char­ acterization—since extensive character­ ization was not considered proportionally appropriate to the form. At the head of the requirements for the short story form was reader identification. The reader must be able to identify his own experience with that described in the story. A sharp distinction was made be­ tween the “true short story” and the “vignette” or slice - of - life narration, which was often looked on as an imper­ fect short story.

Foremost specialist on the anatomy of the form was Walter Pitkin, who was followed at a respectful distance by the authors of numerous books on the short story. In these books, analyses were made of the short stories of Chekhov, Maupassant, Katherine Mansfield, Sher­ wood Anderson, and D. H. Lawrence. No matter how “off-trail” stories appeared to be, they were still expected to con­ tain thb conventional parts and to pro­ duce the unity of effect observed by Poe. With the breakdown of emphasis on form in creative expression, identifica­ tion of the short story has become in­ creasingly more difficult. Joyce, for in­ stance, speaks of the short story as an “epiphany,” a revelation. What exactly does a revelation look like? Critics are uncertain.

In this uncertain period, judges of short story contests are placed in an especially difficult position. Which of a number of indescribable bits of creativ­ ity is the best? Since in the case of the present Short Story Contest at the Uni­ versity of Tennessee, the judges are eminently qualified to examine the evi­ dence, their decision may help to reveal the characteristics admired in the short story of today.

Professor Olive Branch, one of the judges who helped to select as the win­ ning story “Other Things” by Robert J. Higgs, based her decisio7i partly on the excellence of the character delineation and dialogue. She thought that the reve­ lation of character during the baseball game was particularly well handled. She described the dialogue as “unstitled”-— the kind one would expect from the people using it. , Although acknowledging that the story had “awkward shifts in point of view,” Professor Neil Isaacs found that “Other Things” had a kind of strength and warmth, that it gave the reader a feel­ ing for the boy, Jimmy.

The only student judge, Albert Wil­ helm, was also disturbed by the change in point of view in the story—from the boy to the Road Commissioner. He found the .characterization to be rather well developed.

The final judge, Jerry Wright, was interested in the “ambitious” structure of the story — the way in which it brought two levels into one plot. The road builder found that he could not change the world and his experience echoed what the boy had learned agoniz­ ingly in the baseball game.

So what does this strange animal, the short story, look like now? It has skill­ ful character delineation, ably handled dialogue, special meaning to the reader, a single point of view — or has it? — a complex structure. Perhaps it really hasn’t changed very much. It is merely older and more mature.

—Dr. Francelia Butler Asst. Professor of English)

“Good gracious. Mama,” he snapped.

“I told you it ain’t nothing to catching a ride and ain’t nothing going to hap­ pen to me. Now hush up about it and stop worrying.”

She stood on the front porch and watched him run through the yard gate and down the road. She watched until the WATKINS LUMBER COMPANY arranged in a semicircle on the back of his uniform disappeared behind the fence row.

When the game began, Jimmy took an inconspicuous place on the bench, fully expecting to remain there; and no one was more surprised than he when in the last of the seventh—in that particular teen age league the last inning — the coach called on him to pinch hit. Jimmy knew he had done well in his one prac­ tice with the team, and of course he wanted to play; but he could not keep from questioning the coach’s decision to put him in at such a crucial point. The very outcome depended on whether or not he got a hit. He could walk of course, but a long fly would not help; a man was on second but two were “away.” xcited,

but remembering to look like a ball player, Jimmy walked to the plate and touched the opposite side of it with his bat, swung the bat back and forth, backed out of the box, and looked to third for any sudden change in signals. Then holding the bat between his legs, he meticulously adjusted his cap and washed his hands in dust. After tapping his shoes with the handle end of the bat, as if he were knocking off dirt that would have been between cleats had he been wearing baseball shoes, he stepped into the batter’s box again and wiggled his feet and legs into a proper looking stance.

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IMMY Phillips sat on the edge of a rocking chair and put on his base­ ball socks. He carefully tucked them Behind the screen a group of men be­ under his pants and put on his shoes. gan to chuckle at his imitative actions.

“I just hate to see you go,” his mother One of them, the local disc jockey, said, began again, “standing out there on the “Why that’s the kid I took home last highway and in town after dark and . . week, and does he ever like out in the

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Desolate Tree boondocks, on the roughest road I’ve he thought, “making fun of a kid from ever seen: bluffs a foot high right in out in the country like that. Some real the middle and . . . make them be in nice people we have in this town! Half there!” Jimmy had lunged at an outside of ’em raised in the sticks just like me pitch. and now making fun of a kid . . .”

“Say he lives out in the country, After the second pitch had been called Fred?” someone asked the disc jockey a ball, one of the men turned to Joe and who folded his arms, leaned backward asked, almost as if he had been reading slightly, and declared; “I went through his mind, “Say, Joe, did you hear what the war in New Guinea and was I ever Fred said about the road that kid lives shocked to learn that we’ve got jungles on?” right here in our own county thicker “Yeah, I heard it all right,” Joe an­ than the ones I saw over there. I know swered and grinned broadly.

I scraped a gallon of paint . . .”

“Better get it fixed before August, There were guffaws but growing sup­ huh?” the man said, laughing. port for Jimmy. The remoteness of his “Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that’s right,” Joe house and the condition of the road lead­ said and gave his best political laugh. ing to it (as described by the disc “I only got ’til August.” jockey), his tanned skinny arms, his “It’s the worst road in the world,” brogans, and his obvious desire to suc­ the disc jockey said, looking directly at ceed, somehow made him a paradigm of Joe. “An utter disgrace.” the underdog.

“I know it’s in bad shape,” Joe said TANDING a few feet from the disc and nodded and widened his eyes in such jockey and listening to every word a way to indicate he could laugh about and glancing at him was Joe Taylor. As the road, talk seriously about it, or, Road Commissioner of the county he preferably, drop the subject entirely. certainly had not liked the loud way the Behind this countenance, Joe’s mind was road was being talked about and other running: “You’re a real smart bunch. remarks he construed to be a public dis­ Not one of you voted for me, and if I paragement of the batter. “Real funny,” weren’t running again. I’d tell you all

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where to go and how to get there.

Through the war in New Guinea! I’ll bet you ain’t been in a thousand miles of it, and I’ll bet I’ve got more combat time than every one of you put to­ gether.”

IMMY had no idea what his appear­ ance at bat had wrought; he was thinking only of getting a hit, yet he let pass a perfect strike. “Stand in there and hit the ball!” bellowed the disc jockey, and Joe Taylor said to himself: “How I’d like to ‘bust’ your big fat mouth!”

On the fourth pitch Jimmy was con­ gratulated for his “good eye,” even by fathers of players on the opposing team, and the count became “two-two.” Ten­ sion was mounting, but some of the fans were not about to let the disc jockey drop the subject of the road.

“Are you going to take him home to­ night, Fred?”

“If I had an army tank or a helicop­ ter I would . . . But let me tell you about this thing called a bridge out there. First you come around this curve, and you can see the pillars leaning out toward the middle . . . The milk truck (Continued on Page 23)

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First Place: Literary Criticism

Concepts of Political Order In Richard II: A Harmonic Analysis

By ALBERT WILHELM (Literary criticism is contained in both the casual remark made after a movie and the scholar’s elaborately documented essay on Homer or Montaigne. It has many guises. All criticism, however, is directed toward one (or both) of two ends: analysis and evaluation. Purely evaluative criticism — “Shelley writes bad poetry”—is mostly worthless; on the other hand, even the simplest analytical statement—“This poem of Shelley deals with clouds and sky”—may be of value to the reader; for example, if he loves, or loathes, poetry about clouds.

Analysis, then, is generally the more productive function of the critic. If he must evaluate, the good critic will sup­ port his judgments with copious an­ alysis. The very famous—a G. B. Shaw or a T. S. Eliot — can draw attention with evaluations poorly supported by analysis; but these ultimately influence few minds that matter unless the study to which they stimulate these minds cor­ roborates the evaluations.

By virtue of the careful planning which every worthwhile literary work requires, literature is eminently analyzable—up to a point. The theme of a work may be paraphrased, its divisions may be enumerated, plot and character may be discussed, imagery may be studied (in the case of Shakespeare, at books’ lengths), and mood may be de­ scribed. Thus, criticism has charted out the deftness of Shakespeare’s manipula­ tion on stage of the rise and fall of Richard II. It has pointed out the con­ trasts between Richard and the various innocents and lesser villains of the play.

Modern criticism particularly has dealt with the themes of imagery of genera­ tion and of kingship. However, such analysis is limited in what it can show and is often a dry business.

The critic who wishes to deal with the less definable, and often more in­ triguing, aspects of a literary work must make use of tools with which he may, so to speak, analyze it creatively. One tool of this kind is the employment of emo­ tive words to suggest the indefinable;

dreary, fantastic, overwhelming. A gen­ erally more effective tool is the use of analogy.

Albert Wilhelm’s critical essay makes use of such analogy.' He has noted the substantial amount of musical imagery in Shakespeare’s Richard II, and he makes use of this in showing how the laws of musical harmony mirror the cosmic order presented in Shakespeare’s play. The judges feel that he has by means of this extended and well-execu­ ted analogy contributed to an apprecia­ tion of the play and of Shakespeare’s imaginative world.

Richard II stands virtually above evaluation; one may only quibble over its rank among the greatest. Genera­ tions of critics seem to have exhausted the ordinary analytical approaches to this'play, so the further efforts along this line mostly seem de trop. But there is always a place for creative analyses such as Mr. Wilhelm brings to bear on this play.

—Dr. James I. Wimsatt English Instructor)

. . . The whole life of man stands in need of harmony.2 For Shakespeare and his Elizabethan contemporaries this correspondence was equally significant. In Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, for example, Baptista attempts to tame his daughter Kate by means of an educational pro­ gram which has a definite Platonic flavor. He proposes that she be made cognizant of and reconciled to her right­ ful and natural place in the universe through instruction in the playing of the lute. Again in The Merchant of Venice the validity of this correspond­ ence between music and cosmic order is asserted by Lorenzo; There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st But in his motion like an angel sings. (V.i.60-61)-^ A similar relationship (now in a more serious vein) is pointed out by Ulysses in a long speech from Troilus and Cressida. It concludes: Take but degree away, untune that string And, hark, whit discord follows . . . '.(T.iii.109-10)

WO notions, says E. M. W. Tillyard, have enjoyed widespread pop­ ularity since the early period of Greek et us attempt to summarize briefly philosophy. First there is the notion that the import of these random refer­ creation is equivalent to an act of mu­ ences. In the first place, each presup­ sic, and secondly the speculation that poses a plan of cosmic and domestic the created universe is itself in a state order. This well-regulated scheme, in­ of music.1 Plato had Impressed these tricate, all-inclusive, and interrelated ideas upon the Western mind by incor­ at numerous points, is considered to be porating them into his theory of educa­ divinely imposed and self-maintaining. tion. An individual, he thought, might be The scheme is self-maintaining, that is, led to an apprehension of cosmic order if degree is kept—if all things act in by training in music and harmonics: accord with the total plan. The term Rhythm and harmony sink deep into “celestial music” is considered not as a the recesses of the soul and take the metaphorical interpretation of this orstrongest hold there, bringing that der, but as referring to an actual exist­ grace of body and mind which is ent phenomenon. It is further thought only to be found in one who is that audible music is in tune with brought up in the right way. More­ cosmic music. Therefore, the music of over, a proper training of this kind mortals becomes a close analogue and makes a man quick to perceive any mirror of cosmic order. defect or ugliness in art or nature

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In this light the musical imagery used

by Shakespeare to describe states of order br disorder takes on d new signifi­ cance; it becomes more than mere me­ taphor based on accidental surface sim­ ilarities. Tbe aptness of the comparison is seen to be grounded in a commonality that is essential and basic. In short, the laws of cosmic order are the laws of music; the logic of the universe is the logic of a musical composition.

My intention is to analyze a small portion of this cosmic order, specifically the concepts of personal and political order presented in Richard II, by con­ structing an analogy in terms of ele­ mentary harmonic theory. I shall at­ tempt to elucidate the laws of order manifested here by comparing them with the laws of simple harmony. It is to be expected that this analogy will break down at some points; The subtleties of Shakespeare can hardly be equated with the technicalities of harmonics, and vice versa. However, despite some inadequa­ cies the comparison can, I think, serve to clarify the basic points.

planned and imposed by the composer, but once scored the orderly interrelation­ ship between the notes is maintained naturally. As long as the specific notes and their sequence remains constant, an orderly seeking out of the goal is implied.

analogy between music and natural or­ der holds true, one might expect to find similar features in instances of personal or political harmony; conversely one should be able to point to a lack of one or more of these features when disorder results.

In the Elizabethan world view the N a more specific sense the logic of the progression depends upon the most basic sort of natural order is con­ “central tonic note” in relation to which cerned with the tensions within the in­ all other notes are placed and act. The dividual man. At the risk of gross over­ simplification we may say that this central tonic note dominates the phrase; it is the note on which the phrase is order results when the passions (anal­ resolved (i.e., the goal), and thus it ogous to divergent notes in music) are draws an “invisible line” through the subservient to the higher rational facul­ entire phrase. Other notes (i.e., notes ty (analogous to the central tonic note). higher or lower on the scale) are ar­ Reason (or more properly, rational be­ havior) constitutes the telos. Reason ranged around the central tonic note. further constitutes a form or pattern for They diverge from the invisible line but ultimately return to it in an orderly achieving this goal. In terms of our manner as tbe goal approaches and is analogy it draws an invisible line achieved. If the goal is not achieved (if through man’s nature in relation to diverse notes do not converge to the which the complementary appetites must central tonic note), the phrase is not act. Reason exerts forces upon these ap­ complete, and harmony does not result.® petites so that the goal of rational be­ We cannot complete our very brief havior and harmony may be achieved. survey of harmony without a few words The lack of such “degree” in the per­ sons of Bolingbroke and Mowbray is et us begin by examining some fun­ about the dynamics which are involved. damental concepts of harmony. What I have referred to notes acting together described explicitly by Richard: High stomached are they both, and sort of logic is involved in a musical to achieve a goal. What is the nature full of ire. composition? The simplest kind of harm­ of the forces exerted in such ifiteracIn rage deaf as the sea, hasty as ony is that of a musical phrase—the tions? “Differences exist in the way one fire. (I.i.18-19) “snatch of song” that comes to mind note follows another. A note may be borrows a musical image to de­ He when one sings or whistles in the show­ felt to pull to the note coming after— er. A complete phrase has its own order as it were, to want to be followed by scribe the degree to which passion pre­ and its own goal—it is both logical and it—or it may go to it reluctantly. This dominates : How high a pitch his resolution teleological. “The meaning of a phrase,” brings a further differentiation to the soars.

(I.i.l09) says Robert L. Jacobs, “. . . is a thing incomplete phrase: it means that the The personal disharmony is next de­ which builds up during the course of depai ture of the ■ phrase to the point scribed in terms of improper balance the phrase and does not finally reveal which may be near or far from the ‘in­ among the body humours. (I.i.152-9) itself until the last note has been heard. visible line’ will sound more or less de­ Here, as in a musical phrase, specific That this is so can be seen by making cisive, according to whether the final goal, formal plan, and interacting forces the simple experiment of lopping off note, the goal of the phrase, is pulled by are all implied. the last note of a familiar phrase. The the note coming before it.” This final If this proper balance of reason and effect is rather as if one had suddenly pair of notes, the goal and the penul­ passion constituted the whole of natural been summoned out of a theatre at the timate, is called the cadence of the order, our formula would be patently climax of an exciting play five minutes phrase.® simple. Two factors, however, force us before the fall of the curtain. If this hus we see that harmony is never to remove our study from the purely were to happen we would not console passive. The ultimate source of har­ personal realm to a more elaborate con­ ourselves with the thought that those mony is external, but tbe notes them­text, viz.', the social and political arena. five minutes, being only five minutes, selves continually reassert this harmony In the first place, a man is never merely were expendable; we would feel that, by means of .dynamic interrelationships. a man. His social nature forces him to having missed the climax of the play, In its most simple form then, a har­ assume various additional roles. He be­ our whole evening had been spoiled. monious phrase appears to have three comes, for example, a king or a loyal Similarly the whole of that phrase is basic features; (1) a goal, (2) a formal subject, and each additional role entails spoiled as the play builds up, bit by bit, relationship leading toward this goal, additional goals, responsibilities, and po­ gathering tension and finally releasing (3) dynamic forces resulting from this tentialities for harmony, or disharmony. it in the last five minutes, so the phrase formal relationship and leading toward Secondly, order on the individual level builds up note by note until it comes to this goal. The invisible line is at one is causally related to order on the poli­ rest upon tbe final one. In fact, one time final, formal, and efficient cause. tical level. Personal harmony not only conld legitimately say that we experi­ The final and formal causes are passive reflects political harmony but, to some ence the phrase as a movement to a aspects of harmony; the efficient cause extent, determines it. These two points goal, the goal being the final note.”^ is a dynamic aspect. are the implicit premises of Richard’s We have then orderly progression to­ With this preparation we can now statement: ward a specific goal. What determines turn to the analysis of the play itself.

A king of beasts, indeed; if aught the nature of this orderly progression? We have identified three features as but beasts, The order is inherent; it is, of course. basic to the laws of harmony. If the (Continued on Page 21)

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(Since the Romantics began writing their hitense personal lyrics a century and a half ago, poetry has come to be popularly identified with large abstrac­ tions (Man, Death), with picturesque settings (moonlight, dimnesses, shad­ ows), lyrical syntax (ah, would that, give me), attitudes of passive sentimen­ tality (burning desires, languorous long­ ings, hark, alas) or of romantic defiance (aha, think not, I stand), and diction that is often archaic (thou, plight, trod) and suggestive of realms of feelings that are vague and vast (soul, spirit, beauty, eternal). One trouble with this view is that it identifies poetry with too narrow a range of feeling and neglects those sides of life that are not grand and cos­ mic but are still of consequence. This view of poetry as something connected only with the strongest feelings is also largely responsible for people’s indiffer­ ence to it. The details of life are mostly trivial, and even our important experi­ ences often come at us quietly; they have an impact, but their style is flat, casual, inconclusive.

Most modern poets, therefore, even when they deal with large matters, usually hedge them in with jokes at their own expense or with a detached and often deliberately flat style. They concentrate, too, on specific objects, events, or scenes, feeling that to write accurately about something small gives them more chanee of success than to attempt too much. Every freshman at Tennessee is taught the folly of writing a 500-word essay on “Life”; the modern poet has learned the same lesson. The large Romantic abstractions have be­ come tiresome cliches; the techniques of grandness have lost their freshness.

Largeness today comes, if it comes, from the brilliant treatment of the small.

The two best poems in the Bain-Swiggett competition this year follow this pattern. The feelings treated are not un­ important ones, but they are approached indirectly and delicately. Most signifi­ cant, they are never overstated: the ex­ citement of the tone never exceeds the excitement of the subject. Both poems quietly try to make sense out of certain experiences. “Picasso’s Human Comedy” builds an almost abstract design out of elements that share a kind of comic ex­ uberance: circus clowns, steam calliope, snapdragons, Pieasso’s witty painting styles. But just as clowns are sad, plain syntax and an odd combination of the prim and the forlorn in the speaker establish these comic elements in a de­ sign that is touched with melancholy.

“Automobile Aecident: From Impact to Recovery” attempts a very different sub­ ject, but the approach is still subdued.

and much of its force comes from the author’s constant focus on comparatively slight events eonneeted with the acci­ dent — just as to see a star we look a little away from it.

The best advice I can think of giving, therefore, to anyone competing next year is this: “Don’t try to be poetic, for there is no such quality; just pick some small subject—CONCRETE, NOT ABSTRACT — and try to be honest about it in verse. Make the lines scan, but not jingle; use good

images; don’t be tffo clever; but, most of all, write in the "language of our time.

—Dr. George T. Wright Assoc. Professor of English)

First Place: Poetry Division CURTIS L. HARRIS

Picasso's Human Comedy A calliope-is cluttering my lawn With clatter music out of tune and rhythm, Strewing clowns about the terraces And scattering their ragged laughter with them.

Although I cannot see the clownish faces, I’m sure some misplaced circus, past its season, Is crowding in among the snapping dragons; A circus left without a touring reason Has settled in my yard and drawn its wagons Up among the clatter of a steam calliope.

But no matter how I strain to see.

No matter how this window faces me.

An eager clown is there to meet my eyes; And the only circus vision left to me Is that I see through his reflected eyes.

STILL LIFE NO. 2 17

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Automobile Accident: From Impact To Recovery (SECOND PLACE, POETRY)

/

Impact

"Sure / bought the

College Estate Master If is designed for the college man."

ROY H. FLEENOR UT Senior

Shaken in a hard-struck car Like a milk shake in a jar, Pommeled by a steering wheel, Tossed from steel to glass to steel— Life or death, it’s just a draw— Lord, how creaturely we are!

II After the Accident (Where There Were Two, Just One) A noise the minus side of Still (A sudden, soundless blast) Escorted in with inverse din The afterwards of Crash.

An open door, an empty seat Took shape beside the wheel And Nothingness crouched close to me— A presence barely real— Until it reared a faceless head That made the silence shout.

Then Horror’s sickening ether sped To blot my senses out.

INSURANCE COUNSELORS JAMES A. COX ROBERT M. BAKER TOMMY L. CROSS

Mercantile Associates Insurance Building 1114 W. Clinch 525-9393

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Ill God Was Away God was away, could not be reached— Or wouldn’t come.

Nor could I say my heart beseeched: I was too numb— Too cold to warm to human hand That came instead To lift me out and help me stand.

To raise my head.

My stockinged foot touched something rough— That was the grass.

My mouth was full of gritty stuff— The windshield glass?

I spit it out. It struck his shoes In one big blob.

He neither flinched nor turned me loose.

I felt the throb

Of human blood, the deep-down good Of him whose arm Upheld me all the while I stood And tried to warm.

I found words when the stretcher came— “Forgive the spit . . .

You have been kind . . . What is your name?”

And followed it.

Yet Gratitude, Concern, and Shame I could just place— I knew them once, recalled the name But not the face.

IV The Steady Aim (Night Nurse) He topples down the pitcher from the shelf; I hear the ice cubes rhumba up the hall.

He balanc :s them by me on a plate That’s much too small.

Next come his books: “For when you’re by yourself .

Oops! Better wait . . .”

He’s off again but I’m not long alone.

For back he sprints with pillows from his bed And bids me sit up, “Can you, Mommy? . . . Slow?”

I raise my head.

He plops them down. “And here’s the telephone— Might ring, you know!”

Each time I turn, the books give me a shove; The phone will jar, that pitcher’s sure to fall . . .

But I would have no gesture go undone— Misguided, all— For I can feel the steady aim of love In every one.

Jews Are Oft Hard-Put To Love (THIRD PLACE, POETRY) Jews are oft hard-put to love Him the Gentiles worship so: Centuries of inflicted woe In the name of “Christ above” Blot his image here below.

“God’s-own-son-sent-down-to-earth,” “Prince-of-Peace” is what they say.

Was the grim auto-da-fe Other side of virgin-birth?

Jewish thought must twist this way.

Hearts grew chill each Easter morn.

On his resurrection day.

Were a Jewish child to stray Out-of-doors once came the dawn.

Death would stalk the child at play . . .

But you did not will it so.

Gentle Jesus, born a Jew. Could we only love like you.

Seek forgiveness for the foe.

Know they know not what they do.

JOANNE LEVEY

V Coming Back My feeling tingles back to needle me: On Sabbath eve In Synagogue I greet the Sabbath Bride, Stirred by the haunting strains: “L’har doe-dee”i And sorrow that this brother at my side Is going to leave.

I watch the cavalier forsythea bush Extend an arm Inviting Spring to enter—if she dare, I wander in the woods and there’s the hush That just-precedes the birth of leaves when air Turns gentle-warm.

The grass that scratched my feet like scarecrow straw Only a few Short days ago has turned a silky green.

How this has come about I do not know— I only kppw somehow I share the sheen: I silken too.

Some mornings I awake and there’s the rain Outside my pane— My new-taut sensibilities grow slack.

And then I hear a bravely chirping wren.

An undisarmed pang comes hurtling back— I twang again.

The beginning of the traditional Hebrew welcome to the Sabbath (known as the SabbathBride) chanted in Synagogues.

Pastoral I (deciduous) must look up through the sticks of these elbows to see (on earth wet with milk sun siphoned from the straight stalk) how she comes serendipitous with spring

BERNIE LEGGETT 19

The Old Woman (Second Place, Short Story) ?

By HENRY HERLONG I guess I just got to tell somebody to get it off my mind. It’s really bugging me pretty bad. It’s all about this old woman. I’d see her every morning on the way to my job. She’d be waiting on the bus bench for the bus that gets there about 7:30. I’d see her from about three or four blocks away as I came down my street. My street runs into Broad and the bus bench was on Broad on the other side from where my street runs into it. My street sorta dead ends into it, you see. Anyway, it’s all about this old woman. She’d be out there every day for the whole year and a half I’ve been walking along here. I say a year and a half because that’s all the time I’ve been living up the hill over here.

That’s because I haven’t been married but about a year and a half. Got mar­ ried right out of high school. Me and my wife were in the same class. We’ve got a kid, little girl. I got a good job clerking over at the big department store. My principal got it for me. He used to get a lot of us guys jobs like that, if he liked us that is. He liked me all right I think. I never caused any trouble. Anyhow, I got this job and since me and my wife is just getting started out and all, I walk to work and back instead of taking the bus. I don’t guess it’s nothing to be ashamed of so I’ll just admit it. Anyhow, I’d been com­ ing along this same way every morning now for a year and a half and this poor old woman was always sitting out there dozing waiting on the bus. She looked just like any poor old woman, everybody knows what one looks like, you know, they’re always got a big black fuzzy long old coat on, and seems like they’re always sorta big and round and short, and they’ve got these black lace-up shoes that are usually scarred but polished over and have bulging places on the outside for the corns to go underneath, at least that’s what it seems like, and they’ve always got a old faded scarf put around their heads like a bonnet and it sorta covers all their hair except a few scraggly dirty gray pieces that hang out round the ears, and their faces, they’re all the same, always just white and round and fluffy and powdered looking like a bunch of dough and their hands 20

are always bumpy at the joints of the fingers and the back of the hands have thin skin so you can see the blue veins inside, and if they’re sitting down their hands are always folded up in their lap.

This old woman looked just like that sitting there every morning dozing with her head down and her hands folded waiting on the bus to come, it was just a little late sometimes. If I’d of seen her on the street or in the store sometime I probably wouldn’t of recognized her.

They all look alike when they get old like that, least ways to me they do. Any­ how, every morning I’d look at her while I walked those three or four blocks from my house to the bench she sat on. I did that for a year and a half and at that time of morning I never was quite all the way awake, you know, and my mind would sorta wander around while I’d look at this old woman and it seemed like my mind always wanted to make up stories about that old woman. I didn’t do it, just seems like my mind did it. I couldn’t help it but I didn’t mind really but it sorta got so my mind used to do it more and more as time went on. I guess that’s because once you get used to anything your mind’s going to wan­ der and my feet sorta knew the way to work after a year and a half. Anyhow, recently, seems like about the last month or so, my mind’s really been making up some things about that old woman. I guess I just sorta wondered about her, I was curious, you know, without really being curious. Take for instance, and this is what I’ve been getting around to telling about, seems like I just got to tell somebody, anyhow, this one morning about a few days ago when it was pretty icy and snowy I left the house same as usual and got outside on the road and saw the old woman down there sitting on the bench in her old black coat which since it was snowy made it so you could see her good a long way off, just something little and black on some­ thing big and white, and just to show you how it was, you know, my mind just started wandering about her this par­ ticular morning and it always seemed like I just sort wondered what she was thinking or what she was day-dreaming about just sitting there every morning and my mind just sorta imagined what was going on in her mind and it seemed like I was her or something for these three or four blocks every morning. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s crazy I guess. But this porticular morning just as soon as I hit the street I started imagining that she was imagining her­ self going to put another lump of coal in the stove in her house. You see, I’ve imagined most everything about that old

woman at one time or another, where she lives, her family, what she does and everything. Seems like my mind just kept building up a little more every day on top of what I’d already imagined.

Anyhow, she was going to put this lump of coal in the stove because it was cold and after she’d done that she filled up the old tin cup with water, the cup that she. kept on the stove to keep moisture in the air because she thought it kept her head clear and her sinuses and all.

She was fixing cream of wheat for breakfast because she always had cream of wheat for breakfast, with sugar and milk but no butter. She used to use butter when her husband was alive but he died two years, about two years, ago and she’s had to cut down as much as she could, you know. He worked on the train and was a fireman. This was be­ fore they had all that scandal and all about the firemen and featherbedding.

He sat on a bench with the other fire­ men around the station house and told stories mostly, that’s what he did most of the time. But he made trips some­ times but he was always back the same day because they gave him such short trips because he was old, but he’s dead now. Anyhow, back to this old woman, she finished up her cream of wheat and put the dish over in the old sink to wash when she got home and then she hurried around and everything because it was getting late, it was always getting late, and she got her old black coat and scarf on and then she remembered that she hadn’t made the bed yet so she sorta rushed back into the bedroom, she slept in her son’s old room since her husband died, and she pulled the quilts, just tons of them, back up over the old feather pillow and all the time she was thinking about how cold that old bed was to get into at night and how lumpy and all and how warm and soft it was in the morn­ ing, this morning specially, when she had to get out of it. The top quilt was a blue patchwork one that she’d made for her son when he’d got married but he’d come and spent the night with her once when his wife was in the hospital after having their baby, a little girl too, like mine, and he’d brought the quilt with him, his wife’d told him to, so as not to put his mother to any trouble and all by making her hunt up extra covers for him, and then when he’d got ready to leave he’d forgot the quilt and left without it and his mother’d been sleep­ ing under it most every night since and he’d never come back for it because he’d never remembered about it, I guess. He was always forgetting things, lots of things, but not his mother’s birthday or (Continued on Page 24)

visers reflects further upon his self-suf­ ficient potency and, more basically, upon his awareness of what his role as king demands. The scene with John of Gaunt emphasizes these inadequacies in an un­ usual way. For here Gaunt, in terms of our harmonic analogy, becomes the cen­ tral tonic note and Richard a divergent note. This consciousness of what is re­ quired to achieve national goals resides in Gaunt, and it is he, in his dying hour, who attempts to exert the forces necessary to pull Richard back toward this invisible line. The musical analogy is explicit: O, But they say the tongues of dying men Enforce attention like deep har­ mony.

The setting sun, and music at the close.

As the last taste of sweets, is sweet­ est last. (II.I) (Note the close functional analogy be­ tween Gaunt’s conception of his own role and that of the penultimate note in a musical phrase.) rom York we learn that it is in PROF. WILLIAM LOY fact Richard’s perverse tastes in “music” which contribute to his personal Or like a cunning instrument cased disharmony and the disharmony of the up. state: Or, being open, put into his hands No; it is stopp’d with other flatter­ (Continued from Page 16) That know no touch to tune the har­ ing sounds.

I had been still a happy king of mony . . . .(I.iii.161-5) As praises, of whose taste the wise men. (V.i.35-36) From their familiarity with the lute the are fond.

At another point Richard points to a Elizabethans were well aware of the fact Lascivious metres, to whose venom three-sided correspondence between per­ that harmony must be continually sound sonal ambition, political discord, and .reasserted.

The open ears of Youth doth always musical disharmony. (I.iii.127-38) listen. (Il.i.17-20) et us examine Richard’s competence Richard is pictured as an enemy of order ICHARD’S specific role is that of as a maintainer of order in terms rather than as its maintainer. He is king, and this particular role de­ of these passive and active aspects. In mands a particular sort of harmony.the interview with Bolingbroke and termed an “unstaid youth,” “rash fierce In short, Richard must be not only ra­ Mowbray, he is not without awareness blaze of riot,” “a young hot colt.” He is in fact the disturber of orderly progres­ tional but royal. The kingship which of the consequences in terms of social Richard personally embodies becomes the stability of passionate behavior on the sion : Take Hereford’s rights away, and central tonic note, the invisible line, on personal level: take from Time which social harmony depends. As in Let’s purge this choler without let­ His charters and his customary music, the kingship has both passive ting blood: rights; (formal) and active (efficient) aspects.

This we prescribe, though no phy­ Let not tomorrow than ensue to­ The passive aspect involves roughly sician ; day. (Il.i.195-7) Deep malice makes too deep inci­ Richard’s own awareness of the respon­ Gaunt’s deathbed advice goes un­ sion ; sibilities of his position and of the for­ heeded. Northumberland describes its Forget, forgive, conclude and be mal procedures necessary to achieve so­ ineffectiveness in a manner which re­ agreed; cial and political stability. The active calls Mowbray’s banishment speech in Our doctors day this is no month to aspect involves exerting forces in line I.iii.161-5: bleed.

(Li.153-7) with this awareness and toward this His tongue is now a stringless in­ He seems prepared to take decisive ac­ telos. Like the cadence phenomenon in strument . . . .(Il.i.149) tion (Li.162, 1964, 173-4), but soon re­ musical harmony, he must pull diver­ Richard’s own inability to act is next veals his impotency in the matter: gent or rebellious elements toward the reiterated in terms of his pecuniary dif­ We were no born to sue, but to desired goal. ficulties (Il.i.252-5, 259). The implica- ^ command; The necessity of potency in achieving Which since we cannot do to make tion is quite obvious: or maintaining any sort of harmony is you friend. (Li.196-97) The king’s gone bankrupt, like a Later Richard’s royal resolve to banish a point emphasized by Mowbray on the broken man. (Il.i.257) After Bolingbroke has begun his move, Bolingbroke is soon altered by an appeal occasion of this banishment: Richard listens to Carlisle’s advice that is essentially emotional in nature.

And now my tongue’s use is to me (III.ii.29-32), and finally realizes the (I.iii.) no more The matter of Richard’s choice of ad­ necessity for action (III.ii.83-90). His Than an unstringed viol or a harp,

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resolution to act, however, is seen punc­ tured by his own damning admission: For you have but mistook me all this while: I live with bread like you, feel want.

Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus: How can you say to me, I am a ^ king? (Ill.ii.174-7) •In being a man Richard has failed as a king.

mony results from dynamic interrela­ control of his medium. He subordinates tionships within this given structure. it to his purpose by imposing structure Shakespeare makes the same point in upon it. Take but degree away, however, regard to political harmony early in the and tyranny of the medium results. play. Gaunt affirms that the invisible Time itself is then master, because the line of kingship runs directly from the only necessity which remains is sequen­ throne of God: tial rather than structural (i.e., notes God’s is the quarrel; for God’s sub­ must follow each other in time but not stitute. in any definite order).

His deputy annointed in His sight.

INCE man lives in time, social dis­ Hath caused his death: the which if cord has similar results. Man can­ wrongfully. ichard goes out, however, in a not stop acting even when all concepts Let heaven revenge; for I may never blaze of glory. York remarks before lift of order and purpose are lost. His exist­ Flint Castle: An angry arm against his minis­ ence continues to be dynamic if it con­ Yet looks he like a king: behold, his ter. (I.ii.37-41) tinues at all. In such a situation, how­ eye.

Richard rests on this same assurance ever, he no longer structures necessity As bright as is the eagle’s, lightens (III.ii.36-62, III.iii.72-90). The deposing in terms of goals, but is caught up in it. forth of a king is equated with the “second Throughout Richard II we are repeat­ Controlling majesty: alack, alack, fall of cursed man” (II.iv.76), and the edly reminded that although man can for woe. gravity of Bolingbroke’s offense is made structure the flow of time, he cannot That any harm should stain so fair clear : a show! (Ill.iii.68-71) impede it. Bolingbroke’s speech in Act Strives Bolingbroke to be as great Richard himself visualizes his meteoric I, scene iii.. as we? decline in terms of heroic myth: How long a time lies in one little Greater he shall not be; if he serve Down, down I come; like glistening word!

God, Phaethon, Four legging winters and four wan­ We’ll serve him too and be his fellow Wanting the manage of unruly ton springs so: jades. (Ill.iii.177-8) End in a word: such is the breath Revolt our subjects: that we cannot

By Act IV, scene i, his mood is one of of kings (I.iii.213-15), ment; resignation. is correctly interpreted as a sardonic They break their faith to God as commentary upon the limitations of hu­ In marked contrast to these expres­ well as us. (III.ii.97-101) man power — even the power of kings. sions of Richard’s inability to act, we ichard further emphasizes the di­ see the frequent affirmation of Bolingvine nature of kingship by pictur­ The point is repeated in an exchange broke’s power. Throughout Act I, scene ing himself as a Christian martyr (IV.i.between Richard and Gaunt: R. Why, uncle, thou hast many i, this latent might seems ready to break 162-76). His position is such that even years to live. out into action at any moment. This he cannot willingly vacate it without G. But not a minute, king, that possibility is made to appear more im­ being culpable: thou canst give: minent in Act II, scene i: Shorten my days thou canst with I find myself a traitor with the Not so, even through the hollow eyes sullen sorrow. rest; of death For I have given here my soul’s And pluck nights from me, but not I spy life peering . . . .(I.i.270-71) lend a morrow; consent We learn that Bolingbroke’s power Thou canst help time to furrow me To undeck the pompous body of a has as a firm basis strong popular ap­ king; with age.

Made glory base and sovereignty a But stop no wrinkle in his pilgrim­ peal. Northumberland’s appraisal of this slave. age. (I.iii.225-30) appeal is quite revealing though a bit Proud majesty a subject, state a Richard is fully aware of the neces­ saccharine (II.iii.6-12). Bolingbroke’s peasant. (IV.i.248-52) sity of this pilgrimage. When order meeting with young Percy provides us An Elizabethan counterpart of Joyce breaks down he takes steps to avert the with direct evidence of this charm Kilmer might have written with great arbitrary tyranny of time which he fore­ (II.iii.45). Bolingbroke’s power is re­ insight and equal triteness: “Only God sees as a result of this breakdown. He emphasized by being translated into can make a king.” attempts to withdraw into a world that terms of wealth and plentitude (Il.iii.

One final aspect of our analogy re­ is less subject to time’s dictates. He 59-63). The “rich” Bolingbroke who can mains to be considered: At their most considers (at least rhetorically if not manipulate people toward definite goals basic theoretical levels musical harmony sincerely) a monastic life as a possible is thus placed in stark juxtaposition and political order share a common me­ solution (III.iii.145-57). However, a with the poverty-stricken Richard who dium. It is through the medium of time more dramatic withdrawal is seen re­ is controlled by his flatterers. that each displays itself. Historical time vealed. By means of his poetical musings he stage then is set for the cen­ is the substratum upon which each is Richard retreats into a world that is tral political question of the play : imposed. completely of his own making: Is Bolingbroke (who is apparently able In a logical sense a discussion of the HAVE been studying how I may to assert and maintain order) justified medium of music and natural order compare in deposing Richard (who is not so cap­ should have perhaps come earlier. I have This prison where I live unto the able) ? In the Elizabethan context the reserved it until this point, however, for world: question is not even a debatable one. A a specific reason. It is only when the And for because the world is popu­ re-examination of our harmonic analogy ordered structure of musical notes or lous will show us why on a theoretical level. political events is gone that one becomes And here is not a creature but The order in music is imposed externally particularly concerned with the medium myself, but is inherently self-maintaining. The per se.

I cannot do it; yet I’ll hammer it basic structure is a constant, and har­ The competent composer is in perfect out.

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My brain I’ll prove the female to though others were walking in the same my sould, direction. “That’s the way it goes,” Joe My soul the father; and these two thought, and when he was beside Jimmy, (Continued from Page 14) beget he stopped and asked, “Can I give you still goes over it, but the school bus A generation of still-breeding a ride?” doesn’t dare.

But they’re going to start thoughts, “I want to go out Highway 21B,” Jim­ to work on it soon so they can get it in And these same thoughts people this my said. good enough shape to condemn.” little world . . . .(V.v.1-9) “Just the way I’m going,” Joe said Joe Taylor had been attending games In such an introverted world he can be and lied. “Get in.” in the league ever since it had been completely free from the effects of time.

UTSIDE the city limits Joe began to The sound of music in Richard’s cell formed, and since he had either been in or close to politics, he had never openly provokes a most revealing monologue; ask his passenger questions, Jimmy’s supported a particular team; but now Ha, ha! keep time: now sour sweet timid answers to which made Joe say to he could contain himself no longer. music is. himself, “Poor, poor kid, and that god When time is broke and no propor­ ‘‘Come on, kid,” he yelled. ‘‘Make it be damned announcer making fxm of him.” tion kept! in there and get you a lick!” Upon hear­ After giving the disc jockey the beating So it is in the music of men’s lives. ing his own voice Joe thought he had of his life Joe said, “I was really pull­ And here have I the daintiness of made a big mistake. For a second he ing for you tonight. I was sure sorry ear could feel the stare of every voter in you didn’t get a hit.”

To check time broke in a disorder’d the stands behind him, bearing down on When Jimmy made no response to this string; the uncovered part of him between hat confession, Joe said, “I want to tell you But for the concord of my state and and collar; but his misgivings soon gave something, son, and I don’t ever want time way to a pontifical voice pounding out you to forget it. There’s nothing in this Had not an ear to hear my true repetitively in his mind: ‘‘There’s other world like . . . like . . . like___” Some­ time broke. things; there’s other things; there’s how Joe could not bring himself to say I wasted time, and now time doth waste me. (V.v.42-9) other things.” Interlacing his fingers what he had intended, which was: Here by means of a verbal quibble the with the poultry wire and pulling heav­ “There’s nothing in this world like win­ interrelationship between time and order ily downward, Joe Taylor screamed at ning, whether it’s in politics or baseball is dramatically pointed out. Time in the the top of his voice: “COME ON KID. or marbles or war or love or what have sense of fatality or necessity is shown LET’S SEE YOU LOSE IT! I’M FOR you.... Not one person there tonight to be the consequence of a lack of time YOU KID. YOU KNOCK IT OUT.” cared what you had to do just to come in the sense of degree or order. Again he pitcher stretched, checked the to town to strike out and fall down with the musical analogy is explicit. runner, and delivered a slow break­ your big shoes on; but if you had gotten he full impact of this tyranny of ing curve. Jimmy ran out to meet it,a hit, then people would have cared. time (particularly with respect to chopped down at it, and fell to the Then they would have been talking to Bolingbroke) cannot be deduced withoutground. The catcher jumped over him you after the game and all kinds of peo­ considering the three subsequent plays and ran to the mound to hug the win­ ple would have been willing to take you in the tetralogy (an undertaking out­ ning pitcher, and Jimmy picked himself home, and they wouldn’t have minded side the scope of this paper). Perhaps up and walked dejectedly back to the about the god damn paint they scraped it will suffice to point out that Henry ‘bench. off neither .... People don’t care about IV’s dying words are every bit as fatal­ The “smack” of the ball against the nothing except what you can do for istic as those of the king whom he de­ catcher’s mitt seemed to create a vacuum them. They want roads built and graded posed : around the backstop. Jimmy’s coterie and driveways rocked and oiled and Oh God! that one might read the watched him put his bat in the team bushes cut and right of way fences built book of fate, duffle bag, and they saw the coach come and shoulders widened and bridges fixed And see the revolution of the times up and pat him on the back. “You know, and culverts and drain pipes put in and Make mountains level, and the con­ I sure wanted to see that kid get a hit,” if you’re playing baseball they want tinent. one of them said. base hits, or better yet, homeruns!” But Weary of solid firmness, melt itself “Oh yes, I did too,” said the disc all Jimmy heard was: “I want to tell Into the sea! and, other times, to jockey staring blankly at Jimmy, “and I you something, son, and I don’t ever see thought he would have if he hadn’t been want you to forget it. There’s nothing The beachy girdle of the ocean trying so hard.” In thorough disgust Joe in this world like .. like ... like . . . base­ Too wide for Neptune’s hips; how Taylor walked away from the screen. chances mock. ball. Do you have any way to practice After driving out of the park in his hitting?”

And changes fill the cup of altera­ tion pickup truck, Joe saw Jimmy walking IMMY said he played every chance he With divers liquors! O, if this were toward the main part of town. Joe’s pri­ got. Joe told him to swing a ball seen. mary means of recognition was the from a tree and to knock it back and The happiest youth, viewing this WATKINS LUMBER COMPANY progress through. forth; Jimmy said he would. which stood out plainly in the lights What perils past, what crosses to Within two miles of the highway Joe from the slowly passing cars. Joe saw ensue. found himself driving on what was little that Jimmy’s head was still on his chest Would shut the book, and sit him more than a public lane. He tried to re- • and that he seemed to be walking alone. down to die. (2 Henry IV) Ill.i. call if he had been on the road since he * 45-66) had been in office, and he concluded that Shakespeare (Chicago, 1961), p. 528. All text ref­ erences are to this ^ition and will be identified by he definitely had not. “The bushes are Notes act, scene, and line(s) rather than by page num­ bad too,” he thought and rolled up the ber from this point.

IE. M. W. TiUyard, The Elizabethan World Picture (New York, 1961), p. 101. ^Robert L. Jacobs, Harmony for the Listener window to keep them from hitting him (New York, 1958), pp. 1-2. ^Francis M. Comford, ed.. The Republic of in the face. “But what the hell. I can’t Plato (New York, 1962), p. 90. ^Ibid., pp. 3-4. look after everything. Over twelve hun^Hardin Craig, ed., The Complete Works of ^Ibid., pp. 4-5.

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dred miles of public road in this county.

Joe think it was he and not Jimmy who curb and took the lid off and dropped Wonder by god how many people know was behind the times. the box of candy in and listened to it that? Twelve hundred miles of public Jimmy thanked Joe for bringing him hit bottom, the trash men had come yes­ home and walked toward the house. Joe terday, and put the lid back on and road and over seven hundred bridges and culverts. I can’t even drive over watched him as his mother came out on turned around and looked at her old them all much less fix ’em, but nobody the porch and put her arm around him house. It was old and made out of dark ever thinks of that. Everybody thinks just as the coach had done when Jimmy gray clapboard and was pretty tiny but the road they live on is the only one and had struck out. He saw the woman big enough and had a coal bin on the all they want is rock put on their drive quickly usher her son in the house and side with some of the coal spilled out ways or around their god damn cow glance over her shoulder with what Joe into the yard a little and it sorta killed barns or in their watering holes. Every­ thought an ungrateful look. The porch the grass an4 the house had a thick low body except this kid here and this is the light went out. “What is it they have hedge in front of course, and was close road I am gonna fix, because of him and against me?” he cried. “What are they to the street with a small porch on front doing? I’m the one who brought him which was covered and had room for nobody else.” about two chairs, or at most three, where As he drove up the hill toward Jim­ home.” my’s house, Joe noticed that the road got On the way down the hill Joe kept his the old woman sat at night after work right foot on the brake and his left on and watched the people go home to their progressively worse, and he remarked its condition to Jimmy. “This road is the clutch. His experience as Road Com­ families and all. And she just looked sort washed out, ain’t it?” missioner had taught him that vehicles at her house a minute or so and then remembered it was getting late and “Mama said the road would be fixed could absorb bumps easier with the if the Road Commissioner was anything clutch depressed. A short distance from she’d better get along to the bus bench but a big drunkard.”

Jimmy’s house Joe opened the glove to wait on the bus to take her to her There was a period of silence before compartment and pulled out a bottle of job, she’d had to get a job when her husband did because her son said he Joe asked weakly, “Where did your whiskey and took two or three swallows; mother hear that?” and, anticipating the bumps ahead, put couldn’t support her in her old house ‘Maybe she heard Mr. Fowler,” Jimmy it between his legs. “I’ll never fix this but she was welcome to come live with him of course but she didn’t because she said. “I heard him say that too one road now,” he thought. “Why should I? didn’t want to push herself off on him There’s not ten votes on the whole god day.” riving up in front of jimmy’s and all and so she got this job where damned thing, and these ignorant people out here don’t appreciate anything any­ she works every day but Sunday at some house on the summit of a hill, Joe little bakery up town off of Sixth Ave­ saw a front porch light come on andway.” At the foot of the hill Joe, Taylor stopped his truck, finished the bottle and, nue or somewhere over on the east side peeping through the glass in the front w'eeping, listened to it break in the rock- of town and what she does is knead door the woman who had called him a dough all day with her hands that you filled ditch. drunkard. can see the blue veins in because the “You have electricity?” Joe said still skin’s so thin. Anyhow, she does this in a weak voice. every day except Sunday when she goes “We’ve had that for over a year,” to church, she usually goes when she’s Jimmy said in such a way that made (Continued from Page 20) not too tired, where she sits about twoChristmas or anything because he al­ thirds of the way back and sings the ways gave her candy, a big box, and she hymns when it’s time to and all. Her was always thankful and appreciated it voice isn’t too good or something because very much but never ate it all ever be­ you really can’t hear her at all, not even cause she had a sweet tooth, one that if you’re standing beside her I guess, hurt when she ate candy and that she but you can tell she’s singing, you know hadn’t had pulled because of the money that, you can tell by the way she holds and also the trouble and all, but she the hymn book up in front of her and usually ate as much of the candy as she the way she always has her glasses could and tried to enjoy it but usually ready to put on right before it’s time to ended up having to throw a lot of it out stand up and sing, so she can see the because it had got white mold or some­ words and all. Anyhow, she was walking thing on it. She remembered she had a to the bus bench and it wasn’t far and Just the right gifts for June grad­ box now that he’d given her for her last she got there and was just sitting there uates. Unique gift ideas are our birthday and that she’d put up on top on this morning I’ve been telling you of the old cedar wardrobe in the front about, just like every morning, and specialty (such as imported art ob­ bedroom, the bedroom she used to sleep about now I’d got down to where I in when her husband was alive, and this turned the corner to go to work, right jects). We also feature a wide selec­ box was almost two or three months old ’cross from the bench. It was right ’cross tion of casual clothes for college now and she went into the front bed­ from the bench because the department room and got it off the top of the old store where I work is on this side of the women. Come in and shop. wardrobe, she had to tiptoe pretty hard, street. Anyhow, I had sorta turned my and opened it and looked and sure head to keep looking at the old woman enough it had this white mold or some­ as I turned the corner and had just 1829 W. Cumberland Ave. thing on it so she figured she’d better taken my eyes off of her to look ahead Phone 523-5468 throw it out now and she was sorry and KNOXVILLE, TENN. took it with her and left out the front to where I was going when I heard this door and locked it and all and then tremendous crash and all this screeching walked out to the garbage can on the and I jumped around and goddam! the

D

Old Woman ...

AT

THE GIFT HORSE

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bus, I guess the bus driver was groggy or something and maybe he’d been out boozing it up last night or something or maybe it was just because it was icy, but the bus had clipped right into the bench and had hit the old woman and had knocked her over against a fence, one of those cyclone fences, and she’d hit it hard and you could tell by the way she was lying there with her neck crooked and some bad looking blood run­ ning out her mouth over her powdered face that she was dead. And the bus driver, he hadn’t been hurt or at least it

didn’t look like it because he was stand­ ing around and kept kneeling down to the old woman and getting up and look­ ing real frantic like he didn’t know what to do. About that time this motorcycle cop came speeding up, he’d been near by I guess and had heard teh crash, and I knew there wasn’t anything I could do because she was dead for sure and I didn’t want to go over there much or anything, so I kept going on to work sorta in a daze like and I passed this phone booth and I felt like I should have

called up somebody or something, an am­ bulance or something, and tell them what had happened and to send help but I knew the policeman would do every­ thing like that and besides she was dead already I knew. But I still felt like I had to call up somebody so I called up my wife and told her and she listened and said she was sorry and all but she didn’t know why it’s made me so sad and depressed, I should be sorry, of course, she said, but was a old woman and I didn’t even know her.

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