The Iowa Review Volume 2 Issue 1 Winter 1971

The Poetry of Carl Rakosi L. S. Dembo

Follow this and additional works at: http://ir.uiowa.edu/iowareview Part of the Creative Writing Commons Recommended Citation Dembo, L. S.. "The Poetry of Carl Rakosi." The Iowa Review 2.1 (1971): 72-80. Web. Available at: http://ir.uiowa.edu/iowareview/vol2/iss1/29

This Contents is brought to you for free and open access by Iowa Research Online. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Iowa Review by an authorized administrator of Iowa Research Online. For more information, please contact [email protected].

Article 29

The Poetry of Carl Rakosi

L.

S. Dembo

to

continues

in 1965 after a twenty-five

to poetry

returned

Having

a

enjoy

chiefly

reputation.

avant-garde

silence, Carl Rakosi

year

him

Associating

with

the

so

called Objectivist Group of the thirties, which included Louis Zukofsky, George a collection of his Oppen and Charles Reznikoff, New Directions brought out in 1967, and his poetry has continued to appear in various little work, Amulet, Like the other members of the group, which was held together more magazines. financial

by

than

necessity

a

by

common

Rakosi

program,

has

ac

reluctantly

label. And, also like the others, he has done so because cepted the Objectivist has been able to interpret the term to suit his own aesthetic inclinations:

he

It conveyed a meaning [he wrote] which was, in fact, my objective: to present objects in their most essential reality and to make of

each

an

poem

of a subject; of

The

loose

bowels

and

was

however,

subject, and

a concern

that

sometimes

streaming, not

to be

gives

shape

to

the

obviously,

the

the

sincerely,

craftsmanship." than clich?s

more

broken

made

poet

the

by discriminating

and

halves

opposite

vagueness;

consciousness.1

screaming,

eliminated;

by imagination these distinctions

intelligence, What makes

this,

by

that is, of all forms of personal

the experience

by "feeling

object honesty

. . . meaning

object.

the opposite,

particularity,

is that

are

they

career.

of Rakosi's

into

poem

an

by

of part back

Looking

on his early work, Rakosi remarked that, for the most part, he had been "seduced by the elegance of language." After the hiatus he had had, as he relates, "a lifetime more

with

about

feelings

an

sometimes

cessful,

"objective" an immediate

social

for

defined, the

poem?and and

need

him made experience as most part, personal to turn subjective expressed or avoid sentimentality

This

work."2

the

Rakosi therefore

one.

deeply-felt

Sometimes

he

was

suc

not.

When of

in

people

"subject-matter," Thus relations.

human

into experience "loose bowels"?was

gance

with

involvement concerned

said that in his early poems he was

Rakosi

language

(or

"subsumed

by

language"),

he

was

in

seduced a

sense

by the ele ad

passing

verse

that he had been strongly influenced by judgment. He acknowledged Stevens and argued that Stevens had "killed all subject-matter": Wallace "I dont know what kind of experience Stevens started with, but if you take one of

his

poems

and

try

to understand

terms of this criterion, another

occupies vens,

are

open

dimension, to

it as

a man

saying

the "elegant" rhetorical universe but

Rakosi's

remarks,

on

something,

lost."

you're

of the early work himself

as well

as

In

clearly on

Ste

question,

72

University of Iowa is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve, and extend access to The Iowa Review ® www.jstor.org

To tinka," actually "Peter

more, effete

and

and the by "Sittingroom to Wallace Stevens," "Homage a take-off to be "Salons" appears as

imitations.3 by

"Sittingroom

they not only parody

Stevens'

Pa

"Salons"

poems, in Amulet

reprinted true not

parodies, Quince"

two

the

with,

begin were

which

Patinka"

on

diction

and

"Sunday

they

on

Further

Morning."

imagery but

are

satirize an

world:

in a plush repose,

I found Miss Levi curves

the

counting

in her

pitched

portly

mirrors

by seven bored and pigmy globes. Her floors were

tourmaline

standards.

topaz

supporting

("Sittingroom")4

The rhetoric is Stevens' but the imagery and the irony recall Eliot. In any case Miss Levi is a fit companion for the dandyesque Stevensian speaker who is de she says, scribing her. "Carl, I feel/the musings of profuse dim meistersingers," a Stevensian revealing tive meaninglessness, "We mix on

with

pelagic

of her

sensibility

where

passes

to

say

in

imagina

passions.

my into

on

from my hair,

Sea spiders hobble twinkle

goes

sail

prawns

like

shall

she

corals

and

carbonates

and

own,

eyes

frost."

of

octagons

This is clearly the language of surreality and it is a style in which the the early poems are usually something took delight. Nonetheless, Rakosi young a more than exercises: they present lyric speaker whose elegance delimits his Rakosian

The

personality.

"in

works

poet

cut

and

glass

majolica"

and

hears

"the

But essentially it is a music that plectrum of the angels" ("Night Thoughts"). cannot be transcribed into an intelligible measure, just as the speaker is obsessed in a the its existence has that world chiefly imagination: by My thoughts kept dwelling on the littoral where china clocks tick in the cold shells and

the weeds

"Fluteplayers

effectively

expresses

in the

from

Finmarken"

equinox.

the inexpressible the

encounters

fluteplayer

slide

polar

sea

is

psychic

of

some

a

meaningfully

afterworld,

this fungoid program of the mind and matter the

where

abstract

signals to the

abstract

and the mind directs a final white on

the

spewing

and the wings

73

Criticism

of

the waterworm

of the midsea.

obscure

poem

that

life of the artist. The Scandinavian

lens

I was not clear what "It was says, to the reader. it can never be clear

The

speaker but arrived,"

in a

And must

take

his

there

as

identity

in the late poem connected,

sense

really isolated

the

of

images

is not

other

of

flutes

for

imagination.

and

the

other

flutes

who Fluteplayer, as much reveals

un

by presenting

begins

Hrothgar,

their original

the

Rakosi

Ink," which

Jupiter,

and continues by saying that whatever . . . that

no

in an Ancient

"Figures

imaginative

are man

. . ./until

after

"Saracen

physicians"

significance,

the way

they speak tome. I made them but took away their speech and patina

a precious associations.

instead

them gave of ancient

that is how they got their mystery and The

is

vision

to me.

speak entirely

as

private,

the next

lines make

clear:

What, am I in love then with my own images, and Onan wrapped in their protective strangeness? shrinking from what failure? The

is

question

at

answered,

perhaps

least

in

part,

in "The

Heifer":

I am he who lost his father's simple power to touch and smell untouched

by

of

a heifer

forever The sion young

and poet

licking . . . lost.

rearrangement, reveals who

ond section describes I dreamed that I was

I was

integrity its nose

"A

sequence, is

early

. . .

philosophy

the inexpugnable

a

himself

. . .

Journey

Away,"

partly-hallucinatory to be another

last night the woman

being very young, with green stones

in her

garter.

She looked upon me wistfully and said: I was with

a taxi

dancer

a sweetheart

on

a

fishing

I perceive by these pains that I am condemned to die,

74

account Mauberley

the typical problem with women

married.

scared,

which

smack.

underwent of

the

much failures

or Prufrock.5

of the effeminate

The

revi of sec

aesthete:

a

The

assumes

lady

mythic

overwhelmingly

From

Okeanos

proportions:

sprang

her hot breath. Her

image

source

the

Perhaps

is an

ancient

blue

glass, so subtle.

was

the dream

of

an

immediate

:

situation

It reminded me of one I had not seduced. She was brushing out her hair the mirror.

before Whatever

the

more

seeks

he

case,

suitable

occupations:

I should have been arranging the white poppies in the window with

the

coriander.

In the original version of the third section (which was entitled "The Disillusionment of a Very Young Man") another bad romance seems to be the cause

of

ever,

and

the

speaker's

the

is absent

The

despair. turns out

portrait

lady a to be

from of

rendering

the

final

Eliot's

version,

international

how dilet

tante: On

the

went

at Cannes

esplanade

the awnings black

suddenly me.

before

I was carried to the belvedere of Villa Policastro. His aesthetique for

the

du mal

bird

in a

sensitive

but

unknown

laurel

more

perhaps man, young his aesthetic

who,

painful as we

sensibilities She

played

clef-wandering

a

emitting

passionless

The experiences are

is the song of birds: a canary singing

at

and

powers

sweet

the

end of

symbolic of section imagination

are

They

jaded hero with

no more

find

a classical

"tiny himself.

speaker

of Eliot's but

arsis."

in the dark and an emblems

appropriate

genteel middle-aged

than

those

four if

("The nothing

suffered Concert"), else:

by

women Rakosi's retains

pianoforte, pinna

tremolo,

a in a dominoes ?tude: Chippendale the Bird pirriko pirriko prrrk ia ia the leghorn rustling in the brush, the creek between the rockshelves. Nancy with a bunch of wet grapes. Again, like Eliot's figures, the speaker is capable of having intense, if meaning less, visions, of light (section five) or anticipations of rebirth from water (sec tion six) :

75

Criticism

Sea-kin, we

broken

have

Our

away.

are

hearts

grounded

in the waterways.

Our butts foam in the

current

a keel.

like

We pray that our wings may blaze in the One

version

course.

sterling

of

was poem summoned

this

its

lines

concluding lation:

I have

Sea-kin,

I fear, banally, vision the whole of

entitled, up

broken

a Poem,"

for

"Waiting the poet's

but articu

for

quest

away

My heart has risen like a bird in the waterways and breaks a true and I have easy May

into words. course!

final section casts the poet in the persona of a tired bullfighter who must daily face both bulls and "the gall irk/ of cafard and sceptic." Even in this mascu

The line

he

incarnation,

"Keep

the whiskey

kosi.

(The line was The

cinatory

as

himself

he

in a

says,

is not

however,

only touch

a natural

strange vision

The

but

"discreetly"

speak

sees

a

performer characteristic

for

a

fickle

of

the

crowd. later

Ra

in fact added to the original. )

arena,

sensibility.

travellers

perhaps from me,"

scene

for

the

of the first section, of

impotently

"the

next

poet

an

with

world,"

hallu

two dead

in which better

reflects

his inclinations: The

words

were

impressive

and muted.

Suddenly the one preoccupied with his obsolete luetic eyeball a

made in

meaningless with keeping

Rakosi's are

of imagism. begins

renderings

conventionally Winter

enough: and wind,

the whole

age

afternoon

around the house But

concludes

esoterically:

anabasis

for edelweiss six rivers and

76

serious were of

scene.6 not objects

all

hallucinatory, and situations

it is often an imagism with

Still,

is an

poems

early

impressionistic

aside the

six wenches

a

however; and

show

many the

quirk of language.

of

them

influence

"The Gnat"

the

twelve

victories.

Similarly, gibility

of himself the

as

ishes,

lines and passages

of

pastiche

New

of

impressions

York,

from several other intelli

without

virtually

The ironic aspects of "A Journey Away" anticipate Rakosi's judgment as a young poet; yet it is precisely in the elegance of language and in

"protective his new

that

a

(1925),"

"City

is a pure of collage in their new context.

poems,

of

strangeness" on

emphasis late poem

the This

"Shore raw

is the

vision

exotic

that

matter"

"subject Line"

indicates.

not

First

at his

is often

he

does

preclude

the

best.

true

is

It

Stevensian

flour

theory:

data.

A mystery translates it into feeling and perception; then

imagination;

finally the hard inevitable

quartz

figure of will and an

And

language.

example:

Thus a squirrel tail flying a handlebar

from

establishes

unmistakably its

rider

passing as a male

unbowed in a

But

as

here,

the

of

Rakosi's

morphosed. involves and

in most

"defamiliarized"

sometimes

a

the

The

on her way to avoid

forms

"raw

plume.

mostly data"

subjects eccentric

style

and

quotidian but

Girl,"

"Young a

between

human,

rarely

perception

I believe,

is,

imagined, is

are

the

poems,

engagingly in this

meta which

thirteen-year-old

girl

real:

quite

to the beach,

in bare feet

daintily

walking Titania's

poem

encounter,

poet.

elderly

later by

best

sexual

chipper

stones.

the

gauze a cute skirt, so short

it takes As

Rakosi

the

explains carry

speaker,

breath

the

it, on

the a

. . .

away.

girl certain

now inner

"becomes dialogue

subjective her about

in

the . .

sense . that's

that my

I,

or

reality

which I project into the poem." This inner dialogue culminates in the speaker's that the girl, believing herself to be safe, momentarily whimsical supposition off

showed victim

77

of

her

her own

Criticism

sexuality only seductiveness

to become and

"ionized

discovered

herself." actual

sexual

Because feeling,

was

a

"It was

a

she

Patrick Henry/Junior

great day/for combobulations"

)

The

Pierrots."

suffered

truth

young that

by

is, however,

It is such confusion

High." women

that

the

has

girl

"in

("bitter-sweet

a moment

turn

suffered

probably

men no

dis into

discom

bobulation and that it is the speaker's own imaginings that have turned him into a a poet, just as, in part, they have turned the girl into nymphet. The effectiveness of "Young Girl" lies in the comic conceits of the was no less effective in treating a similar theme speaker, but the younger Rakosi through elegant language. Thus "Flora and the Ogre": Let her quince knees sag and the toy arcs of the dew and daisy guide her mild feet, than

The

is no more

torso

her

speaker

surreal-sensual

to me of a nun.

the woodcut

is, of course,

self-deceived

he

:

lady,

surrenders

and

after

to describe

continuing

his

Will no briny thunderbrunt or green chill deliver me? In

the

involving

new

Rakosi's

demand

for

sensibilities the

"presence"

the

of of

the

"Young Girl"

speaker, poet

in

the

poem,

the

reflects appear

ance of a "man saying that his early poem "The something." Rakosi believed Lobster," which listed the dredgings, at various depths, of a fishing vessel and was intended to reflect the "coldness of the sea," was devoid of the poet's pres ence.

Contrasted

sofar

as

of

the

with

this

a series

it presents same order

as "The

is a late work called poem at a beach, of observations

"Time seems

to Kill," at

first

which, glance

in to be

Lobster":

A man and his dog. What fun twigs

chasing into

the water!

Young girls bicycle by in pairs and plaid shorts. The poem continues with other descriptions and views, all apparently straight forward. But Rakosi saw in the poem a personal element missing in "The Lob ster," and in fact the title indicates the state of mind of the observer, a state that in a sense controls his perceptions. Rakosi explained that, This

was

thickens what's

along there.

78

a and

going

hot

summer

slows on

up become

afternoon when slower

it's and

and

know how you everything that one's of perceptions an old man comes denser. Then

hot,

so

into the scene and I felt and tried to convey

a bit of pathos

This

I think,

poem,

jectivism: terms is,

of

then,

objects

scene": . .

Rakosi's ever,

of the poems, "protective

"What

./lays/a desire

pad" in a

so

and

on

verge

subject

human

the

very

poem "humanize"

"A gentle

louse." does

idiom or

in

the

so soft"

small/wood

Girl"

"Young

responses

"A wind

ob

reality but of

he

sentimentality

how

not,

to Kill."

"Time

in subject and declarative

frankly autobiographical

strangeness"

poor and

realistic

true

of

interpretation

impersonal

whose

twigs," "The

as

fortunate

later

The

observer,

/im/chasing

healing to write

results

have

always

the

objects

sun

"The

lake,"

of Rakosi's

in their cold, emotions.

ordinary involving but observed

perception not the

the "Virgilian

essence

the

represents

are not to be recorded

Many

in syle,

lack

Rakosi's

abhors.

attempt to "throw off the cloak of Onan" and to write a social poetry is apparent an interest in folklore but is in his Americana sequence, which demonstrates his He has written his protest poem on the channel for abilities. wrong clearly a set of reflections on anti the war in Vietnam and ("The Enemy") moving semitism ("Four Characters and a Place in the Merchant of Venice"). But per is his native instrument: he sounds when he best haps playing

[The Clarinet] runs

up a water

ladder quicker than the soul past

gravity.

This

small

bored Ariel a pipe with elegant air holes to the mellow of

lining has a

on which and

abstraction reed

gentle like

I suck to dream.

Footnotes 1 "A Note

on

" the

2

Interview, Contemporary comments citations of Rakosi's life 3

Stony

'Objectivists,'

in Minneapolis,

where

he

are has

"Salons," originally published in section of "Homage"

first

79

Criticism

Brook

Literature

X, from

been

3/4, 2

this director

in Pagany final the

1969,

36.

All 178-192. 1969), (Spring, source. has lived much Rakosi of a welfare (Autumn,

(Amulet)

1931), version.

agency.

He

appears, "Sittingroom

subsequent of his adult

retired untitled, by

in 1968. as

the

Patinka,"

in The

Little

indicated,

all

originally published section. second 4 Unless

otherwise

sections 1932) parts versions

quotations

from

1925),

the

poetry

are

as

untitled,

appears,

the

from

the

Amulet

in Hound and Horn with its 1932), (July-September, appeared originally a different from the "Objectivists" version sequence (also Anthology as or in Amulet. Most of the sections titled poems separate, appeared reprinted Poems in Selected and Horn of poems The Hound (New Directions, 1941). poem

following

also

reintegrated. a series

merely

surreality

of

sections

contained The

6

(Spring,

v.s.

edition, 5 The

Review

the

Hound

and

that Horn

of unrelated style,

later version

appeared is the

the Anthology sections; a unified suggests experience.

as least

separate effective

arrangement,

poems since despite

and

were

it seems the

never to be

continued

version entitled "A Bit of in ) was original Hardy" are diction the whole Rimbaudian. clearly Actually, met "The wayfarer the passerby/in of flowers./ death's poem, which begins, champaign As the lint blew their skulls/they of the next world," has the through spoke discreetly as Hart Crane's same rhetoric of Conduct" "Emblems from a poem ( 1925 ), itself adapted Samuel "The Crane's wanderer chose later this concludes, poem by Greenberg. .... clouds the sea/ marble still spot of rest/Where support Dolphins played, arching to build memories the horizons,/But of spiritual gates." only Although the Selected

80

this

section

Poems,

the

( sixth tone

in the

and