Jamie Reid argued in favour of a poetry & politics
that run parallel to George Oppen’s without converging
both men wanted
more than poetry could make happen
they both quit poetry for communism to try to do more as citizens
but
communism authors the authority it says it doesn’t
so they both came back to poetry
the soup kitchen of the alphabet
.
Something alien & artistic-seeming cuts its curve
medievally through the compromise of our materials
chipboard
basement window flag
curtain as if through
grass
unveiled
is ruthless zoning a deep
urban crop circle a snooty hole
the dug site for a vacant tower or turret
real
people are abducted or banished
.
High Street Poetry as Dick Higgins calls it
did not
matter to Reid or Oppen
for Oppen
the Numerous & the
Primitive were a stick to eat
with
& a stick
to eat with
not nail together to make a device fake
holy or allusive
for Oppen poetry was a prow around a jetty
a discrete cast of one & all an audience of one & all the same
for Reid
the line belonged to the
margins it defined
his poor untidy rough crazy wild kind obsessive poet friends
were
faithful to a debilitating
vision of equality
so the little words loved them to
by as with
for of
.
Oppen’s poetry would rather have ridden a bicycle downhill
hard into a tree than
ever collaborate with statues
while Reid’s poetry was Prez Lester Young on sax
with the
hottest players those break-or-die
dancers that mock-official
funeral sway
both men saw how
there is a parade around the
parade
& before & after any procession
queer feather
swoon & blare
in New Orleans it is called the Second Line
.
Carole Itter Al Neil
Gerry Gilbert Artie Gold in
Montreal
Nellie
McClung the granddaughter Red Lane Pat’s brother
Neil
Eustache Kim Goldberg T. Paul Ste. Marie
to champion
such local renegades whose words were
beaten down thin
into sudden song & wide sharing
Mick Burrs Gwen Hauser Jones
Helen Portrebenko
is a renewable poetics Reid wrote of & believed in
.
This other parade’s invited polyphony
never stops
pageanting exposed in every direction at once
the disaster a squeak & a shook fist
it is not
stringent or obedient & has no last float
inflated or a wind-up throwing free samples
anyone can step off the curb Norman Nawrocki Alta there is no curb
this other
parade keeps gathering in nape & bateau
not passing by
it welcomes & carries
all those who go largely unsung
Notes
Jamie Reid—Prez: Homage to Lester Young (Oolichan, 1994)
I. Another. The
Space Between: Selected Poems (Talonbooks, 2004)
A Temporary
Stranger: Homages, Poems and Recollections (Anvil, 2017)
George Oppen—Discrete Series (Objectivist , 1934)
The Materials (New Directions, 1962)
Of Being Numerous (New Directions, 1968)
Primitive (Black Sparrow, 1978)
Ph
. Otty Lake . 2020
Phil Hall is the author
of many books and chapbooks. In 2015, his award
winning book of essay-poems, Killdeer, was translated into French by the
Acadian poet Rose Després, and published as Le pluvier kildir by
Éditions Prise de parole. Forthcoming from Beautiful Outlaw Press: Toward A
Blacker Ardour (2020), and from Pedlar Press: Niagara & Government
(2020). He lives near Perth, Ontario.
