Patrick James Dunagan : Lovers of Today, by Garrett Caples

Lovers of Today, Garrett Caples
Wave Books, 2021

 

 

That would
be fun

a poem
to Garrett

for his
new book

sitting here
at the

Silver Spur
with me

laundry day

a perfect

time to

pop next

door reading

some poetry

while sipping

a drink

or two

for awhile

        *****

Within the poems of Lovers of Today Garrett Caples is alive as ever in Poetry World. His poet friends are brought in right from the start, popping up in the opening title poem wherein comes the lament "i miss anselm/& john colletti &/alan gilbert" yet also the memory of "reading poems/by wieners & lima/with anthony, cedar/& joshua" ("Lovers of Today").

Memorializing a trip to New York City for poetry readings, fresh printings of books by John Wieners and Frank Lima which Caples had edited and/or had a hand in getting out there, the poem is festive, even with some noted mishaps, “i wake the woman/from airbnb at/4 a.m. cuz i can’t/unlock the door […] two nights later/much more sober/fall on the pavement”.  But buoyed by drinks, book-buying, poetry readings and the city’s notorious joie de vie Caples ushers in lines scattered down the page in joyous high-spiritedness.

The title in fact comes from “a bar/on the lower east side” and Caples, unlike poet Alli Warren (who perhaps unwittingly? supplied the book’s epigraph), shows he has no more qualms to “name a book after a bar!” than he does to mention a few pals who happen be poets by first name only (such as Anselm Berrigan or Cedar Sigo, etc).   

The litany of poet company filling out the book actually only begins with this light sprinkling of names from out the NYC trip poem. There are numerous poems throughout the book that by title and/or dedication are written to older poet-mentors (heroes really) Caples has befriended, from the relatively recently deceased, heavy hitters like David Meltzer, Bill Berkson, Kevin Killian, Gerrit Lansing, along with the barely—far too much so—known John Ceely, all of whom Caples remained close to right to the end; on to those going strong, such as Margarett Randall, Norma Cole, and the Boston reclusive rock-n-roller Willie Alexander "thankless task a boston rocker" (who has celebrated the great Gloucester poet Vincent Ferrini with his tunes); and of course younger pals like Micah Ballard and John Colleti (again) get their fair share of mention in poems.

As an editor with City Lights, Caples has worked directly with nearly all these poets on one project or another. Often reading at events alongside them and visiting with them for many hours at their homes or over the telephone. He is naturally gregarious in the most generous of ways (if there’s anything overbearing about being in the company of Caples it’s simply his enduring open interest in hearing what you are all about). So why not have these names throughout the poems, as Caples reminds us, "vincent ferrini said//life is the poem//hope so" ("Willie Alexander"). This is the stuff poetry is made of. And it’s not all solemn by any means as “John Ashbery and Climate Change” demonstrates. Caples doesn’t back off from enjoying a bit of sly hilarity commenting on what was at the time of the poem’s writing yet another of Ashbery’s latest books: “as for/you, it’s like a break in the permafrost/to watch that detached iceberg melt/into lukewarm reception.”

Humor is regularly employed by Caples in such belied manner that it’s easy to miss. Visiting the northern California hot springs of Harbin, for example, he picks up on some found, perhaps overheard, language and seamlessly ushers it into the poem in the off-hand comment: "white flakes in/the hot pool aren't come but rather//a naturally occurring byproduct/of our water purification program" ("Harbin Maxims"). That is hardly the end of the laughs to be found here. “Names of the Turtle” is a cascade of merriment, being a descriptive list of all the various nicknames (“Legs McMuffin (Legs Benedict)—for his tendency to fully extend his legs while basking”) he has for his buddy in the tank on the back porch, Buster the turtle, “an invasive species—Trachemys scripta elegans or red-eared slider—so I can’t let him go, and he will likely long outlive me.” There’s also “How to Score Weed in Paris”, Caples always gives it straight with good cheer: “let’s be clear/i mean weed/as opposed to the/shit hash that/dominates Europe”.

In “A Door. A Stone” Caples exclaims to Sylvia Fein “i just want to climb your hair”! and it’s as good as Dylan's crooning of “Crawl Out Your Window”. And that is not in any way being disloyal to his lovely wife Suzanne, who has his back on that hair climbing I’m sure! She makes several appearances: from the book’s dedication as well as the directly heartfelt “i loved/every second there with my wife” (“Paris with Suzanne”) to the craziness of covid days “it’s become like Casablanca/handing my wife onto a plane/not knowing if we’ll meet again” (“Gone Viral”) and “we’re married now and walk/up some of san francisco’s//more absurd hills at night/for fear of infection by day” (“Plague Journal”). There’s no journey in these poems that’s not worth taking, that won’t leave you feeling you’ve just parted company with a caring friend you hope to hear from again soon.

The final long poem “Soul Company” for Veronica de Jesus shouldn’t be overlooked. It offers a different sort of litany of diverse company, all using first person pronoun that is at once brilliant and visionary. “i wrote religious poems in a post-religious world.”; “i shot myself through the mouth to escape the c.i.a.”; “i might have been barbara guest’s only true girlfriend.”; “i married my husband between talks about surrealism and the latest trends.”; “i went out like james gandolfini, after some bomb-ass italian food.”; “i left my shoes in a restaurant last time i saw ferlinghetti.”; “it didn’t matter that i was born in hayward, i was thrown in a concentration camp.”; “i wanted to be a revolutionary and change this world, especially for the poor.”; “i was married eight times to seven men.”; “i started iranian modernism, such as it was.”; “i got a fulbright to study under merleau-ponty.”; “i worked for subcomandante marcos.”; “i got turned on to art by vincent price.” There’s a story behind the construction of this poem but the important thing is what it’s most demonstrative of: Being everybody and nobody, that’s what makes for great art.

****

"I hope I was good to you."

("For Ceels")

 

Garrett keep

going your 

poems telling

us nothing  

less than 

more of  

everything exactly

what's needed

"poetry is all

that wires us 

together even

in grief it knits

a web across

an unparticular

universe"

("Love in the Time of No Gods" for John Colleti)

May the

rest of

us be

as good

to you

as you

have been
to us

 

 

 

Patrick James Dunagan lives in San Francisco and works at Gleeson Library for the University of San Francisco. A graduate of the Poetics program from the now-defunct New College of California he edited Roots and Routes: Poetics at New College of California, eds. Patrick James Dunagan, Marina Lazzara, Nicholas James Whittington (Vernon Press) an anthology of critical writings by Poetics program alumni and faculty. He also edited a Portfolio of work on and by David Meltzer for Dispatches from the Poetry Wars (where he served on the editorial board). In addition, he edited poet Owen Hill's A Walk Among the Bogus (Lavender Ink). His essays and book reviews appear frequently with a wide number of both online and print publications. His most recent books include: “There are people who think that painters shouldn't talk”: A Gustonbook (Post Apollo), Das Gedichtete (Ugly Duckling), from Book of Kings (Bird and Beckett Books), Drops of Rain / Drops of Wine (Spuyten Duyvil), The Duncan Era: One Reader's Cosmology (Spuyten Duyvil), and Sketch of the Artist (fsmbw).