POETRY NORTHWHT S Mmmrri 10 6 1 VOLNM E L L I N N N S ER 0 $5+OO SUSTAINING PATRONS
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POETRY NORTHWHT S MMMRRi 10 6 1 VOLNM E l l i N N N S ER 0 $5+OO SUSTAINING PATRONS LEONIE ADAMS BENJAMIN H. KIZER MRS. ROBERT SIMEON ADAMS MR. AND MRS. ROBERT LEVIN POETRYI' 4NORTHWR5T '' ':.' ROBERT W. AYERS JOHN PALMER V 0 L U M E T W 0 I'.': N U M B E R T H R E E DQRGTHY W. BLocK (g'n memoriam) THEODORE ROETHKE MliRRELL R. DAvl s (in memoriam) JOSEPHINE SMALL SUMMER, 1961 ROBERT FITZGFRALD MRS. THGMAS D. STLMsoN GEORGE GARRETT 5'IARK TOBEY HAYDEN CARRUTH RACHEL GRIFFIN MRS. CHARLES HUNT TODD Five Poems T. C. HOEPFNER WINDSOR UTLEY GEORGE WOODCOCK 10 TIIE TRANSATLANTIC REVIEW Two Poems DAVID CORNEL DeJONG 12 Two Poems PATRONS VI GALE . 15 Two Poems MRS. ROBERT L. ALLEN NEIL M EITZLER ARNOLD STEIN 16 SARAH M. ANDERSON PETER MICHELSON Three Poems MARGARET BELL EI.IZABETH B. MICHKII.S WILLIAM BOLCOM JOHN R. MILTON SUSAN ROTHOLZ . 19 CAPT. AND MRS. JOHN H. BOXVEN MR. AND MRS. CARL MORRIS Two Poems DOROTHY M. P iYE JEAN MUSSER CARL MORRIS 21 FIELENE CLARK ALYCE NEWMARK Four Drawings MR. AND MRS. GIOVANNI COSTIGAN BERNICE OLIPIIANT MR. AND MRS. FLOYD DANSKIN JOHN L'HEUREUX, S. J. 25 JERRY POURNEI.LE VIRGINIA DEARBORN EI.RAN OR RUGGLES Five Poems AIRS. ROBERT L. EDWARDS MRS. FIENRY SIEGL FLORENCE VICTOR 31 CLARISSA ETHEL ARTHUR G. SINGER Three Poems DAYID C. FowLER illR. AND MRS. D. E, SKINNER JOHN C. GARNEY JOHN WOODS 33 RUTH SLONIM CHAiRLES GULLANS Three Poems ARTIIUR HALL SMITH MAC HAMMOND SUN LOVE TIIE TWO MOON TIM REYNOLDS 37 KATHERINE HANSEN FRANCES E. THOMPSON Two Poems JAMES HARRISON MRS. ROY WENSBERG CHARLOTTE A. WILSON 38 CLEVE LESIIIKAR WILLAMFTTE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Two Poems MR. AND MRS, JACKSON MATHEWS IIARRY WOOLF JAMFS MCGARRELL A. K. RAMANUJAN 40 MR. AND MRs. STANLEY WGRswlcK Three Poems FLORENCE GOULD 43 Five Poems P OF TR P N O R T H W E S T F DITORIA L BOA RD S UM M E R y 1 9 6 1 CAROLYN KIZER Hayden Carruth NELSON BENTLEY WILLIAM H. M ATCHETT Five Poems EDITH SHIFFERT Far Eastern THE SWAMP OF LOVE Redwing — alighting — rocks on his spar of reed, CARoL CHRIsTENsEN Associate "Ocheree" jocosely, "ocheree" with merriment. A March sun wimples the swamp, Frayed and pale as worn wool, warming The skunk cabbage barely and one astonished frog. Cover Design by CARL MoRRIs Sing me, sweet, the blowing rose, North is a land of departing snows. The swampside bank inclines, shall I say, softly? Printed by Its boulders, loaves among the grass, TILLIKUM PRESS Afford an impression of waiting 64 MARIQN STREET As though for an honest couple, SEATTLE 4 As though for Pyrrha and Deucalion Dumpish and potbellied from some Thessalian farm. "Ocheree" sharply, "ocheree" with loudness, "Ocheree," if the truth were told, a little coarsely. And the South is a thing that comes from a very far sky; Indeed the South is a wrinkled ancient calligrapher, POETRY NORTHWEST • SUMMER, 1961 ' VOLUME II, NUMBER 3 Say from Hai-nan with eyes like dirty pennies, Publishelished quarterly. Subscriptions and manuscripts should be sent to Poetry Northwest Brushing his delicate ribald letters exiguously Box 13, University Station, Seattle 5, Washington. Not responsible for unsolicited manI uscripts; all submissions must be accompanied by a stamped, selfwddressed envelope. On the back of your hand. u scription rates in U. S. A. and Canada: $2.50 per year. Foreign: $1.00 additional. ' ' g . Patron, $10. Sustainin Patron ,$25..AI $ ., l l. .patrons receive an honorary five-year subscription. Sing me, sweet, the blowing rose, Copyright 1961 by Poetry Northwest The awful distance a poor thought goes. In a garden of great iris flowering And the woman rises, putting away her book, Like the hearts of unicorns plucked out for view, Yawning perhaps in unformed annoyance, Beneath the tree that is called pecan, And looks upward through young leaves of pecan, A woman in the thirty-sixth year of her life sits reading, Up to the north sky, Reading (she writes in a letter) the dramas of Strindberg, Remarking the absence of clouds. Smoking a cigarette, and with one foot Is there not a tedium to be found in the Jigging above the ground; Dramas of Strindberg? Reading And her body Is an act of patience — waiting, waiting Contains wisdom and beauty like a book And patience is perhaps less an act With a bright cover and creviced pages Than one's arteries like the bruise-flowered wisteria That rise and fall, slow butterfly wings, in their revelations; Seeking to root in the ground. And is also in some respects like to a spice closet, Being nutmeg-brown and in some parts obscure Sing me, sweet, the blowing rose, But in others light, and being Annual yesses, annual noes. Of the good odor of citron Or, it may be, mace Hear the swamp now. The reeds are Or another Swaying and clacking. Known to those who have acquaintance of fine things. Already southern voices begin, Talking, talking severally and satisfactorily. Sing me, sweet, the blowing rose, Then this is the manner of assurance Poetry talking as if it were prose. Not fear, as in intimidation, Nor hopelessness, nor servility; 0 chosen history, so dear alien tongue, Not, though pain stays, constrainment. My English tuning the scene baroque, the wit "Ocheree" triumphantly, "ocheree" with realism. Of frolics waged among huge formal beds, Liberator! In s orrowing distance, All to the end of cavalier cast low, Severing luck, Is he the tyrant still, that aureate boy Loss, Whose barbs you rue in numbers sweetly pure? Still this creating call to the new world comes; Is that affection cruel, that bond still hard, Poems and more, the mind's days all well wrought, Ruling us, masters, greatly in your lines 0 Bolivar, intelligent and free! For ears time-schooled and fondly orthodox? "Ocheree" barbarously, "ocheree" like a hooting jade. P OE T R Y N ORT H W E S T The truthful priest; and neither alone fulfills ALIVE Or even understands I used.to imagine we were a fine two-headed The terms time drives like tent stakes in our wills. Animal, unison's two-tongued praise . Of fastened sex. But no, though singly bedded Perhaps for this I gave into your hands We went separately always. The Egyptian maid, For this great kings unswore their demands When you burned your finger and mine smarted We had neither one body nor one soul, Upon you, returning you, so that I who had been afraid But two 'in bright free being, consorted Bore the shame then. To play the romance of the whole. Now you laugh; in your bitterness for a love delayed It was good, else I had surely perished. You ask if the giggling nerves shall respond to my touch again. In change, may an unchanged part survive? Sara, your laughter As it is, shattered in the sex I cherished, Is a little solemn fox, the denizen I am full of love, and alive! Of my heart's cave barking in his sleep, yet softer, Sister, than Hebron's bees SONG FOR SARA Among the lilies. Your voice sorrows me. After Yes, I know, I did go in unto the Egyptian bondwoman, Hagar in her dark tent, The journeys, the alien faces, the languages aH p's Wherefore the child Ishmael is like to a wild foeman And q's, the wars, A nephew in hot water, and now riches, this goodness and ease, Against me now, my black soul unvanquished, unspent. And I know also After God's voice like phosphor in the firs Howw you became again my sister in wonderment, At Bethel, the angels Conversing with me in the twilight out of doors And gave your pride unwillingly in the house of Pharaoh And on the hills, after all this still memory jangles And to Abimelech Like a bell gone false, The Philistine, because I feared your beauty. God bestow Clacking my ignorance, my fears, and the lie that mingles Comfort upon you. Yet remember, we two set this tent stake In everything we think. The heart beats, the will halts. In these proud hills Princess, my sister and wife, Of CanaaCanaan, two together, two blessed by Melchizedek, Forgive me, it is I who fail; and God, who exalts, P O'ETR E N O R T H W E S T ALGERIA Comes to our tent now, bidding us to life Years gone by (in Chicago once) After all, The Chalk Man came on an April day's pastel; Bidding us give what we are, scabbard and knife. Ever since What we are: love means to use, to make use of, to recall My business has gone ill. Every taste of the years, Choosing this, the best that we are, two even in downfall, Because one day as I came home from school A trilling woman spilled from an untuned house, 0 wife, sister, princess, mother of hope. Tears, Thrusting her child Fears, Into my arms; it jiggled and looked droll, No, they are gone. This homely song alone must sing in your ears. But she was wild And ran beside me like a wounded horse. I expect the doctor said what could be said. ANALOGY BETWEEN A CERTAIN LADY AND A FIELD MOUSE The thing that I had brought to him was dead. Both are small and agile and active, brown Of countenance, so simply soft that hands It was heavy; Stray toward them without thought. Both love Resilient, rubbery, collapsible; The country, and do not love the town, Unbalanced inside like a boat of gravy Except by dread fascination that betrays them.