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To Build My Shadow a Fire Books by David Wevill

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To Build My Shadow a Fire Books by David Wevill To Build My Shadow a Fire Books by David Wevill Penguin Modern Poets 4 (with David Holbrook and Christopher Middleton) (1963) Birth of a Shark (1964) A Christ of the Ice-Floes (1966) Penguin Modern European Poets: Sándor Weöres and Ferenc Juhász (1970) Firebreak (1971) Where the Arrow Falls (1974) Casual Ties (1983) Other Names for the Heart: New and Selected Poems 1964–1984 (1985) Figure of Eight: New Poems and Selected Translations (1987) Figure of Eight (1988) Child Eating Snow (1994) Solo With Grazing Deer (2001) Departures: Selected Poems (2003) Asterisks (2007) TO BUILD MY SHADOW A FIRE The Poetry and Translations of David Wevill Edited by Michael McGriff Truman State University Press New Odyssey Series Published by Truman State University Press, Kirksville, Missouri USA tsup.truman.edu © 2010 Truman State University Press New Odyssey Series All rights reserved Cover image: “Bizarre Tree in Front of Sand Dune,” Mlenny Photography, with permission of iStockphoto. Cover design: Teresa Wheeler Type: Arno Pro © Adobe Systems Inc.; Galahad © Adobe Systems Inc. Printed by: Edwards Brothers Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan USA Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wevill, David, 1935– To build my shadow a fire : the poetry and translations of David Wevill / David Wevill; selected, edited, and with an introduction by Michael McGriff. p. cm. — (New Odyssey series) Includes index. ISBN 978-1-935503-04-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Canadian poetry—20th century. I. McGriff, Michael, 1976– II. Title. PR9199.3.W4257T6 2010 811'.54—dc22 2010004300 No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any format by any means without written permission from the publisher. The paper in this publication meets or exceeds the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materi- als, ANSI Z39.48–1992. For Mike and Britta, who lit the fire and kept it going. I’m carried in my shadow like a violin in its black case. —Tomas Tranströmer Contents Author’s Preface | xiv Editor’s Preface | xv Acknowledgments | xvii Introduction | xix Part One Poetry from Penguin Modern Poets 4 (1963) The Two-Colored Eagle | 3 My Father Sleeps | 3 Spiders | 4 Last Settlers | 6 Monsoon | 6 The Venturers | 7 Separation | 8 Impression During an Interview | 9 Clean Break | 10 Puddles | 11 At Rideau Falls | 12 The Crèche | 12 from Birth of a Shark (1964) Poem | 15 Germinal | 15 Fraying-Stocks | 17 A Legend | 18 Wine-Cask | 19 Fugue for Wind and Rain | 20 Third Time Lucky | 22 The Birth of a Shark | 22 The Black Ox’s Curved Back | 26 Cockroach and Star | 26 The Circle | 27 Two Riders | 28 from A Christ of the Ice-Floes (1966) Love-Stones | 31 A Christ of the Ice-Floes | 32 Winter Homecoming | 33 Catkins | 34 Last Snow | 35 Meditation on a Pine-Cone | 36 Self-Portrait at Ten | 39 Visit of the Son | 40 Diamonds | 42 Either/Or | 44 Dirge | 45 Construction Site | 46 Wherever Men Have Been | 47 from Firebreak (1971) Poem | 51 Taos | 52 Texas Spring | 52 For Woodwinds | 53 A Beginning | 54 Three | 55 Nocturnes | 56 Memorial II | 57 X4 | 58 Lament | 60 October | 60 Sickness | 61 From a Yoruba Poem | 63 from Where the Arrow Falls (1974) Part One (excerpts) 1 | 65 8 | 66 10 | 67 13 | 68 14 | 68 16 | 70 20 | 71 26 | 72 29 | 73 32 | 78 36 (excerpt) | 79 39 | 81 41 | 82 46 | 84 Part Two 1 | 85 2 | 85 3 | 86 4 | 87 5 | 87 6 | 88 7 | 88 8 | 89 9 | 90 10 | 90 11 | 90 12 | 92 from Casual Ties (1983) They That Hunt You | 95 The Big List | 96 Birthday | 97 Being Absent | 98 Telephone | 99 Talking | 100 The Text | 101 Ring of Bone | 102 Tiger Tiger | 103 A First Drawing | 104 from Other Names for the Heart: New and Selected Poems 1964–1984 (1985) Spain | 121 Rincón for Paco the Fool | 121 Rincón for the Face in Hotels | 122 Grace | 123 The napproachableU | 124 Redtails | 125 Late Sonnet V | 126 Shallots | 126 Polonaise | 127 Scavenging | 128 Visitors | 128 Snow Country | 129 Other Names for the Heart | 132 Neutrons | 134 Cante Hondo | 135 The onquestC | 135 Inktonmi, a Prayer | 136 Paracentric | 137 from Figure of Eight: New Poems and Selected Translations (1987) Premonition | 140 Figure of Eight | 141 Interstice | 153 Patterns Leaves Make | 153 Proof of How it Should Look | 154 Spain and Kafka | 155 And Language is Everything | 157 Assia | 157 Climbing | 158 from Child Eating Snow (1994) Baby Upside Down in a Light Snowfall | 161 Child Eating Snow | 161 Exuberance (Paul Klee) | 164 Separation in the Evening (Paul Klee, 1922) | 165 Paris, 1957 | 166 Poem Depending on Dashes | 166 Namelessness | 168 Old Legends | 168 Ethnic Poem II | 169 Night Bus South | 170 Beyond | 170 A Window in London | 171 Vigil | 171 An Event About to Happen | 172 Bettelheim | 173 In Late June | 174 Conversation | 174 Heat Wave | 175 Summer Morning | 175 from Solo With Grazing Deer (2001) Lamp | 178 Sabi | 178 Rune | 179 Landscape | 179 | 181 Stump | 182 Railroad Tracks, House for Sale and Clouds | 183 Happiness | 184 Wild Eyes | 185 Frictions | 185 Sunlight Through Blinds, Four O’clock, Facing West | 186 Answers | 187 Departures | 188 Time Out | 189 Solo With Grazing Deer | 190 from Asterisks (2007) 3. | 193 5. | 193 9. | 194 11. | 194 12. | 195 17. | 196 19. | 197 21. | 197 24. | 198 27. | 199 33. | 200 36. | 200 44. | 201 45. | 202 49. | 203 Part Two Translations Ferenc Juhász Introduction to Ferenc Juhász | 207 Silver | 213 Gold | 213 Birth of the Foal | 214 Then There Are Fish | 215 Comet-Watchers | 215 Mary | 217 The Tower of Rezi | 217 November Elegy | 219 The Boy Changed into a Stag Clamors at the Gate of Secrets | 221 Hunger and Hate | 233 Four Seasons | 234 The Flower of Silence | 235 A Church in Bulgaria | 235 A Message Too Late | 239 Black Peacock | 240 The Rainbow-Colored Whale | 242 Thursday, Day of Superstition | 246 A n Note o Fernando Pessoa, San Juan de la Cruz, and Alberto de Lacerda | 253 Fernando Pessoa After the Fair | 254 Every day I discover | 254 Henry the Navigator | 256 Ode | 256 On a Book Abandoned on a Journey | 257 San Juan de la Cruz The Dark Night | 258 Alberto de Lacerda Four | 260 Bones of man | 261 In Hadrian’s Palace | 261 Poem for Octavio Paz | 262 Here | 262 Palace of Piero Della Francesca | 263 Your beauty hurts | 264 Ceremony | 264 Sun within | 265 About the Editor | 266 Index of Titles | 267 Index of First Lines | 269 Author’s Preface It is difficult to preface a book that covers so much of one’s lifetime. The poems and other work in this selection represent some forty-five years, dur- ing which there have been many life-changes, changes of circumstance and place, especially my move from England to America in the late sixties. There have been changes, too, in voice, style, and technique. An earlier rhetorical energy gave way to a more stripped-down, quieter economy of expression, relying more on image than descriptive elaboration. But while much has changed, weathered perhaps, some themes and preoccupations remain, I think, as ground-notes throughout. They are part of one’s shadow, for better or worse, they move as one’s self moves. The poems here, I hope, speak for themselves. The short prose-form pieces are another way of speaking. The translations are occasional, except for the Juhász poems, which were commissioned by Penguin. With virtu- ally all the translations I’ve needed the help of native speakers. Lastly, and importantly, I owe this book to Michael McGriff, a fine poet and friend. He conceived it, he shaped it and put it together, and his energy, effort, and patience nursed it to publication. I owe him a very great debt of thanks. David Wevill Austin, Texas September 2009 Editor’s Preface Toni Morrison has written somewhere that she began her life as a novelist when she made the simple decision to write the books that she wanted to read. I admire this sentiment as both a reader and writer—it’s a warning against listening to the various taste-makers and dictators of culture, and it’s a call to action, an invitation to make it new, a celebration of the individual voice. To this end, the roots of To Build My Shadow a Fire are straightfor- ward. I wanted to read (and wanted to share with others) a book that didn’t exist, so I had to make it myself. When I received David Wevill’s blessing for this endeavor, I proceeded not as a scholar or critic (that is to say, with no formulated aesthetic agenda or tinted biographical lens), but as an avid reader and admirer of the poetry itself. I let my intuition about the work guide me during the editorial process, with David serving as both sounding board and veto holder. That said, assembling a collection like this is not sim- ply the process of compiling the “best” work. A book of poetry (be it an ed- ited collection or an individual volume), essentially, is a unified, sequential work, with each poem being a distinct source of light shining within a pool of light. The editorial challenge is to find the many arcs of the work, and to highlight those arcs with the most invisible of hands, for to cast a shadow or hold up a mirror does a great and potentially dangerous disservice to the writer, the reader, and ultimately, to the art itself. This invisibility act proved complicated when excerpting from the long sequences in Firebreak, Where the Arrow Falls, and Asterisks.
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