You’ve lost one language, gained another, lost a third.
* * *
There’s nothing you’ll inherit, neither per stirpes nor per capita
* * *
No plot by the riverbank in your father’s village of Kozencheri
* * *
Or by the burning ghat in Varanasi.
Alexander is remembering her own migration, what she has lost. She is also thinking about her inheritance and uses discordant legal terms for the two ways that parents can leave their estates to their children: per stirpes and per capita. In the case of per stirpes: the grantor intends that the beneficiary’s share of the inheritance will go to his or her heir. According to per capita: the grantor intends that no one except the named beneficiary will receive that share of the estate. She knows the legal terms, but neither one is operative if there is nothing left to leave or inherit.
The speaker then considers something more intimate that she will also not inherit. Notice the change in diction. Facing her own death, Alexander is thinking not only about what she might leave as an inheritance, but also, perhaps even more, about the inheritance that was lost to her, first by her leaving India and more recently by the sale and destruction of her family home in Kerala. That’s why she refers first to her father’s village in South India, on the banks of the river Pampa, and then to the burning ghat, or Manikarnika Ghat. Ghats are riverfront steps leading down to the banks of the Ganges. A few are used as cremation sites. The burning ghat is where most of the dead are cremated in Varanasi. It is a place, Hindus believe, that will liberate them from the cycle of death and rebirth.
The speaker believes that she has been left with nothing but her memories and a way of writing them down: “All you have is a writing hand smeared with ink and little bits of paper / Swirling in a violent wind.” This image speaks to the inherent fragility of handwritten text. What does the writer have but markings on a blank page to summon up her world? This is reminiscent of an image created by the Florentine poet Guido Cavalcanti, who writes, “We are the poor bewildered quills, / The little scissors and the grieving penknife.” While Cavalcanti projects his own feelings of inadequacy onto the writer’s tools, quills and the knives to sharpen them, Alexander thinks of her actual writing hand leaving marks on tiny bits of paper “Swirling in a violent wind.” What chance do these scratches have of surviving?
Nonetheless, Alexander is catapulted by memory back into the past. Notice how the pronoun changes from the second to the first person. That’s because she is no longer speaking to herself but as herself. A fragment of memory comes flying back to her, and she inhabits her younger undivided self, who takes on a vivid presence:
I am a blue-black child cheeks swollen with a butter ball
* * *
I stole from mama’s kitchen
* * *
Stones and sky and stars melt in my mouth
* * *
Wooden spoon in hand she chased me
* * *
Round and round the tamarind tree.
* * *
I am musk in the wings of the koel which nests in that tree —
The language shuttles between the vernacular (“I stole from mama’s kitchen”) and the high Romantic (“Stones and sky and stars melt in my mouth”). For a moment Alexander’s speaker is back in the past, inside the memory of circling the tamarind tree. That leads her from a child’s statement to a poet’s line—“I am musk in the wings of the koel which nests in that tree”—and the cuckoo moves her back into a memory of adulthood. The signal of the change is marked by a pronoun shift back to the second person:
You heard its cry in the jolting bus from Santa Monica to Malibu
* * *
After the Ferris wheel, the lovers with their wind slashed hair
* * *
Toxic foam on the drifts of the ocean
* * *
Come the dry cactus lands
Alexander has moved from the positive mischief of Krishna, child and lover, to the Santa Monica vision of lovers. The memory of hearing the koel on a “jolting bus” in California transports her from her childhood to her adulthood and then back to childhood. Time collapses quickly here as associations carry her from the ocean to the dry cactus lands, from the memory of her own settled home to the vision of a child, who, holding a water bottle, is crossing the border on a bus. Alexander had seen the terrible photo of a dead child on the Mexican American border. That child is now viewed, as through a camera, and described in the third person:
The child who crosses the border water bottle in hand
* * *
Fallen asleep in the aisle where backpacks and sodden baskets are stashed.
* * *
Out of her soiled pink skirt whirl these blood-scratched skies
* * *
And all the singing rifts of story.
The memory of a bus ride has led Alexander to the image of a girl, some version of herself, who has become a refugee traveling from one unnamed place to another. She is caught in a liminal space, asleep in the aisle of a moving vehicle. The suggestion is that an entire world comes out of her dreaming, that the small “soiled pink skirt” contains the entire “blood-scratched skies.” She will inherit and invent and transform “the singing rifts of story,” which is to say that she will make poetry out of the gaps and fissures, the holes and cracks in narrative, in the past.
In the end, “Krishna, 3:29 A.M.” becomes a poem that marks a vocation. It sings itself into being and offers a condensed road map to how Meena Alexander wrote poetry and turned herself into a Romantic postcolonial poet of diaspora.
Acknowledgments
My debt to my great love Lauren Watel is incalculable. She scrupulously interrogated, revised, enriched, and rewrote the first twenty-one pieces. She knows Spanish (I do not) and retranslated poems by Alfonsina Storni and Julia de Burgos. She brought her own ferocious reading skills to interpreting all the poems and found things that I had under-read or missed. I talked about each of these hundred poems with her, and I am indebted to her on every page.
Grateful acknowledgment to the editors of the various magazines and books where these pieces, or parts of them, initially appeared. I have also written about some of these poets in other books, especially Poet’s Choice, and there is invariably some overlap. I tend to cannibalize my own work. All of the following pieces have been substantially revised for this book:
John Keats, “This living hand”: website for the Poetry Society of America.
Constantine Cavafy, “The God Abandons Antony”: . . . what these Ithakas mean: Readings in Cavafy (Hellenic Literary and Historical Archive, 2002).
Edna St. Vincent Millay, “What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why”: The section about the five female lyricists is lifted from my overview, “Helmet of Fire: American Poetry in the 1920s,” in A Profile of Twentieth-Century American Poetry, edited by Jack Myers and David Wojahn (Southern Illinois University Press, 1991).
Miklós Radnóti, “The Fifth Eclogue”: World Literature Today (Fall 2019).
Czesław Miłosz, “Café”: The first section is repurposed from my review “Czeslaw Milosz’s Invincible Reason,” The New Republic (June 30, 2017).
Nâzım Hikmet, “On Living”: The opening appeared in the foreword to Nâzım Hikmet, Human Landscapes from My Country, translated by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk (Persea Books, 2009).
Stevie Smith, “Not Waving but Drowning”: The opening appeared in my essay “Stevie: The Movie,” in Writers at the Movies, edited by Jim Shepard (HarperCollins, 2000).
Tadeusz Różewicz, “In the Midst of Life”: The opening appeared in the foreword to Sobbing Superpower: Selected Poems of Tadeusz Rozewicz, translated by Joanna Trzeciak (W. W. Norton and Co., 2011).
L. E. Sissman, “A Deathplace”: Part of this piece appeared as the foreword to L. E. Sissman, Night Music, edited by Peter Davison (Houghton Mifflin, 1999).
Philip Levine, “They Feed They Lion”: Field (Fall
2009).
Stephen Berg, “On This Side of the River”: Part of this piece appeared in my memorial essay “ ‘Being Here, Like This’: The Poetry of Stephen Berg,” American Poetry Review (43, no. 5, 2014).
Zbigniew Herbert, “Mr Cogito and the Imagination”: Published in Polish as “Chlust zimnej wody,” translated by Magda Heydel, in Poeci czytają Herberta (a5, 2009).
Louise Glück, “Night Song”: Part of this piece appeared in “The Watcher,” American Poetry Review (November/December, 1986).
Gerald Stern, “The Dancing”: Parts of this piece appeared in “Guide for the Perplexed,” in Insane Devotion: On the Writing of Gerald Stern,” edited by Mihaela Moscaliuc (Trinity University Press, 2016).
Carolyn Creedon, “Woman, Mined”: Part of this piece appeared as the foreword to Carolyn Creedon, Wet (Kent State University Press, 2016).
My dear friend André Bernard, who has encouraged and edited each of my prose books, has once more brought out his blue pencil, virtually speaking, and made this a stronger book. I am lucky to be able to count on my exceptional agent and friend, Liz Darhansoff. Special thanks to everyone at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, especially the exemplary poetry editor Jenny Xu, who guided this book with so much certainty in such uncertain times.
Special thanks for their help on individual pieces to my friends Joanna Trzeciak (Anna Akhmatova), Charles Baxter (Weldon Kees, Louise Glück), Bobbi Bristol (Galway Kinnell), Kathleen Lee (Tony Hoagland), Rabbi Ellen Lippmann (Kadya Molodowsky, Primo Levi), David Lelyveld (Meena Alexander), Alberto Manguel (Jorge Luis Borges), and Mari Pack (Agi Mishol).
For generously answering questions about their poems, special thanks to the late Eavan Boland, whom I am still mourning, and to Victoria Chang, Nicholas Christopher, Michael Collier, Carolyn Creedon, Kate Daniels, Toi Derricotte, Camille Dungy, Linda Gregerson, Joy Harjo, Garrett Hongo, Marie Howe, Cynthia Huntington, Dunya Mikhail, Naomi Shihab Nye, Sharon Olds, Philip Schultz, Vijay Seshadri, Patricia Smith, Mary Szybist, Rosanna Warren, Michael Waters, and Afaa Michael Weaver. I have incorporated some of their responses into my essays.
Credits
“The God Abandons Antony,” translated from Constantine Cavafy’s original Greek, from Collected Poems—Revised Edition, edited by George Savidis. Translation copyright © 1975, 1992 by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Reprinted by permission of Princeton University Press.
“The Pretty Redhead,” translated from Guillaume Apollinaire’s original French, from Collected Poems. Translation copyright © 1971 by James Wright. Reprinted by permission of Wesleyan University Press.
“Song for a Dark Girl” from The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, edited by Arnold Rampersad with David Roessel. Copyright © 1927 by The Estate of Langston Hughes. Used by permission of Harold Ober Associates and Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.
“Black Stone Lying on a White Stone,” translated from César Vallejo’s original Spanish, from Neruda and Vallejo: Selected Poems, edited by Robert Bly. Copyright © 1930 by César Vallejo. Translation copyright © 1971 by Robert Bly.
“I’m Going to Sleep,” translated from Alfonsina Storni’s original Spanish by Lauren Watel. Translation copyright © 2020 by Lauren Watel. Used by permission.
“To Julia de Burgos,” translated from Julia de Burgos’s original Spanish by Lauren Watel. Translation copyright © 2020 by Lauren Watel. Used by permission.
“In Memory of M. B.” from Poems of Akhmatova by Anna Akhmatova, translated by Stanley Kunitz with Max Hayward. Copyright © 1940 by Anna Akhmatova. Translation copyright © 1967, 1973 by Stanley Kunitz and Max Hayward. Used by permission of Darhansoff & Verrill Literary Agents and FTM Agency, Ltd.
“The Fifth Eclogue,” translated from Miklós Radnóti’s original Hungarian, from Clouded Sky. Copyright © 1943 by Miklós Radnóti. Translation copyright © 1972, 2003 by Mrs. Miklós Radnóti, Steven Polgar, Stephen Berg, and S. J. Marks. Used by permission of Sheep Meadow Press.
“Café” from New and Collected Poems: 1931–2001 by Czesław Miłosz. Copyright © 1945 by Czesław Miłosz. Used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers LLC.
“Merciful God” from Paper Bridges: Selected Poems of Kadya Molodowsky, translated by Kathryn Hellerstein. Translation copyright © 1999 by Kathryn Hellerstein. Reprinted by permission of Wayne State University Press.
“Shemà,” translated from Primo Levi’s original Italian, from Complete Works of Primo Levi, edited by Ann Goldstein. Copyright © 1976 by Primo Levi. Translation copyright © 2015 by Jonathan Galassi. Used by permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation.
“On Living,” translated from Nâzım Hikmet’s original Turkish, from Poems of Nâzım Hikmet. Copyright © 1948 by The Nâzım Hikmet Estate. Translation copyright © 1994, 2002 by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk. Used with the permission of Persea Books and Vicki Satlow of The Agency srl on behalf of The Nâzım Hikmet Estate.
“Aspects of Robinson” from The Collected Poems of Weldon Kees, edited by Donald Justice. First appeared in The New Yorker. Copyright © 1948 by Weldon Kees. Used by permission of the University of Nebraska Press.
“The rites for Cousin Vit” from Annie Allenby Gwendolyn Brooks. Copyright © 1949 by Gwendolyn Brooks. Reprinted by consent of Brooks Permissions.
“Not Waving but Drowning” from Collected Poems of Stevie Smith by Stevie Smith. Copyright © 1957 by Stevie Smith. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.
“In the Midst of Life,” translated from Tadeusz Różewicz’s original Polish, from The Survivors and Other Poems. Translation by Magnus J. Krynski and Robert A. Maguire copyright © 1976 by Princeton University Press. Reprinted by permission of Princeton University Press.
“On the road at night there stands the man” from Hovering at a Low Altitude: The Collected Poetry of Dahlia Ravikovitch, translated by Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld. Copyright © 1959 by Dahlia Ravikovitch. Translation copyright © 2009 by Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld. Used by permission of W. W. Norton and Company, The Estate of Dahlia Ravikovitch, and Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House, Israel.
“Poem of the Gifts,” translated from Jorge Luis Borges’s original Spanish, from Selected Poems, edited by Alexander Coleman. Copyright © 1960, 1999 by Maria Kodama. Translation copyright © 1999 by Alastair Reid. Used by permission of Viking Books, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, The Colchie Agency, and The Wylie Agency LLC.
“In the Park” from Selected Poems by Gwen Harwood. First appeared in the Bulletin published under the pseudonym Walter Lehmann. Copyright © 1961 by Gwen Harwood. Used by permission of Penguin Random House Australia.
“The Whipping” from Collected Poems of Robert Hayden, edited by Frederick Glaysher. Copyright © 1962 by Robert Hayden. Used by permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation.
“Night Sweat” from Collected Poems by Robert Lowell. Copyright © 1964 by Robert Lowell. Used by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
“Wanting to Die” from Live or Die by Anne Sexton. First appeared in the Observer. Copyright © 1964 by Anne Sexton. Reprinted by permission of Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc.
“My Nightingale,” translated from Rose Ausländer’s original German, from After Every War: Twentieth-Century Women Poets. Copyright © 1965 by Rose Ausländer. Translation copyright © 2004 by Eavan Boland. Reprinted by permission of Princeton University Press.
“Next Day” from The Complete Poems by Randall Jarrell. First appeared in The New Yorker. Copyright © 1963 by Randall Jarrell. Used by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
“Montana Fifty Years Ago” from The Poems of J. V. Cunningham, edited by Timothy Steele. Copyright © 1967 by J. V. Cunningham. Reprinted by permission of Ohio University Press.
“For the Anniversary of My Death” by W. S. Merwin from The Essential W. S. Merwin, edited by Michael Wiegers. Copyright © 1967 by W. S. Merwin. Reprinted with the permission of The Pe
rmissions Company LLC on behalf of Copper Canyon Press and The Wylie Agency LLC.
“Poem” from Collected Poems of Muriel Rukeyser, edited by Janet E. Kaufman and Anne F. Herzog with Jan Heller Levi. Copyright © 1968 by Muriel Rukeyser. Reprinted by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press.
“The Idea of Ancestry” from The Essential Etheridge Knight by Etheridge Knight. Copyright © 1968 by Etheridge Knight. Reprinted by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press.
“Henry’s Understanding” from Collected Poems: 1937–1971 by John Berryman. First appeared in the Harvard Advocate. Copyright © 1969 by John Berryman. Used by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
“A Deathplace” from Night Music by L. E. Sissman. First appeared in Harper’s Magazine. Copyright © 1969 by L. E. Sissman. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
“They Feed They Lion” from New Selected Poems by Philip Levine. Copyright © 1968, 1972 by Philip Levine. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.
100 Poems to Break Your Heart Page 50
