The park/“a darling walk/for the mind” T&G, MLBW [EA].
In a numbered group of “FIVE POEMS,” Poetry 106.5 (Aug. 1965): 344.
LN to Jonathan Williams, 19 Feb. 1964: “The one thing that's stark different here—Saarinen's Art Center on the lake shore, huge glass mushroom transported from some Walt Disney desert. Not far from it a park with (a comfortable) statue of Robert Burns” (in Truck 16 [1975]: 46).
Who was Mary Shelley? T&G, MLBW [EA].
In Paris Review 9.36 (Winter 1966): 144, but very likely one of three poems accepted by the editor two years earlier in May 1964. However, only “Art Center” and “Alcoholic dream” were published in the Summer-Fall 1964 issue while “Who was Mary Shelley?” was delayed until Winter 1966. The following variant lines appear in the Paris Review version:
line 4: She eloped with Shelley,
line 10: Created Frankenstein nights
line 14: She read Latin, Greek, Italian.
Meanwhile the poem was revised to the present text for “HOMEMADE POEMS” (Oct. 1964) and “HANDMADE POEMS” (Xmas 1964).
Wild strawberries Unpublished in book form.
“HOMEMADE POEMS” (Oct. 1964):
Ruskin found wild strawberries
and they were a consolation
poor man whose diaries
were grey with instances of rose
I think tonight we'll have the liver
since tomorrow we go out
tho not of course like him
to Metaphysical dinner
following Greco
Copytext for posthumous publication in BC (1976).
Revised for “HANDMADE POEMS” (Xmas 1964) with variant line 7: not like him
Revised to the present text for Origin ser. 3, 2 (July 1966): 24.
1965-1967
These years saw the start of her friendship with Gail Roub, a Black Hawk Islander and history teacher at Fort Atkinson High School.
In mid-1965 she prepared the typescript for T&G. She also began summer vacation car trips with Al Millen that would take them to the Black Hills in South Dakota in 1965, around Lake Superior in 1966, and to Copper Harbor, Mich., and Door County, Wis., in 1967. These travels provided impetus for major poems such as “LAKE SUPERIOR” and “WINTERGREEN RIDGE.”
Autumn Unpublished in book form.
Poor.Old.Tired.Horse. 9 (undated, possibly 1965): 1. The poem derives from the long version of the FPOP poem “Dear Paul,” lines 188 and 191 (see p. 400).
Last night the trash barrel Unpublished in book form.
Poor.Old.Tired.Horse. 9 (undated, possibly 1965): 1.
The boy tossed the news Unpublished in book form.
Poor.Old.Tired.Horse. 9 (undated, possibly 1965): 1.
Popcorn-can cover T&G, MLBW [EA].
Poor.Old.Tired.Horse. 9 (undated, possibly 1965): 1; variant line 3: over the hole
Truth Unpublished in book form.
Poor.Old.Tired.Horse. 9 (undated, possibly 1965): 1.
Lights, lifts T&G, MLBW.
Lines 5 (May 1965): 32.
O late fall T&G, MLBW [EA].
CHURCHILL'S DEATH T&G, MLBW.
Arts in Society 3.3 (Winter 1965): 429.
LN to CC, Feb. 11, 1965: “I did see Churchill's funeral, the Thames, St. Paul's, the solemn faces, Handel on the organ—I found it very moving. I didn't see the mechanical cranes along the Thames dip in salute as the body passed down, but the papers said they did. I hope it wasn't an order, an order from the top” (BYHM 54).
The Badlands T&G, MLBW [EA].
Origin ser. 3, 2 (July 1966): 14.
LN was visiting the Badlands of South Dakota when she heard of Adlai Stevenson's death (July 28, 1965, BYHM 68).
A student T&G, MLBW.
An early version in Poor.Old.Tired.Horse. 13 (undated, possibly 1965): n.p., is composed as two five-line stanzas:
A student
my head always down
of the grass as I mow
and my low
pillow
I missed the cranes
“These crayons fly
in a circle ahead”
said
a tall fellow
The same version appears in a June 20, 1967, letter to Gail Roub.
LN to LZ, Jan. 14, 1962: “Man here says ‘these crayons’ (cranes) ‘fly in a circle but ahead’” (NCZ 298).
Bird singing T&G, MLBW [EA].
Origin ser. 4, 16 (July 1981): 28-30, prints the three versions which LN sent to Gail Roub in 1965 after she had seen Gail's vivid acrylic painting. LN published the second version. Here are the other two plus her annotations:
Version I:
Prothonotary Warbler
Clerk of May Court
singing ringing
yellow green
St. Francis image
as perch—why judge—
a niche in the wall
and the man made green ring
in his painting—grass
the sweet bird flew in
and the friend took it
to testify: (Willa)
“they know how to live”
Version III:
Warbler
St. Francis' image
—no grimace—
looks down
past the nest in the niche
and the yellow green
sound
It is right
to delight
in this ringing
bird-light
from the emerald
ground
I—Fairly conscious. II is the one I'll probably keep as the one sleeping under the other, in large part subconscious. I might have laid an egg (I) tho—?—in any event the egg out of the bird. In II the bird out of the egg and the song before that and the color—
Cather (last two lines of I—you remember she said that in Avignon they know how to live. (That was 1902—wonder what that place is now?)—
Version III—This might be it—or is it only fooling around, a kind of Mother Goose warbler?
Version II in Combustion 15/Island 6 (n.d.): 31, and in “EIGHT POEMS,” Monks Pond 1 (Spring 1968): 7.
Easter Greeting Unpublished in book form.
Origin ser. 3, 2 (July 1966): 1, and posthumously in BC (1976).
CITY TALK Unpublished in book form.
Origin ser. 3, 2 (July 1966): 15, and posthumously in BC (1976).
As praiseworthy T&G, MLBW [EA].
Origin ser. 3, 2 (July 1966): 16; “EIGHT POEMS,” Monks Pond 1 (Spring 1968): 8; and The Voice That Is Great Within Us: American Poetry of the 20th Century, ed. Hayden Carruth (New York: Bantam, 1970).
They've lost their leaves MLBW.
Origin ser. 3, 2 (July 1966): 17.
My mother saw the green tree toad T&G, MLBW.
Origin ser. 3, 2 (July 1966): 19, and The Voice That Is Great Within Us: American Poetry of the 20th Century, ed. Hayden Carruth (New York: Bantam, 1970).
TRADITION Unpublished in book form.
Origin ser. 3, 2 (July 1966): 29, and posthumously in BC (1976).
Autumn Night Unpublished in book form.
Origin ser. 3, 2 (July 1966): 31, and posthumously in BC (1976).
The poem refers to Aeneas McAllister, who was LN's neighbor and close friend from 1953 to 1960. He was a pianist, composer, and amateur astronomer.
Sky MLBW.
Origin ser. 3, 2 (July 1966): 33.
Nothing to speak of MLBW
Origin ser. 3, 2 (July 1966): 34.
Swedenborg MLBW.
Origin ser. 3, 2 (July 1966): 35.
I lost you to water, summer MLBW.
Origin ser. 3, 2 (July 1966): 36.
Another poem addressed to Aeneas McAllister. See note for “Autumn Night,” above.
I married Unpublished in book form.
Origin ser. 3, 9 (April 1968): 38, and posthumously in BC (1976).
LN to CC (letter plus poem), July 20, 1967: “Just a few minutes ago rather spontaneous from
a folk conversation and I suppose some of my own dark forebodings. We shd. be true to our subconscious? Sorry it is another I poem. My god, I must try to get away from that” (BYHM 129).
You see here Unpublished in book form.
In a group of eleven poems titled “HEAR & SEE,” Origin ser. 3, 7 (Oct. 1967): 56, and posthumously in BC (1976).
Your erudition Unpublished in book form.
In a group of eleven poems titled “HEAR & SEE,” Origin ser. 3, 7 (Oct. 1967): 53, and posthumously in BC (1976).
Alone MLBW.
In a group of eleven poems titled “HEAR & SEE,” Origin ser. 3, 7 (Oct. 1967): 53.
Why can't I be happy Unpublished in book form.
In a group of eleven poems titled “HEAR & SEE,” Origin ser. 3, 7 (Oct. 1967): 54, and posthumously in BC (1976).
And what you liked Unpublished in book form.
In a group of eleven poems titled “HEAR & SEE,” Origin ser. 3, 7 (Oct. 1967): 54, and posthumously in BC (1976).
Cleaned all surfaces Unpublished in book form.
In a group of eleven poems titled “HEAR & SEE,” Origin ser. 3, 7 (Oct. 1967): 54, and posthumously in BC (1976).
Young in Fall I said: the birds MLBW [EA].
In a numbered group of “FOUR POEMS,” Poetry 111.3 (Dec. 1967): 159, and The Voice That Is Great Within Us: American Poetry of the 20th Century, ed. Hayden Carruth (New York: Bantam, 1970).
NORTH CENTRAL
This collection was published by Fulcrum Press in 1968. LN thought of the work as a long poem. She told CC on Oct. 13, 1967, “I'm mailing you today another envelope of poems that I think of as Part II of a long poem, the first section of which will be out this fall or winter in Arts in Society. Third section coming up (since Door Co. trip)…” (BYHM 131-32). The first section she refers to is “LAKE SUPERIOR,” the second is what came to be known as “TRACES OF LIVING THINGS,” and the third is “WINTERGREEN RIDGE.” Between the first two sections she added the short poem “My Life by Water.”
LAKE SUPERIOR NC, MLBW [EA].
The poem arises in part from her 1966 summer car trip with Al Millen around Lake Superior. Her notes for the poem, now in the Roub Collection, number close to 300 pages. They include detailed research into the history and geology of the region. An Oct. 6, 1966, letter to Morgan Gibson refers to an early version of the poem called “CIRCLE TOUR.” However, the only surviving early version is “TRAVELERS/Lake Superior Region,” in Arts in Society 4.3 (Fall/Winter 1967): 508-13:
TRAVELERS
Lake Superior Region
I
In every part of every living thing
is stuff that once was rock
that turned to soil
In blood the minerals
of the rock
II
Iron the common element of earth
in rocks and freighters
Sault Sainte Marie
the old day pause for voyageurs,
bosho (bon jour) sung out
by garrison men
Now locks, big boats
coal-black and iron-ore-red
topped with what white castlework
The waters working together
internationally
Gulls playing both sides
III
Through all this granite land
the sign of the cross
Beauty: impurities in the rock
IV
Here we touch the polished
ruby of corundum
lapis lazuli
from changing limestone
glow-apricot red-brown
carnelian sard
from Uruguay
and silica-sand agate
from nearby shore
Greek-named, Exodus-antique
kicked up in America's
Northwest
you have been in my mind
between my toes,
agate
V
Let the English put sun
in the name Radisson
and make gooseberry jam
of Groseilliers
(GrosaYAY)
river, falls, a whole country
gooseberry
“a laborinth of pleasure”
this new world of the lakes—
Radisson
Long hair, long gun,
no fingernails—
pulled off by the Mohawks
when they bound him to the stake
for slow killing
Forty years ago now
toward Rainy Lake
ospreys dived for fish
and eagles swooped to snatch
from ospreys as they did
when Radisson
Knife Lake-rendezvoused
with Chippewa, Huron,
Ottawa, Sioux for furs
this lake (State 65) named
for his gift to them
the first steel knife
they'd seen
VI
The long canoes
“Birch Bark
and white Seder
for the ribs”
VII
Schoolcraft and party
left the Soo with canoes
US pennants, masts, sails,
chanting canoemen, barge,
soldiers
for Minnesota
Their South Shore journey
as if Life's—
The Chocolate River
The Laughing Fish
and The River of the Dead
Peaks of volcanic thrust,
hornblende in massed granite
Wave-cut Cambrian rock
painted by soluble mineral oxides
washed by the waves and the rains
A green running as from copper
Sea-roaring caverns—
Chippewa threw deermeat
to the savage maws
Voyageurs crossed themselves
threw a twist of tobacco in
VIII
Of the wild pigeon
did not man
maimed by no
stone-fall
mash the cobalt
and carnelian
of that bird
IX
Into Minnesota
beside the great granite,
gneiss and the schists
to the redolent pondy lakes—
lilies, flag and Indian reed
“through which we successfully
passed”
X
Came now to joy,
the shining lake-study-
pronouncement:
the primary source
of the Mississippi River
Itasca
(from Veritas caput)
XI
The smooth black stone
I picked up in true source park
the leaf beside it
was once stone
The sea went over
Calculate:
our coral bones
I caught myself faintly
in the glass of the museum's
glacier exhibit
XII
I'm sorry to have missed
Sandy Lake
My dear one tells me
we did not
We watched a gopher there
The segment beginning “And at the blue ice superior spot,” was published in Origin ser. 3, 9 (April 1968) in an early grouping of “TRACES OF LIVING THINGS.” It was later added to the final version of “LAKE SUPERIOR.”
LN prepared an errata slip for copies of NC:
ERRATA
The Lake Superior section:
Beauty: impurities in the rock
should be the 3rd line of the poem preceding.
The Marquette poem then begins:
And at the blue ice superior spot
EA excerpts three sections from “LAKE SUPERIOR”: “And at the blue ice superior spot,” “Wild Pigeon,” and “The smooth black stone.”
My Life by Water NC, MLB
W [EA].
Untitled in Origin ser. 3, 7 (Oct. 1967): 55, and EA. In Origin it is part of a group of eleven poems titled “HEAR & SEE.”
Titled in New Poetry Out of Wisconsin, ed. August Derleth (Sauk City, Wis.: Stanton & Lee, 1969) 173.
TRACES OF LIVING THINGS
The subtitle, “strange feeling of sequence,” is Fulcrum Press publisher Stuart Montgomery's observation. An earlier group of “TRACES OF LIVING THINGS” in Origin ser. 3, 9 (April 1968): 39-42, included “Museum,” “At the blue ice superior spot” (subsequently moved into “LAKE SUPERIOR”), “TV,” “Far reach,” “Years,” “Unsurpassed in beauty,” “Human bean,” “High class human,” “What cause have you,” and “Stone.”
Museum NC, MLBW.
In an alternate group titled “TRACES OF LIVING THINGS,” Origin ser. 3, 9 (April 1968): 39.
Far reach NC, MLBW.
In an alternate group titled “TRACES OF LIVING THINGS,” Origin ser. 3, 9 (April 1968): 40.
TV NC, MLBW.
In an alternate group titled “TRACES OF LIVING THINGS,” Origin ser. 3, 9 (April 1968): 40.
We are what the seas NC, MLBW [EA, VV].
In a numbered group of “FOUR POEMS,” Poetry 111.3 (Dec. 1967): 159.
What cause have you NC, MLBW [EA].
In an alternate group titled “TRACES OF LIVING THINGS,” Origin ser. 3, 9 (April 1968): 42.
Stone NC, MLBW.
In an alternate group titled “TRACES OF LIVING THINGS,” Origin ser. 3, 9 (April 1968): 42.
The eye NC, MLBW [EA].
Origin ser. 3, 2 (July 1966): 37, with a second and third stanza:
leaf feather
fin fugue
modify—
renewed
union of two
in love—we—
with the same
sure thing
to end
when one sees
new truething,
Love
For best work NC, MLBW [EA].
Included in “HOMEMADE POEMS” and “HANDMADE POEMS” (1964) (see p. 210).
Origin ser. 3, 2 (July 1966): 22, and The Voice That Is Great Within Us: American Poetry of the 20th Century, ed. Hayden Carruth (New York: Bantam, 1970).
Smile NC, MLBW [EA].
In a numbered group of “FOUR POEMS,” Poetry 111.3 (Dec. 1967): 160, and The Voice That Is Great Within Us: American Poetry of the 20th Century, ed. Hayden Carruth (New York: Bantam, 1970).
Fall (“We must pull”) NC, MLBW.
In a numbered group of “FOUR POEMS,” Poetry 111.3 (Dec. 1967): 159.
Years NC, MLBW [EA].
In an alternate group titled “TRACES OF LIVING THINGS,” Origin ser. 3, 9 (April 1968): 40.
Unsurpassed in beauty NC, MLBW [EA].
In an alternate group titled “TRACES OF LIVING THINGS,” Origin ser. 3, 9 (April 1968): 41.
Human bean NC, MLBW.
Collecte Works Page 26
