A poem from MR. MAGOO by STEVE TILLS

JOHN BLOOMBERG-RISSMAN Reviews

                         

“Between” from Mr. Magoo by Steve Tills

(Loose Gravel Press, Arroyo Grande, CA, 1997)

Between

I saw my generation

come of age but never heard.

Much of the noise and abundant

music was still reverberating.

Maybe all the instruments were

all loaned out at the time.

Theirs had been not so much

a long decade as a wide one.

Ten Years After.  Ten before.

Even Opie grew up and did something

with his life.

Didn’t become Yuppies. We got stoned.

Maybe too stoned.

Mute.

Muter than stone.

The mutter of all stones.

U.S. Bongs may have been

the only available instruments.

The dope is not permanent.

No one is.  Nothing is.

To stand up and be counted

upon.

Nixon, Ford.  Pardon me,

but Jimmy was the most

intelligent of the bunch

and he’s ignored, too.

Maybe there was something

in the air at the time.

Something Barrett and Ron

and Lynn and Carla and Bob and

Charles and others missed.

They’re not gods talking

about my.  All we ever got

in college was “identity crisis”

and Columbian.

Maybe it was stronger than we thought.

Naw, fucked by cyclical nature

of cultural attention.

The gods were “reelin in the years”

(always thought that was reelin

in the yeast, which I translated

into “making a lot of dough”).

But maybe the gods did take

a rolling pin to our entire decade

and flatten out the lot of us.

Spliced over everything

and everybody from the end

of their Beatles to the

beginning of the other’s Reagan.

Not dead, though.   And should

have something to say.  Or,

since that’s not in vogue

anymore, our own way.

With words

of our own.

*

This is a rather straightforward poem that wonders: what happened to those who came of age in the 70s? Or, more specifically, what happened to those poets who identified the 70s as their decade?

I turned 20 in 1970. So I guess in some ways this should apply to me. In some ways it does. But in other ways … well, this reading will include some autobiography, because my 70s were and were not the author / narrator’s.

“I saw my generation / come of age but never heard.” The first line echoes the first bit of the most famous poem of the 60s, Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl”. One of the problems 70s people had was that they were living in the shadow of the 60s, which were already fabulous, in the fairy-tale sense of the word.

Why never heard? At this point, the author / narrator doesn’t know. The bulk of this poem is spent wondering.

“Much of the noise and abundant / music was still reverberating. / Maybe all the instruments were / all loaned out at the time.” At this point, it appears that the poem is talking about music, and that the author / narrator is wondering why the bands of the early 70s just didn’t have the “oomph” of the bands of the 60s. I think it’s obvious. As the 60s thing continued into the 70s it lost steam, and of course the innovators had gotten everywhere their epigones wanted get to first.

“Theirs had been not so much / a long decade as a wide one.” The author / narrator is nostalgic for what seems to have been missed out on. Everything seemed possible in 66 or 7; by 72 or 4, not so much.

Ten Years After.  Ten before.

Even Opie grew up and did something

with his life.

Once again, a sense of failure and belatedness.

Didn’t become Yuppies. We got stoned.

Maybe too stoned.

Mute.

Muter than stone.

The mutter of all stones.

U.S. Bongs may have been

            The only available instruments.

Now the author / narrator wonders if the reason for his generation’s failure’s was the weed. Personally, I got high every single day, probably half a dozen times a day, during the seventies. Often on several substances at once. Still, I had my notebook out, and I was writing. There was a problem with my writing at that time, which I’ll get to. But that’s to jump the gun. For all we know, the author’s still talking about music.

And if he is, all one has to do is think: 1940-50s jazz, and the plague of heroin, to realize that great achievement can come from extreme loadedness. I mean, it wasn’t like Lady was sober, or Bird, or Miles, or Trane … and still, they put out the shit.

In any case, for what it’s worth, I don’t think the problem was the dope. There is a good pun in there, by the way, “the mutter of all stones.” People smoked a lot of weed at that time, so it was, to quote a Saddam Husseinism, “the mother of all stones”. Or so it seemed at the time. (the coke and crack binge of the 80s were looming …)

I also think “Yuppies” is an anachronism. I think the 80s were the yuppies’ decade.

The dope is not permanent.

No one is.  Nothing is.

To stand up and be counted

upon.

Nixon, Ford.  Pardon me,

but Jimmy was the most

intelligent of the bunch

and he’s ignored, too.

At this point the author begins to wander a bit, in imitation of a stoner mind. He’s still more or less on subject, the apparent lack of achievement and / or recognition of his generation, but now he’s drifted away from music. There are the so-meaningful platitudes of the high, and the ramble over the surface of presidential politics …

Maybe there was something

in the air at the time.

Something Barrett and Ron

and Lynn and Carla and Bob and

Charles and others missed.

They’re not gods talking

about my.  All we ever got

in college was “identity crisis”

and Columbian.

Maybe it was stronger than we thought.

Naw, fucked by cyclical nature

of cultural attention.

In the first of these stanzas, the author / narrator’s mystification continues.

The next stanza is, to my mind, the really interesting and provocative one. The litany of names refers to the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets, as they were known at the time. It’s interesting for several reasons. First, is it an insult or a compliment that they missed what was “in the air at the time”? Given the lack of achievement the author / narrator has been bemoaning, it sounds like a compliment, since Barrett et all did manage to achieve plenty. On the other hand, since the stanza is followed by “They’re not gods talking about  / my” it sounds less complimentary. Or perhaps complimentary / uncomplimentary are not the right words. Perhaps relevant / irrelevant would be better. It seems to me that the author / narrator finds them irrelevant to his particular situation.

Now this is where I want to get autobiographical. Living at the same time the author / narrator did, living through the same “stuff”, I have to add that I didn’t really “get” langpo at first, either. But that was my problem, not its. They were just what my poetry needed at the time. I had run into a dead end, a cul-de-sac of self-boredom, with my 50s-ish “I”. The author / narrator has noted how wide the 60s has seemed. Bu the time Barrett etc had appeared on the scene, at least in any big way, the wide open 60s had narrowed to a pitifully thin thread. Peter Frampton, anyone?

What turn in the road had I missed, and by extension had the narrator of this poem missed: well, everything from 2^nd wave feminism to Stonewall to black and brown and red power – as exemplified in poetry at least. I hadn’t missed the political side of those things, but. Even though I knew artists practicing in light of those developments, I couldn’t see how what they were doing applied to me, straight suburban jewboy soaking up rays near the beach. How blind.

And what else? Well, the ultra-obvious: Punk. Which of course I didn’t miss as style or music (I was in London in 75), but as artistic practice / attitude, etc that I could apply. Combine all those missing threads, and yes, to quote the poet / narrator, there was indeed something in the air, but if my experience is at all like his, which I think it might have been by his set of references, he – and I – just missed it at the time. And made our creative lives difficult when they needn’t have been.

So when he writes

Maybe it was stronger than we thought.

Naw, fucked by cyclical nature

of cultural attention.

he’s got it wrong. Simply put, the 60s were dead, and their tagalong early 70s were too. The only reason he (and I) were fucked was because he forgot to live in the present.

The gods were “reelin in the years”

(always thought that was reelin

in the yeast, which I translated

into “making a lot of dough”).

But maybe the gods did take

a rolling pin to our entire decade

and flatten out the lot of us.

I’m not sure if he’s referring to the langpo poets here. He could be. Many histories record them as single-minded in their takeover of the scene, and quite heavy-handed. Not being on that scene, I don’t know. I’m just reporting, and speculating. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the stories were true. I know too many survivors.

By the last three stanzas he’s no longer complaining or wondering why he and his never did get center court at Wimbledon. In fact, he’s come to accept that there’s something unique about his generation. The Beatles belong to others as does Reagan. The 70s are his:

Spliced over everything

and everybody from the end

of their Beatles to the

beginning of the other’s Reagan.

Not dead, though.   And should

have something to say.  Or,

since that’s not in vogue

anymore, our own way.

With words

of our own.

By the end of the poem the author / narrator has reclaimed his place and time: it’s his. And he’s rejected langpo and all that’s come after (in the penultimate stanza). And he’s accepted that, regardless of fame, he should speak in his own “vernacular”.

To be utterly fair to Tills, I am aware that I’ve overlaid my own historical problems onto his. And he doesn’t deserve them. His poem has enough to do without carrying my weight, too. I liked reading it, and it called up a lot for me. So, good, good. And I won’t even mention that the publisher/proofreader missed the misspelling of Colombian.

*****

[Editor’s Note: This is one of 50 reviews written, mas o menos, in 50 days.  While each engagement can be read on a stand-alone basis, there’s a layer of watching the critic’s subjectivity arise in a fulsome manner if the reviews are read one after another.  So if you have insomnia and/or are curious about this layer, I suggest you read the 50 reviews right after each other and, to facilitate this type of reading, I will put at the bottom of each review a “NEXT” button that will take you to the next review.  To wit: NEXT.  And an Afterword on John's reading process is also available HERE!]

John Bloomberg-Rissman is somewhere towards middle of In the House of the Hangman, the third section of his maybe life project called Zeitgeist Spam (picture Hannah Hoch painting over the Sistine Chapel) The first two volumes have been published: No Sounds of My Own Making, and Flux, Clot & Froth. In addition to his Zeitgeist Spam project, he has edited or co-edited two anthologies, 1000 Views of 'Girl Singing' and The Chained Hay(na)ku Project, and is at work on a third, which he is editing with Jerome Rothenberg. He is also deep into two important collaborations, one with Richard Lopez, one with Anne Gorrick. By important he means "important to him". Anyone else want to collaborate? He blogs at Zeitgeist Spam.