·:[ Stephen Vincent ]:·
• • • • •

Since the start of the year, I thought my Mom had given up on her relatively new calling as a poet, though she has had some good moments between the winter and spring. The pieces she dictated I will bring together later. But there was a period, where she seemed more sleepy than awake, where she would say little or nothing. I would give her an idea or a prompt, as well as praise and encouragement to go forward, and she would remain completely silent, sitting on the couch, her eyes wandering a bit. Desperate for words, she would announce, “I am dumb”, or more poignantly, and to the point, “I don’t think I can do this work. All the things I have to work with are gone.”
However, she continued to love to listen to the poems which I would read her. In fact, in anticipation for the “Walking” events at Poets House in New York at the start of the May (announcement in the previous entry), this past Saturday night. I read her several pieces from Thomas A. Clark’s “Distance & Proximity”, a lovely and very smart, philosophical book of sentences (prose pieces) in praise of primarily country walking. (A Scottish poet and press, the book may be still available through Small Press Distribution or Amazon). Or to quote a sample:

We can walk between two places and in so doing establish a link between them, bring them into a warmth of contact, like introducing two friends.

My mother clearly got her ear into the work and hummed little sounds of appreciation for different lines, different thoughts. When I finished a section, I asked if she could take us both on an imaginary walk. She lifted her chin, opened her eyes wide, and got right into it, “it” being a zone of consciousness that I will not try to define beyond giving back what I wrote down as she spoke:

We’re going on an imaginary walk
And it’s a very good experience.
Why is it a good experience?

Do you think you are too fat?
Do you think you are too cold?
Where is the grandmother here?
Do you know anymore?
Who do I look like?
I don’t know any of these things
And so far in my life
It has never bothered me.
Does it bother you?
If so, why?

Tonight I am very tired of being
something I am up against
at the low end of the apple.
What is next for a poor, old
bedraggled female?
Do you know?
I just don’t know
what to think of life.
Scares me to death.
What shall I do now?

You are sitting in the “garret” seat.
(What is a ‘garret’ seat, I ask her.)
I don’t know, so I just made one up.

Did you look at something for yourself
or were you looking for us?

Where should I turn?
Is “turn” just a label?

Please talk.
Do you like to hear me talk?
I think I am going to go to sleep.
Will I be close enough to you
To read your walk?

When I read the work I had written down back to her, she listens closely. Unlike other times - when she thinks I am reading her something I have written - she claims ownership, and says, “I don’t think this is interesting to you, but it is interesting to me, because it is about my mother and my children.” I don’t ask her to explain the logic of this particular take. She’s clearly taken her understanding of the work into yet another realm.

The world, or the state of consciousness, to which her work had already taken me was interesting enough; one in which my sense is that we are hearing the meditations of a mind at the final stages before taking leave of this world. Though I personally do not look forward to inhabiting that space, particularly if it comes about in such in this seemingly tormented way. Yet, I still find it quite amazing to witness the various ways in which she articulates her going about this, and the way it emerges as poetry. I was so astonished, for example, when she questions whether or not to “turn” still has any meaning for her, or whether or the word is an empty “label”, and, in this particular “imaginary walk”, there is no concept of turning back. Or, what does it symbolically mean to her to be “at the low end of the apple”? Gail Larrick, a friend, suggests it might be a take on Eve, who, grown old, is no longer having the power to taste of the apple, nor benefit from interest in its knowledge.

My mother’s manner of beginning to part is so different than that of my father, the way I was help lead him through his final passage. While he lay in his hospital bed, no longer mobile, but conscious, I was able to recount and take him to the spaces and loves of his life, letting me lead him on a kind of space travel through the episodes with which I was familiar. A couple of times in the final days of his consciousness, we were able to take imaginary sail boats on the San Francisco Bay. He had been a sailor and environmentalist who knew and intimately loved the San Francisco Bay. Sitting him up on an imaginary seat over the boat’s tiller, we were able to go around the entire Bay, taking in the bridges, the islands, Mt. Tam, and the trail that helped to make possible along the edges of the water. He smile and hummed with pleasure as I recited the different sights and accomplishments that had given his life a real joy. Finally, we were able to let the boat be taken by wind and tide under and between the spires of the Golden Gate Bridge.

My mother’s current space or consciousness is so different and comparatively troubled, though obviously not without the relief and pleasure that she finds in her own and other’s poetry.
These days, the more I hear from people my age, I find it curious - if not inevitable - how many of us end up variously mid-wifing our folks and friends to this other side. Certainly, I suspect, not a bad way to prepare for our own demises and departures!

When I help guide my mother and her walker towards her bedroom to go to sleep for the night, out of nowhere she announces, “I am Barbara Vincent. When I am gone there will never be another Barbara Vincent.”

Now that sounded pretty scary but, gosh, how final, and maybe proud, can one get with oneself? Strange as it might sound, I suspect there will always be another version of Barbara Moore Vincent! I also think it good that we can appreciate this one while she is still around.

Two Walking related events at Poets House in Manhattan, New York, both of which I am involved. One a Friday evening Panel, and one, a late Saturday morning walk. If you are anywhere near the neighborhood, please come join us:

Friday, May 4, 7:00pm
The Poetics of Walking: Baudelaire and Beyond
with Brenda Coultas, Lytle Shaw, Jonathan Skinner & Stephen Vincent

At Poets House, 72 Spring Street, Second Floor, Manhattan, New York

In this foray into the flâneur tradition, panelists address the poetry that emerges from the fundamental act of walking, with insights from such immortal amblers as Whitman, Baudelaire, O’Hara and other peripatetic poets. In conjunction with the panel, Poets House will sponsor a series of weekend poetry walks in Manhattan on Saturday, May 5th at 11:00am.

Brenda Coultas is the author of A Handmade Museum. Lytle Shaw’s books include A Side of Closure and Frank O’Hara: The Poetics of Coterie. Jonathan Skinner is the editor of ecopoetics and teaches Environmental Studies at Bates College. Stephen Vincent’s most recent poetry books include Walking and, soon forthcoming, Walking Theory(Junction Press).

Saturday, May 5, 11:00am
The Poetics of Walking: Weekend Poetry Walk

In conjunction with “The Poetics of Walking” panel (on May 4), Poets House will sponsor a series of urban poetry strolls for writers and artists. Each walking tour will be led by a “Poetics of Walking” panelist and will feature illuminating historical information and a series of creative exercises en route.

Participants are encouraged to bring writing and/or drawing materials. Meetup locations will be specified upon registration.

$25/ $15 for students. Pre-registration is required. To register, call (212) 431-7920 or email classes@poetshouse.org. Registered participants will also receive free admission to the May 4th panel discussion.

Walking the Bowery
Guide: Brenda Coultas

Brenda Coultas, the author of A Handmade Museum, leads a writing tour from Cooper Union to Chinatown, with stops along the way to observe signage, graffiti, people, nature and the changing demographics of the Bowery.

Listening Walk in Central Park
Guide: Jonathan Skinner
Jonathan Skinner, the editor of ecopoetics, leads an acoustical tour through Olmstead’s oasis with exercises that focus on sounds both natural and human.

Canal Street & Tribeca: The Street vs. Architecture
Guide: Stephen Vincent

Stephen Vincent, the author of the poetry collection Walking and the forthcoming, Walking Theory, explores walking as “immersion and revelation” and invites participants to take note of voices, sounds, signage, colors and architectural shapes in the cityscape. The walk will culminate in a gathering and discussion at Walkers, a restaurant.

Dutch Manhattan : Controversial Terrain
Guides: Lytle Shaw with Jimbo Blachly

Lytle Shaw, the author of Frank O’Hara: The Poetics of Coterie, and visual artist Jimbo Blachly introduce participants to the Chadwick Family, who will offer a rare perspective on Manhattan’s past, revealing several 17th Century sites that pertain to their family’s misunderstood and maligned history.

@ Poets House
$7, Free to Poets House Members

It is curious about the way some ghosts are given a permanent space. In the house of someone either recently or long dead, he or she might be among those assigned, as this one, to become the face of a garage door. Most likely, the ghost - a son, a daughter, even a mother or father - has absolutely no future and, no matter how conscious, only limited hope of any liberation from this circumstance. Most likley, the dead one was a suicide or a criminal, someone who either once lived in the neighborhood, no doubt, in fact, in the very house overhead and behind the garage. Night or day, its eyes - those windows - clean or dirty, will remain constantly open, an inveterate witness to the comings and goings of local life, including plants, trees and flowers. The current residents of the house, in order to park their car, will not only frequently lift and lower the ghost’s door, but, as if to add insult to injury, occasionally their vehicles will accidently bump and scratch its face, then let the scratches remain exposed.

Each day, the families of such dead, and even some of the neighbors, as one might imagine, remain petrified in face of such a door. In the spiritual realm, the flesh of their souls becomes drier than dry bones. The language of dreams disappears. The door is never repainted, except, perhaps, the odd, dirty gray. To passerbys, the door betokens the sure sign of a living cemetery - whose surviving spirit here may still be dangerous.

As one might hear from a higher guide, be advised to walk by such a door with caution.

I once saw an empty powder blue wheelbarrow. It belonged to Sally Avery, the painter. This was in Woodstock at her house. She was 98 or so at the time, radiant, still painting. I never forget the powder blue wheelbarrow in the driveway next to a baby blue painted wall. She was 98 or so at the time.

An anonymous man in the neighborhood comes to a quit. The arms have fallen off his wheelbarrow. The barrow is rust. Only the rubber tire is full. A man in the neighborhood comes to a quit. He refuses to drop his last load. The various pieces of lumber – cut, broken and useless. A full barrow and he does not care. The pale shock of light across the wood appears sufficient. He has come to a still quit. Basking. Anonymous.

Guerrero Street, westside, near 19th Street, San Francisco.

It was a crude, desperate move. Cutting through the wall. Pointing the light downward. They were looking for him. No one had seen him since the election. He had disappeared. Gone, it seemed, literally underground. There was apprehension that he was still up to his old tricks. He had dropped his language - all that manipulation of speech. But that he was still operative. Joining the disappeared, the gang that could no longer hang together in public. These banished. These who had articulated, orchestrated and enforced the execution of the renditions, the tortures.
The hunt was on. They had to be taken by the throat. They had to be brought back up. Formally accused. Formally tried. Be fully judged by a jury. Given long terms. Put in the appropriate cells. Their accurate narratives rendered public. Made visible. Taught. Not to be repeated.

Church Street at 21st., southeast corner building.

Politcal psychogeography is an emerging discipline - combining the arts - here now in the early 21st Century.

While out walking, I am sometimes haunted by the ghost of the work of Philip Guston - or is it, as well, the actual presence of the artist himself? Which is to say, whatever I remember of seeing Guston’s work - and I have seen a great deal - the work, or some aspect of the spirit of the work, periodically transforms itself to reappear in the form of something local, something material. It is as though Guston is a constantly manifesting spirit of the underworld, one who is neither permitted to fully die or go away. He refuses to leave us candy. He will be ours to deal with for a much longer time.

I probably do not have many theories about Philip Guston. He is one of my favorite artists.
Why? I think he and Robert Crumb and Jack Spicer are each and variously in this dark dance with Edgar Allen Poe, that is, Poe’s writing and the ways in which that writing explores a specifically American underworld. By that, I mean, a psychic space in which there are no winners, no sunny optimism, no midwestern or southern California smiles. Whatever the aspiration of any of this quartet of artists and writers, the aspiration is betrayed and practicually tortured at the root. The ghost of the destroyed father haunts each of their works. For example, the way Guston at the age of 12 or something - living in Los Angeles - discovers his father hanging - a suicide, in the family backyard full of junk. His father was a professional junk man. It was though his father’s psyche had drowned in all the junk of his personal and public world.
When Guston gives up Abstract Expressionism in the late 1950’s, his canvas’ are over taken by junk - soles and boot heels separated from the body of their shoes. The figures, too, comic book-like characters, also look separated from the tree of any family, any connection. The way KKK figures in whit hats and robes inflict themselves on to the canvas, on to us. The sense of dislodgement, the alienation empties or flatens any full sense of human presence among them, Guston’s portrayal of Nixon, included. At most, the characters and objects make motions, small gestures. No matter how powerful the paintings as paintings - in which the act of art making may be the only revenge - the canvas’ reveal a self-mocking desperation about limits of living in an estranged, and tortured universe. (Yes, Samuel Beckett comes to mind).

Even the old stuff, the abstractions, reappears:

But here, in the ghost of the reappearnce, the sense of romance, or the seeming soft sublime, is exchanged for something muted, scratched, tarnished - a tough, non-objective form of realism. A shift from Monet to Manet to Serra. A nakedness discovered on the street that needs to be confronted from within and without. In Guston - if when you stop and behold - there is no way to walk on without a price. Inside or outside the psyche, Guston - his ghost or ghosts - continue to own one part of the street.