29
Songs
#1
Madison, Wis., remembering the bloom of Monticello (1931)
1
March 1931/ Contact (Feb. 1932) and An “Objectivists” Anthology (1932)
In
a 3 Sept. 1931 letter to EP, LZ calls this his “Helen Kane-Jefferson poem,”
suggesting it might help to imagine this poem being recited by Helen Kane
(1903-1966), a very popular American singer of the time who began in vaudeville
and introduced scat elements into her songs (EP/LZ 98-99). Kane is also
favorably mentioned in the original version of “‘Recencies’ in Poetry” (Prep+ 211), where LZ remarks
that the poem is “to be spoken with an accent on every syllable—like vaudeville
recitative” (213).
Title: Madison, Wis.: LZ spent Nov. 1930–May
1931 teaching at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where he worked on a
never completed book on Thomas Jefferson, How Jefferson Used Words, which is often
mentioned in his correspondence with EP during this time; also mentioned at
“A”-12.257.3.
bloom of Monticello: from a 27 March 1997 letter by Thomas Jefferson to his daughter,
Martha Randolph: “The bloom of Monticello is chilled by my solitude. It makes
me wish the more that yourself and sister were here to enjoy it.”
40.1 empty bed blues: popular blues song
recorded in 1928 by Bessie Smith (1894-1937) at the height of her fame. The
first stanza follows:
I woke up this morning with a awful aching head
I woke up this morning with a awful aching head
My new man had left me, just a room and a empty bed
40.5 “Keep in it deer, /
rabbits, pigeons…: the quoted passages in this poem are from Thomas Jefferson, Garden
Book,
which details his work in and observations on his gardens at the Monticello
estate (Leggott 95-96). The following is a 1771 note on ideas for the gardens:
“Keep in it deer, rabbits, Peacocks, Guinea poultry, pidgeons &c. Let it be an
asylum for hares, squirrels, pheasants, partridges and every other wild animal
(except those of prey.) Court them to it by laying food for them in proper
places.”
40.7 “the figure will be
better / placed…: further 1771 notes by Jefferson for his gardens: “let the
spring enter at a corner of the grotto, pretty high up the side, and trickle
down, or fall by a spout into a basin, from which it may pass off through the
grotto. the figure will be better placed in in this: form a couch of
moss.
the English inscription will then be proper.”
40.27 the brain / Lenin’s: this may refer to the
fact that Lenin’s brain was removed for study on his death in 1924, and in 1929
the German neuroscientist Oskar Vogt published a report on his findings.
41.2 “keep the / thorn
constantly / wed”: from Thomas Jefferson’s instructions, dated 13 May 1807, to his
overseer at Monticello, Edmund Bacon: “Keep the thorns constantly clean wed”
(Leggott 96).
#2
Immature Pebbles
1931
Commentary
LZ
comments on this poem in his 1968 interview with L.S. Dembo (Prep+ 239-240).
In
manuscript this poem has the title, “Sunday, April 12, 1931: Madison, Wis.”
(Scroggins Bio 493).
41.1 An Imponerable is
an article of make-believe…: from Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929), The Vested
Interests and the Common Man (1919), Chap. 1, “The Instability of Knowledge
and Belief.” On LZ’s interest in Veblen see also “A”-8.56.13f, 8.59.19f,
“A”-12.257.7, Prep+ 16:
“Any
knowledge that runs in such out-worn terms turns out to be futile, misleading,
meaningless; and the habit of imputing qualities and behavior of this kind to
everyday facts will then fall into disuse, progressively as experience
continues to bring home the futility of all that kind of imputation. And
presently the habit of perceiving that class of qualities and behavior in the
known facts is therefore gradually lost. So also, in due time the observances
and the precautions and provisions embodied in law and custom for the
preservation or the control of these lost imponderables will also fall into
disuse and disappear out of the scheme of institutions, by way of becoming dead
letter or by abrogation. Particularly will such a loss of belief and insight,
and the consequent loss of those imponderables whose ground has thereby gone out
from under them, take effect with the passing of generations.
An
Imponderable is an article of make-believe which has become axiomatic by force
of settled habit. It can accordingly cease to be an Imponderable by a course of
unsettling habit. Those elders in whom the ancient habits of faith and insight
have been ingrained, and in whose knowledge and belief the imponderables in
question have therefore had a vital reality, will presently fall away; and the
new generation whose experience has run on other lines are in a fair way to
lose these articles of faith and insight, by disuse. It is a case of
obsolescence by habitual disuse. And the habitual disuse which so allows the
ancient canons of knowledge and belief to fall away, and which thereby cuts the
ground from under the traditional system of law and custom, is reenforced by
the advancing discipline of a new order of experience, which exacts an habitual
apprehension of workday facts in terms of a different kind and thereby brings
on a revaluation and revision of the traditional rules governing human
relations. The new terms of workday knowledge and belief, which do not conform
to the ancient canons, go to enforce and stabilise new canons and standards, of
a character alien to the traditional point of view. It is, in other words, a
case of obsolescence by displacement as well as by habitual disuse.
This
unsettling discipline that is brought to bear by workday experience is chiefly
and most immediately the discipline exercised by the material conditions of life,
the exigencies that beset men in their everyday dealings with the material
means of life; inasmuch as these material facts are insistent and
uncompromising. And the scope and method of knowledge and belief which is
forced on men in their everyday material concerns will unavoidably, by habitual
use, extend to other matters as well; so as also to affect the scope and method
of knowledge and belief in all that concerns those imponderable facts which lie
outside the immediate range of material experience. It results that, the
further course of in changing habituation, those imponderable relations,
conventions, claims and perquisites, that make up the time-worn system of law
and custom will unavoidably also be brought under review and will be revised
and reorganised in the light of the same new principles of validity that are
found to be sufficient in dealing with material facts.”
41.25 mandrill: large baboon of west
Africa with distinctive bright red and blue or violet markings on the face and
rear of the adult male.
#3
Prop. LXI (The Strength of The Emotions—Ethica ordine geometrico
demonstrata: IV)
16
April 1931/ An “Objectivists” Anthology (1932)
In
“‘Recencies’ in Poetry,” the preface to An “Objectivists” Anthology (1931), LZ remarks that
this poem “in defense of the conceit is curious—since it contradicts on the
face of it all his critical values opposed to the confusion of the senses.
Still, […] the digression of mentality is perhaps only another fact for the
poet to record” (Prep+ 213). LZ made a similar remark on sending the poem to EP
in April 1931 (EP/LZ 97).
Title Prop. LXI…: As the subtitle
indicates, the title refers to Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), Ethics, whose full original
Latin title LZ gives, meaning Ethics proved in Geometrical Order. This particular
proposition is in Part IV: The Strength of the Emotions (qtd. Bottom 16): “Desire which
arises from reason can have no excess. Proof.—Desire (Def. Emo. I)
absolutely considered is the very essence of man in so far as it is conceived
as determined in any manner to do anything. Therefore desire which arises from
reason, that is (Prop. 3, Part III.), which is engendered in us in so far as we
are active, is the very essence or nature of man in so far as it is conceived
as determined to do those things which are adequately conceived through the
essence of man alone (Def. 2, Part III.). If, therefore, this desire can have
excess, then human nature considered in itself can exceed itself, or could do
more than it can do, which is a manifest contradiction. And therefore this
desire cannot have excess. Q.e.d.” (trans. Andrew Boyle). Spinoza was a major
life-long interest of LZ’s, particularly important in “A”-12 and Bottom.
#4
Train-Signal
26
May 1931/ Pagany (Autumn 1931)
#5
“It’s a gay li – ife”
26
May 1931/ Contempo (April 1932)
Commentary
Scroggins,
Mark. Louis Zukofsky and the Poetry of Knowledge. Tuscaloosa: U of
Alabama P, 1998. 186-187.
#6
—“her soil’s birth”
22
Aug. 1931/ An “Objectivists” Anthology (1932)
LZ
indicates in a 3 Sept. 1931 letter to EP (EP/LZ 98) that this poem
imitates the form of Edmund Waller (1606-1687), “Go, Lovely Rose.” The first
stanza of Waller’s lyric follows:
Go, lovely Rose—
Tell her that wastes her time and me,
That now she
knows,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.
#7
“Who endure days like this”
9
April 1932
#8
“Happier, happier, now”
30
Nov. 1931
#9
“In Arizona”
28
April 1932/ Contact (Oct. 1932)
This
and the following poem came out of LZ’s cross-country trip to San Francisco
with Jerry Reisman in the spring of 1932. The concluding scenes of Ferdinand are set in the
Southwest desert and presumably recall this trip.
#10
Arizona
29
April 1932/ Contact (Oct. 1932)
When
originally published in Contact, this poem lacked the current title, simply
titled “Song 10,” but added the subtitle: “(towards Phoenix, Arizona).” See
previous.
#11
Home for Aged Bomb Throwers—U.S.S.R.
11-22 Nov. 1933/ Bozart-Westminister (Spring/Summer 1935)
#12
“Whatever makes this happening”
20
June 1932
#13
“in that this happening”
22
June 1932/ Il Mare (1 Oct. 1932)
Written
in response to EP sending LZ a check as travel money to Europe in a letter
dated 16 Aug. 1932 (EP/LZ 135), although as Scroggins points out, given
the date on the manuscript not originating as such (Bio 503). Although LZ did
not use the check, he did visit Europe and EP in the summer of 1933. EP was
responsible for printing this poem in Il Mare, a Rapallo, Italy
weekly in which he had a regular literary column. LZ’s poem was accompanied by
a translation into Latin by Basil Bunting (see Bunting’s “Verse and Version,”
in Collected Poems 130). In a Sept. 1932 letter to LZ, Bunting discusses his
translation in some detail; qtd. Sister Victoria Marie Forde, S.C., “The
Translations and Adaptations of Basil Bunting,” in Basil Bunting: Man and
Poet,
ed. Terrell F. Terrell (Orono, ME: National Poetry Foundation, 1981): 303-304.
#14
“The sand: For the cigarette finished”
3
Aug. 1932
#15
“Do not leave me”
15
Aug. 1932
#16
“Crickets’”
15
Aug. 1932
Commentary
Hatlen, Burton. “A
Poetics of Marginality and Resistance: The Objectivist Poets in Context.” In
Rachel Blau DuPlessis and Peter Quartermain (1999). 50-52.
#17
Imitation
10
Nov. 1932/ Symposium (April 1933)
49.11 THE ACADEMY OF THE HOLY CHILD: the first stanza and a
half of this poem describe St. Walburga’s Academy of the Holy Child, a convent
and school for girls. The prominent building was known as “the castle” and
located on Riverside Drive and 140th Street, 20 blocks north of Columbia University.
49.21 Xavier: St. Francis Xavier
(1506-1552), Jesuit disciple of Ignatius Loyola, most famous for his zealous
missionary work in South and East Asia.
#18
“The mirror oval sabers playing”
28
Nov. 1932
In
manuscript given the title “9 and Nine” (Booth 162).
#19
“Checkers, checkmate and checkerboard”
29
Nov. 1933
#20
“Ears beringed with fuzz”
5
Dec. 1932
Commentary
Dembo, L.S. "Louis
Zukofsky: Objectivist Poetics and the Quest for Form." American
Literature 44.1 (March 1972): 74-96. Rpt. Terrell (1979): 302-303.
#21
“Snows’ night’s winds on the window rattling”
13
Dec. 1932
#22
“To my wash-stand”
13
Dec. 1932/ Symposium (April 1933)
Commentary
Hatlen, Burton.
“Zukofsky, Wittgenstein, and the Poetics of Absence.” Sagetrieb 1.1 (Spring 1982):
63-93.
52.26 modillions: ornamental brackets
used in series under a cornice (AHD).
#23
“The Immediate Aim”
7
March 1934
Title “The Immediate
Aim”:
although often enough echoed in Lenin and other strident Leftist writings, the
primary origin of this phrase is Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto: “The immediate aim of
the Communists is the same as that of all other proletarian parties: Formation
of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest
of political power by the proletariat” (trans. Samuel Moore).
56.6 his own gravedigger: Cf. Marx and Engels, The
Communist Manifesto: “The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under
its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates
products. What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, is its own
grave-diggers” (trans. Samuel Moore). See Arise 42.
#24
This Fall, 1933
12
Nov. 1933/ Bozart-Westminister (Spring/Summer 1935)
#25
No One Inn
1
Dec. 1932
#26
A Junction
7
Aug. 1933/ Bozart-Westminister
(Spring/Summer 1935)
In
the manuscript LZ notes this was written in Budapest (Booth 62).
#27
Song—3/4 time
8
Dec. 1933/ Bozart-Westminister (Spring/Summer 1935)
During
the seminars he gave at the U. of Connecticut in 1971, LZ indicated that he
wrote this poem to the tune of “Three O’Clock in the Morning,” a popular waltz,
which is mentioned in F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925) as “a neat, sad
little waltz of that year” (Butterick 161).
58.1 Right out / of / Das
Kapital…:
as LZ indicates, the following quotation, as well as that beginning at 61.1 to
the end, is from Karl Marx, Capital Chap. 3 (Money, or the Circulation of
Commodities), Section 2 (The Medium of Circulation), Subsection a (The
Metamorphosis of Commodities), paragraphs 42 and 43:
“The
circulation of commodities differs from the direct exchange of products, known
as barter, in substance as well as in form. This is shown by a single glance at
the course of events. The weaver has certainly exchanged his linen for a bible,
exchanged his own commodity for a commodity that belonged to some one else. But
this phenomenon is only true for him. The seller of the bible, who has a
taste for something that will warm up the cockles of his heart, had no more thought
of exchanging his bible for linen, any more than the weaver knew that wheat was
being exchanged for his linen; and so it goes on. B's commodity replaces A’s
commodity; but A and B do not reciprocally exchange their commodities. It may,
of course, happen that A and B make simultaneous purchases each from the other;
but such a particular relation is by no means a necessary outcome of the
general relations under which the circulation of commodities takes place. We
see here, on the one hand, how the exchange of commodities breaks down the
individual and local hindrances attendant upon the process of barter, and
furthers the circulation of the products of human labor. On the other hand, there develops a
multiplicity of social relations that are spontaneous in their growth and are
quite outside the control of the actors. The weaver is only able to sell his linen
because the farmer has sold the wheat; the bible agent is only able to sell the
bible because the weaver has sold linen; the distiller is only able to sell
the strong waters because the bible agent has already sold the waters of eternal
life; and so on.
Consequently,
the process of circulation does not, like direct barter, come to an end as soon
as the use-values change places or change hands. Money does not disappear
because it ultimately drops out of the series of metamorphoses undergone by a
particular commodity. It is constantly being precipitated into new places in
the arena of circulation, places vacated by other commodities. For instance, in
the complete metamorphosis of the linen (linen—money—bible), the linen drops
out of circulation, and money steps into its place; then the bible drops out of
circulation, and money steps into its place. When one commodity replaces
another, the money commodity always remains in the hands of some third person.
Circulation sweats money unceasingly at every pore” (trans. Paul and Cedar
Eden).
#28
“‘Specifically, a writer of music’”
24
Feb. 1934
Commentary
Twitchell-Waas, Jeffrey.
“Louis Zukofsky.” Review of Contemporary Fiction 22.3 (Fall 2002):
19-20.
This
prose poem is clearly related to the “Thanks to the Dictionary” project, which
LZ composed off and on through most of the 1930s largely by improvising out of
the dictionary, so that a given paragraph tends to be created out of words and
definitions found on a given page or in close proximity—the page often selected
at random by throwing dice. For a discussion of LZ’s method in writing “Thanks
to the Dictionary” see Quartermain, “Writing and Authority” 160-163, who states
that LZ used two different dictionaries: Funk and Wagnalls Practical
Standard Dictionary (1930) and Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (1917). The following
notes only pretend to point out some of these references or connections.
61.1 “Specifically, a
writer of music”: = composer. “Thanks to the Dictionary” is very much taken up
with the story of David, which does not seem to overtly come into the “Song 28”
text, except here at the opening, in passing in paragraph 5 and the quotations
from the Psalms at the end.
Paragraph 2: the Titan
is Prometheus and proximate words include prolong, promenade.
Paragraph 4: donkey,
donna (Anna), Don Giovanni, perhaps Don Quixote.
62.16 daughter of the governor of
Seville:
Donna Anna, who Don Giovanni attempts to rape in the opening scene of Mozart’s
opera, Don Giovanni (1787); her father, the governor (or Commendatore), is
killed by Don Giovanni when he attempts to interfere. In the end, Don Giovanni
will be dragged down to hell by the stone statue of the Governor, although donkeys
are not involved. See “Non Ti Fidar” (CSP 123).
62.25 dancing-master named Fox: Harry Fox, a
vaudeville actor, was the originator of the foxtrot in 1914 (see 63.6).
Paragraph 5: four
o’clock is a bright trumpet shaped flower in various colors that opens in
mid-afternoon and stays open until early morning. Native to tropical America
and also called “marvel of Peru.” Proximate words include four, four-in-hand,
fourposter, foursome, four-way, four-wheeler. The sentence beginning “In rows
of townships…: describes the utopian scheme of François Marie Charles Fourier
(1772-1837). Fox trot is a ballroom dance that varies from quick to slow.
Paragraph 6: tangent,
tangible, tangle, tango, tangram (a Chinese puzzle as described), tansy,
tannic, Tao(ism), tapdance, Tantalus, tantivity, taper, taps.
Paragraph 7: Draco
(northern constallation) from dragon (mythical monster), which can also mean a
short musket, flying dragon (genus Draco, arboreal lizard), dragon fly (= devil’s
darning needle), possibly dragon boat. Tannim, Heb. of uncertain
meaning applied to various animals translated as dragon in the Bible.
64.18 There went up a smoke…: LZ identifies the
last four sentences or phrases as from the Psalms:
Psalms 18:7-8: “Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the
hills moved and were shaken, because he was wroth. There went up a smoke out
of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it.”
Psalms 38: 5: “My wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness.”
Psalms 66:12: “Thou hast caused men to ride over our heads; we went through fire
and through water: but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place.”
Psalms 68:1-2: “Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered: let them also that
hate him flee before him. As smoke is driven away, so drive them away: as wax melteth before
the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God.”
#29
N.Y.
24
Jan. 1933/ Poetry (Sept. 1933)
Title: When originally
published in Poetry, this poem was simply numbered 29, underneath which
appeared in italics: (N.Y. 1/29/33); the above date as given in Booth may be a
misreading.
64.1 “At heaven’s
gate” the larks: see Shakespeare,
Sonnet 29:
When, in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possess’d,
Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising)
From sullen earth, sings hymns at Heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with Kings.
64.7 January the 29 , the 29th birthday:
according to Leggott, LZ believed for many years that his birthday was 29 Jan.;
when he finally located his birth certificate, he read it as the 26th, only
later to rescrutinize it to discover his birthdate was actually on 23 Jan.
(116); the last is the date referred to at “A”-23.563.8.
64.9 As planned…: see LZ’s terminal
note to 55 Poems (CSP 73) and note on 55 Poems.
“Further
than”—
20
Jan. 1935
65.18 abscissas: The coordinate
representing the position of a point along a line perpendicular to the y-axis
(vertical axis) in a plane Cartesian coordinate system (AHD).
