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From a panel discussion on "Pure and Impure Poetry" at the third annual Poets Forum in New York City, Oct. 17, 2009.
Transcript
Jean Valentine: Does anything pure exist?
Lyn Hejinian:In the vernacular, contemporary colloquialisms, people speak of something as 'Pure Poetry,' and usually they mean an athletic achievement—like a great basket, or a great tennis serve, or maybe a pony that gallops around a field and tosses its mane in the wind: pure poetry. And those things exist.
As soon as we say them, they're pure sentimentality, in a way, or fan-dom—Like: "What a great shot!" or "Man, that guy's good. Pure poetry!"
So, do you think there's...?
Valentine: No.
Hejinian: No, good thing. The only chance for humans is in our impurity. All apologies to the saints.
To the Black Madonna of Chartres - Jean Valentine
Friend or no friend,
darkness or light,
vowels or consonants,
water or dry land,
anything more from you now
is just gravy
—just send me down forgiveness, send me down
bearing myself a black cupful of light.
Jean Valentine
The Branches - Jean Valentine
The branches looked first like tepees,
but there was no emptiness.
Like piles of leaves waiting for fire:
at the foot of the wisewoman trees,
at the foot of the broken General,
next to the tree of the veteran
girl who died this summer slow red
cloth
Jean Valentine
Red Cloth - Jean Valentine
Red cloth
I lie on the ground
otherwise nothing could hold
I put my hand on the ground
the membrane is gone
and nothing does hold
your place in the ground
is all of it
and it is breathing
Jean Valentine
Poems for Blok, 1 - Jean Valentine
Your name is a—bird in my hand,
a piece of ice on my tongue.
The lips' quick opening.
Your name—five letters.
A ball caught in flight,
a silver bell in my mouth.
A stone thrown into a silent lake
is—the sound of your name.
The light click of hooves at night
—your name.
Your name at my temple
—shrill click of a cocked gun.
Your name—impossible—
kiss on my eyes,
the chill of closed eyelids.
Your name—a kiss of snow.
Blue gulp of icy spring water.
With your name—sleep deepens.
Jean Valentine
La Chalupa, the Boat - Jean Valentine
I am twenty,
drifting in la chalupa,
the blue boat painted with roses,
white lilies—
No, not drifting, I am poling
my way into life. It seems
like another life:
There were the walls of the mind.
There were the cliffs of the mind,
There were the seven deaths,
and the seven-bread offerings—
Still, there was still
the little boat, the chalupa
you built once, slowly, in the yard, after school—
Jean Valentine
I have lived in your face - Jean Valentine
I have lived in your face.
Have I been you?
Your mother? giving you birth
—this pain
whenever I say goodbye to thee
—up to now I always wanted it
but not this
Jean Valentine
Hospital: strange lights - Jean Valentine
I needed a friend but
I was in the other room
—not just the other room,
another frame
dragging blue
or brighter blue: strange lights:
The doctor singing from The Song of Songs
'in the secret places of the stairs'
Us standing there in the past
as we were
in life
you turning and turning my coat buttons
Jean Valentine
Friend - Jean Valentine
Friend I need your hand every morning
but anger and beauty and hope
these roses make one rose.
Friend I need a hand every evening
but anger and hope and beauty
are three roses
that make one rose.
Let's fix our bed it's in splinters
and I want to stay all year.
Let's fix our bed it's in splinters
and I want to stay all year.
Did you hear what that woman on Grafton Street was saying?
You won't be killed today.
We don't even know we're born.
Jean Valentine
Fellini in Purgatory - Jean Valentine
He was shoveling sand
at the edge of the water, his heavy black glasses
glittered with rain:
"Don't you see how much like a woman I am?"
Shovel, shovel.
His throat was wrapped in water,
and the water flowered with milt.
Shoveler, are you eating the earth?
Earth eating you?
Teach me
what I have to have
to live in this country.
And he, as calm as calm, though he was dead:
"Oh,—milt,—and we're all of us milt."
Jean Valentine
Father Lynch Returns from the Dead - Jean Valentine
There's one day a year
they can return,
if they want.
He says he won't again.
I ask what it's like—
he quotes St. Paul:
"Now hope is sweet."
Then in his own voice.
Oh well it's a great scandal,
the naked are easier to kill.
Jean Valentine
Eleventh Brother - Jean Valentine
one arm still a swan's wing
The worst had happened before: love—before
I knew it was mine—
turned into a wild
swan and flew
across the rough water
Outsider seedword
until I die
I will be open to you as an egg
speechless red
Jean Valentine
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