Mary di Michele's "The Flower of Youth"

You read up on a great writer and director, what he wrote and what others wrote about him. You find affinities in thought and temperament, though you live in different times and places. You fly to Italy for an academic conference and make the pilgrimage to the writer's grave at Casarsa. There, sitting on a bench shaded by cypress, weeping for a man you have never met, you hear a voice whispering to you in Italian, which you don't know how to write, but find yourself transcribing. Translated into English, the voice said,

I leave the city and discover the sky,
The world is bigger than I realized,
Where there's nobody the stars are myriad.

That was what happened to Mary di Michele, according to her book's prologue, and what inspired her to write The Flower of Youth. The title is the same as that of the volume of verse Pier Paolo Pasolini wrote in dialect about his coming of age in the countryside during World War II. The verse that di Michele heard at Pasolini's grave speaks of the affinities that she found in the Italian writer. The usual migration goes from the country to the city in the search of a bigger world. di Michelle and Pasolini, however, found their world enlarged by leaving the city for the country. In her case, that journey is also a return, a homecoming, from Canada to Italy. Born in Lanciano, Italy, in 1949, she moved with her family to Toronto when she was six.

The Flower of Youth is organized in four parts. The Prologue narrates in verse and prose di Michelle's journey to Pasolini's grave. Part II "Impure Acts," the bulk of the book, speaks in the voice of Pasolini about the struggle between his sexuality and his faith. Instead of fighting in the war, he followed his mother into the countryside to set up a school for boys too young to be conscripted. di Michelle's poems take off from his own memoir about that period of sexual awakening. In Part III "After Pasolini," she translates the two very different versions of the poem that Pasolini wrote about his death, and she adds what she calls a permutation, a poem of her own about the reported circumstances of his death that deploys motifs from his poems.

The poems in Part II reproduce what di Michele discovered to her surprise when she read Pasolini's memoir. The World War is sidelined in favor of the internal battle. The bombs keep falling, but the real devastations are those of the heart and its desires. Most of the poems are written in quatrains with the last line of each quatrain shorter than the rest and indented. This stanzaic form proves to be admirably malleable and musical in di Michele's hands. The opening stanza of "Postscript(s)" introduces gently yet pointedly Pasolini's story in di Michelle's chosen form:

The fall of '47 I was 25 and still living
in Viluta. What made me stay so long?
What made me linger in that nothing place,
          that hamlet of ten houses?

The enjambment after "living" subtly reminds us of the casualties of war. The repetition of "What made me" fills out the entire length of the third line and the next, which also contracts to round up the small hamlet. di Michelle is also fond of breaking a line between an adjective and its noun. That device works  well in many instances to maintain narrative momentum, but may seem arbitrary in some places.

The sentiments traced in these poems are not extraordinary, but they are delicate. Sexual rendezvous takes place in discreet fields and secret woods, to which the reader's eyes are not privy, though enticed. In a few places, the plain language descends into conventionality, as when de Michele's Pasolini complains of a boy that "He erected invisible walls/ against me" ("Spring Far Behind"). The same poem, however, quickens in the end when Pasolini dreams of lying with him again in "a familiar bed," which for them is "some ditch fragrant with primrose." The invisible walls are unreal, a mere idea, but the ditch smelling of primrose brings the country and the sex to the nose.

In like manner the best poems of the book bring to life the physical environment in which the drama of love not only takes place but finds its embodiment. In "Hidden Corners/The Earth Moves," spring has returned and so has B. naked to the waist. He leads Pasolini into the woods, where

The dew had dried but the stones, gravel
from the river bank, still glistened; in the grove
where we lay together the Earth trembled
          with the passing trains.

The trains unexpectedly and perfectly convey the temporary vibrations of the encounter. In "A Thousand Birds," it's summer and the boys go back to swimming naked at the pit, their playful cries harmonizing with birdsong. Sitting by the pit, distracted from his Tasso and Tommaseo, di Michele's Pasolini is keenly aware of his envy "for those meadows where B. stepped/ shoeless into the long grass." The mixture of the sacred ("shoeless") and the sensual ("the long grass") is captured vividly in a memorable image. With such images the book convinces us that the country is more bountiful than the city.

Sam Mendes's "Richard III"

Last night, at the BAM Harvey theater, Richard III, directed by Sam Mendes, played to a full house. The production was the last to be mounted as part of The Bridge Project, a British-American collaboration. I enjoyed the Project's King Lear last year, the eponymous hero played by Derek Jacobi, and so looked forward to the play about the infamous, hunchbacked king. 

Kevin Spacey, as Richard, was disappointing. His performance stayed on a single note, that of a growling menace, that did not have any shade or space in it. His seduction of Lady Anne was utterly unconvincing because there was no charisma or sex appeal in the portrayal. The humor when speaking lines that are not supposed to be humorous was broad, almost farcical. Richard was almost a cartoon character in Spacey's hands.

The other actors were not particularly memorable, except two. Chandler Williams played the Duke of Clarence with restrained dignity. The scene of his execution was poignant, the tragedy accented by the comedy of the bumbling murderers. I also enjoyed watching Haydn Gwynne play Queen Elizabeth, wife of Edward IV. She was a survivor, hard and wily. In the end she outmaneuvered Richard by marrying her daughter to Richmond, future King Henry VII, first of the Tudor kings. 

The attempt to make Shakespeare our contemporary was heavy-handed. In the scene when Buckingham and the Lord Mayor of London begged Richard to become king, Spacey appeared, in a weird self-reflexive move for the film actor, on the projection screen. While Buckingham, played by the black actor Chuk Iwuji, rallied the crowd in a tone resembling that of a black preacher, Spacey refused the crown with the transparent dishonesty that recalled present-day two-faced politicians. We got the message, and then wished that we had gotten the message from the play by ourselves. 

Poem: "Emphasis"

Poem written on January 13 and revised two days ago, after reading it at Cornelia Street Cafe.

Emphasis

The night when the nuptial song inside the body had to be taken out by emphatic sign language

              Kim Hyesoon, “Ghostmarriage”

Sign language had not meant to lay a hand on her

but song looked only in the mirror when she sang.

After crossing his heart seven times and still failing

to turn her face, he reached for her with his hands.

She looked at him from eyes as placid as a cow’s

while her mouth squeezed the udder of her body.

The squirts of sound tasted warm, and for a while

he did not know to thank his hands or her singing.

He thanked her the only way he knew, shuddering

into the soft places where his hands had pounded.

The song wrapping its tenderness around the sign,

when he spilled his seed he could almost speak.

Loved and Lost

WL and I watched the French movie Domaine (2009) at the IFC last Monday. A story about a gay teenager (Isaïe Sultan) who loves and then leaves his glamorous aunt (Béatrice Dalle) when she descends into alcoholism. Trust the French to glamorize a woman by making her a Math whizz. There is insufficient substance in the plot to hold the attention, but the cinematography is beautiful. The script, written by the director Patric Chiha, is rather self-consciously literary, with stage-managed echoes and parallels.

"Steam: The Turkish Bath"

Directed and co-written by Ferzan Ozpetek, this is a subtle and beautiful film about waking up from one's unhappiness. Francesco and Marta run a small design firm in Rome. Marta has been cheating on her husband. When Francesco's Aunt Anita dies in Istanbul, she left to him one of the few remaining hamam or Turkish baths in the city. Intending to sell the bath at first, Francesco is warmly welcomed into the family running the bath, attracted first to the daughter, then to the son. Seduced by Istanbul, he decides to stay and re-open the bath.

His affair with the son is discovered by his wife who breaks up with him. To help her understand his feelings, Francesco shows her the letters his aunt wrote to his mother about falling in love with Istanbul. After he was stabbed by a hired thug of a ruthless developer and died, Marta finds herself staying on to complete Francesco's project, the re-opening of the hamam. I like very much how the film shifts midway from Francesco's perspective to Marta's, the real successor to the indomitable Anita who never appears in the film but whose spirit presides over it.

Alessandro Gassman plays a very believable Francesco, whose happiness is so sadly short-lived. Francesca d'Aloja is a memorable Marta, very French in her self-possession. Mehmet Günsür plays the very attractive son, also called Mehmet. After watching the movie, GH and I talked about visiting Istanbul, so drawn we were to the muted, crumbling, sensual images in the film.

Poem: "A Town Called Road" (first draft complete)

A Town Called Road

After the departure of the gods resembling desire

            Tada Chimako, “The Town of Sleep”

First Report

The town looks open as the moon looks open.

It shines faintly and faraway even on the inside.

A silver road cuts through the heart, if a heart

can be called a heart when it heaves like a ship.

In the north, the local woods are taciturn

unless they are asked for a light,

and they will unfold from their sleeves a light

and their mouths will open.

It is easy to take a wrong turn.

The south, also called misleadingly the port side,

tilts towards the ships.

Second Report

The trade in hearts

is thriving like nowhere else. A full-grown heart

goes for a thousand dollars in broad daylight.

It is considered an act of deep friendship

to bring out from the kitchen and open

a fresh heart. Feelings, however, must be put aside;

a gift is a favor to be returned.

On TV public men speak by turns

of the nourishing taste of a good heart.

Down by the docks, on the far side,

I have seen a young woman’s face alight,

a moon-glow openness,

when hearts come in on a tanker ship.

Third Report

A full report will leave by the next ship.

Fourth Report

Every three months, the town turns

invisible for a full day, unopened.

Like a blood clot spreading through the heart,

a thick, black light

invades from the inside.

There are no more outlines and outsiders,

only the whisper of worship.

What is the changing light

of the seasons, the trees’ attention-seeking turns,

compared to the heart

when it closes and opens.

Final Report

I should turn myself in for going over to the other side

but the ships show a red light. To the quiet woods

I will bring the moon lady and to her mouth open my heart.

Poem: "A Town Called Road: First and Second Reports"

A Town Called Road

After the departure of the gods resembling desire

            Tada Chimako, “The Town of Sleep”

First Report

The town looks open as the moon looks open.

It shines faintly and faraway even on the inside.

A silver road cuts through the heart, if a heart

can be called a heart when it heaves like a ship.

In the north, the local woods are taciturn

unless they are asked for a light,

and they will unfold from their sleeves a light

and their mouths will open.

It is easy to take a wrong turn.

The south, also called misleadingly the port side,

tilts towards the ships.

Second Report

The trade in hearts

is thriving like nowhere else. A full-grown heart

goes for a thousand dollars in broad daylight.

It is considered an act of deep friendship

to bring out from the kitchen and open

a fresh heart. Feelings, however, must be put aside;

a gift is a favor to be returned.

On TV public men speak by turns

of the nourishing taste of a good heart.

Down by the docks, on the far side,

I have seen a young woman’s face alight,

a moon-glow openness,

when hearts come in on a tanker ship.

Poem: "A Town Called Road: First Report"

A Town Called Road

After the departure of the gods resembling desire

            Tada Chimako, “The Town of Sleep”

First Report

The town looks open as the moon looks open.

It shines faintly and faraway even on the inside.

A silver road cuts through the heart, if a heart

can be called a heart when it heaves like a ship.

In the north, the local woods are taciturn

unless they are asked for a light,

and they will unfold from their sleeves a light

and their mouths will open.

It is easy to take a wrong turn.

The south, also called misleadingly the port side,

tilts towards the ships.

Poem: "One More Dispatch from a Distant Land"

One More Dispatch from a Distant Land

When I was fifteen, becoming a woman frightened me. When I was eighteen, being a woman struck me as loathsome. Now, how old am I? I have become too much of a woman. I can no longer return to being human; that age is gone forever. My head is small, my neck long, and my hair terribly heavy.

            Tada Chimako, “From a Woman of a Distant Land”

It was the most exquisite form of torture yet invented. The schools trained us to be rigorous scientists, subtle logicians, discriminating literary critics, scrupulous theologians. We were given every form of encouragement. Then we were overtaken by our bodies. We bled heavily without a wound. We joined with men, hoping to be shattered, but only mild pleasure, if not disgust, happened. They, on the other hand, cried like babies or dogs and wanted the same for us.  So we faked it and after a while could not tell the body’s rumor from the world’s reality.

I am one of the luckier ones. I stopped dating and threw myself into teaching. I have found some measure of satisfaction in seeing my charges flourish. This one will be an earthbound astronaut strapped to her seat of her skirt. This one will write poems about “women’s issues,” which will be anthologized in volumes of women’s writing. This one, the most intelligent of her class, will devote herself to raising her kids. She and I will meet occasionally for coffee and debate passionately the merits of marriage. She will succeed in making me doubt my luck.

Jorge Luis Borges's "Labyrinths"

There are marvels in Borges's mazes, but there are no monsters, or more precisely, the monster is the maze. The thin line between fiction and fact, the multiplying paths of choice, the confusion of chance and fate, the interdependence of memory and forgetfulness, the regressions of infinity: these are the speculative themes embodied in his short stories, which are ostensibly about secret cabals, German spies, an endless library, ancient sacrifice, murder mystery, theological controversies, and the failure of a medieval Muslim intellectual to understand the Greek categories of comedy and tragedy. Borges takes a popular genre, such as crime thriller or science fiction, and, by exploring and subverting its conventions, exposes our assumptions about reality. My favorite stories in this collection are "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis, Tertius," "The Garden of Forking Paths," "The Library of Babel," "Funes the Memorious" and "Death and the Compass." In these the starting premise is developed to the fullest extent; the mazes are not only complex but shapely.

A few of the stories, such as "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" and "Three Versions of Judas," read like essays. I find them unsatisfying as stories, but wonderfully teasing otherwise. This collection does give a selection of Borges's essays written as essays. The two essays that shed the greatest light on his stories are "Avatars of the Tortoise," which is about Zeno's paradoxes, and "A New Refutation of Time" about his idealistic outlook. The essay "The Fearful Sphere of Pascal," which traces the evolution of the image of "a fearful sphere, whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere," reads like one of his stories.

In the essay "The Argentine Writer and Tradition," he argues that the Argentine writer should not limit himself to local or national subjects. Instead, the whole world lies at his feet. "For that reason I repeat that we should not be alarmed and that we should feel that our patrimony is the universe; we should essay all themes, and we cannot limit ourselves to purely Argentine subjects in order to be Argentine; for either being Argentine is an inescapable act of fate--and in that case we shall be so in all events--or being Argentine is a mere affectation, a mask." The sentiment here resonates with me. A writer "creates" his own predecessors, as his essay on Kafka argues, and the writings finally create a symbol of a man, like the infinitely sensitive Paul Valéry or the liberating George Bernard Shaw, who wrote in a letter, quoted admiringly by Borges, "I understand everything and everyone and I am nothing and no one."