Another Pair of Poems by Jackson Mac Low

I wanted to post the last two poems that Jackson Mac Low wrote to commemorate the fact that I just read Thing of Beauty in its entirety, which was no small feat for me.

14 September 2004 82 years + 2 days

Waldoboro, Maine

Trying to write is strange.

I haven't for more than a year, I think.

A rare car is whirring by, back of me, going to my left.

Nearest row of trees, several feet in front of me, and running offstage to my right.

Others farther in front at my left.

A mowed lawn going back until trees take over for good.

Both kinds of trees.

Still Waldoboro Wednedsay a.m. 9/22/2004

In the yard just beyond the red dying tree.

White butterfly swerving around in front of it and off in front and away.

Little line of bushes ends while the line of piled boulders swerves around and comes up to the wooden "gate" about ten feet to the right of me.

The pile of boulders goes on past the wooden "gate" and back of me.

A wild wind from my right.

The leaves of the dying red-leaved tree only move a tiny bit in the wind to the right, a few feet in front of me--just to the right of the front of the older part of the house.

It's a lovely nearly-autumn day in Maine.

Warm sunshine with a continuing intermittent little wind that stops and goes, mostly goes.

The little bit of Gerolsteiner is warming in the sun right in front of me, but I'm back of it in the shade.

Anne was here but she's gone inside.

I hear passing cars somewhere way to the right but they're far away in back at the right and invisible.

A bird squeaks in twos in front, and to the left.

Now one at a time, a different bird.

And feeble peeps at the far left and a very soft dump-tee-oh.

Don't ask what birds--they speak a little and stop.

Now a continuing up swerving down over and over

And a repeated tec-oo-WEE but never loud.

The German water's still a bit cool.

The wind's blown in first and on the back of my head and then on my left ear and now from the left and then from the front and then the back.

Two three white butterflies and a fly and a dragonfly that stops & then hurries away.

I'm going inside for a wee bit.

I dropped the cover for my pen in the grass in front of me, but Anne found it.

I'm not going inside yet because Anne's reading a book in the sun to the right & in front.

It's not quite autumn, but leaves are falling, especially from the tree with red leaves in front & to the right of the house.

A tiny yellow crawler on my sleeve before I blow it into the grass.

I didn't go inside before, but now I will, but not for long.

--from Jackson Mac Low's Thing of Beauty: New and Selected Works Ed. Anne Tardos (U of California Press, 2008)

A Pair of Poems by Jackson Mac Low

Manifest

To manifest: to be, visibly.

To make visible what was formerly invisible or otherwise to make sensible what was formerly not.

To present or make present, vocally, visibly, or otherwise, one's views, sentiments, objections, etc., in reference to a matter of public concern.

Manifest: a commercial document listing constituents of cargo or names of passengers on a plane, ship, or other vehicle.

A manifest of meanings.

To make evident or certain by showing or displaying.

Readily perceived by the senses, especially by sight.

Easily understood or recognized.

Obvious.

To become obvious.

To be, obviously.

To be, recognizably.

To become recognizable.

To emerge as a figure from a ground.

To become visible, or otherwise perceptible, as an agent.

To act.

To make interior states perceptible to others.

Manifesto: a public declaration of principles, intentions, views, or feelings.

A document in which is said explicitly what otherwise might have remained implicit in political, artistic, or other practice.

To present or make present.

To present for inspection what might not otherwise have been able to be inspected.

To make the implicit explicit.

To make the interior exterior.

To make the hidden unhidden.

To say what might not otherwise have been said.

Choose one or more of the following:

Every text is a manifesto.

Every (adjective) text is a manifesto.

Every text worth reading is a manifesto.

18 June 1983

New York

Unmanifest

What the maker of a manifesto does not comprehend or acknowledge is the basic unmanifestness from which and within which each manifestation takes place. It is this neglect or ignorance that calls forth repugnance when a manifesto is proclaimed or published, especially one regarding art. As if what comes to being in and as the work of art could ever be totally manifest or even manifest at all without its abiding steadfastly in the unmanifest! A work of art is a manifesto only insofar as it is its own antimanifesto.

21 June 1983

New York

--from Jackson Mac Low's Thing of Beauty: New and Selected Works Ed. Anne Tardos (U of California Press, 2008