{"id":2899,"date":"2012-10-26T20:02:08","date_gmt":"2012-10-26T20:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregglory.com\/wordpress\/?p=2899"},"modified":"2023-07-08T10:20:28","modified_gmt":"2023-07-08T10:20:28","slug":"the-curse-of-the-gilded-lily","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/posts\/the-curse-of-the-gilded-lily\/","title":{"rendered":"The Curse of the Gilded Lily"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reading at the Telephone Bar, NYC, March 6th, 2006 [Banquet and Ascent to be read aloud.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Tonight\u2019s selection will be two poems of opposite tenor. They tell weird interior tales of consciousness stretched to the uttermost. The references beyond the dome of one soul\u2019s feelings are erudite, scattershot. The thread of the feeling must be noticed, and followed, for these experiments in lyrical insistence to work. Once the thread has been caught, and pulled tight between you and me, here in this room, tonight, together we may strike a chord and hear the heavenly music which is always part of poetry\u2019s supposing.<\/p>\n

The first poem, \u201cBanquet,\u201d is the dark, devilish core of the exploded poet. A withering inward glance at the toothless uselessness of poetry. How, when the thread\u2019s not grasped, or when the poet in too hot self-contemplation incinerates the thread before it can be grasped\u2014only the drama of the pyre can satisfy. As when Hamlet, at the close of his trials, drowns the disaster with a refreshing blood-bath. This is how a failure to communicate must end.<\/p>\n

The second poem is, instead, a \u201cloaded ode to limitlessness and light.\u201d It has some beatific banter, and some instructive couplets. This is what may arise, phoenixlike, from the auto-da-fe of the first poem. There are longish passages of scenery; the inner feeling has suffused the world in its hopeful glow. The goal of universal love is presented as a given, and the world itself must be the context for that love, today as every day. The soulful voice in the second poem, \u201cAscent,\u201d seeks to incite a response to the poet\u2019s coo and call. Good luck to us all.<\/p>\n

BANQUET
\n[Available elsewhere on this site]<\/p>\n

ASCENT
\n[Available elsewhere on this site]<\/p>\n

THE CURSE OF THE GILDED LILY (AFTER-HOURS)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The reading at The Telephone Bar was a blazing success. It\u2019s no exaggeration to say that I was smashed; I mean, that I was a smash. There\u2019s something about poetry reading events that ignite all the ambition and envy in my soul. Although, ambition and rivalry is nearer the mark. I don\u2019t really feel a negative envy of the other readers. I enjoy their soarings and homilies.<\/p>\n

But I do feel a bit left out\u2014seated on the curb as the parade rages on. Harold, the MC of the evening, walleyed and tall in his vintage red sweater, said I\u2019d\u2019ve fit right into Mardi Grais (from which he\u2019d recently returned), and promptly furnished the fireplace with the remnants of my reader\u2019s notes. The goldenrod pages flared a moment and then joined the eternal ashes in the grate.<\/p>\n

Somehow, even when people dig what I do, invitations to participate, or gestures of connection, rarely follow the brief fellow-feeling. It was quite unusual for Julie Androshick to ask me up to New York to be a featured reader after listening together to a previous poetry event which she had hosted in the toasty backroom. Most people seem to think that I\u2019m already some kind of success, or that I\u2019ve got \u201cmy own thing\u201d going on. That happened even in college, when by definition every writer\u2019s just a callow hack full of egocentrically tender self-regard. My professors thought I didn\u2019t need or want any encouragement or too- close guidance or helpful hints simply because of the radiant bliss I experienced in poetry\u2019s presence. I\u2019m the snagged and angry Daffy Duck, but come off as the brazenly bouncy Bugs.<\/p>\n

It might just be that because I enjoy myself so immensely and intensely at these outings that people empurple with a wry shyness\u2014almost as if I\u2019d find them out as fakes or dime-store swamis. I\u2019m always holding myself back, way back, yet am full of a very visible, if not risible, \u201cmire and spark.\u201d I\u2019m going to call this the curse of the gilded lily. Too much shine to actually be divine.<\/p>\n

But, unlike the Music Man with his biblical tarrada-tant-ta, I have not found a way to turn my spurious shine to good effect. Oh, poetry\u2019s just not about hosing the wogs in Iowa for a sheckle. (Not anymore, eh Homer?) It\u2019s all about sifting the shiftless from the shineola; those moments of drifting like a thought, a golden straw flitting down from the haypile.<\/p>\n

If there\u2019s one thing I\u2019m not, it\u2019s a success. 1200 rejections in a single year bear pop-eyed witness to that. Weary years of wringing words from turds have taken me precisely as far as I could walk in a desert unaided and unwatered. No phoenix will rear and arise here, only more of my alienated longing for beauty will occur.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d love for my words to wend their way somewhere other than to the fiery pit; to sigh a sonnet from a teleprompter, or band-aid my hands from book-signing injuries. Anything that would extend, enhance, or deepen those solid moments of eye-to-eye embarrassment that I live for. But those I meet who enjoy a buoyant success, only offer me their scorn and condescension. Ah, yes, it\u2019s the back of the hand for me\u2014and you, too, my readers\u2014and then the lily\u2019s in the wastebin.<\/p>\n

The heat in the room was more oppressive than a Swedish sauna. It was Hell, with mittens. Women with their wonderful slopey breasts were in evidence, and I was a hit with the geriatric set. Those soonest to die love the poets best.<\/p>\n

Signing off,
\nProf. Harold Hill
\nMarch 7th, 2006<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading at the Telephone Bar, NYC, March 6th, 2006 [Banquet and Ascent to be read aloud.] Tonight\u2019s selection will be two poems of opposite tenor. They tell weird interior tales of consciousness stretched to the uttermost. The references beyond the dome of one soul\u2019s feelings are erudite, scattershot. The thread of the feeling must be […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001002,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[762,3,1725],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays","category-poetry","category-personal","category-762-id","category-3-id","category-1725-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2899"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7749,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2899\/revisions\/7749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}