'A gift of tangerines ... '
Firstly, to those of you who've been wondering where poem of the week has got to: apologies. I've been in and out of the office through August, and I'm afraid it's been one of the things that has slightly fallen by the wayside as a result. But! I'm back now, and after a fairly poetry-heavy month I have a couple of splendid offerings for September.
Today's poem, however, isn't one of mine - this is a suggestion from Billy Mills, who recommended it in the wake of all the Beats week blogging to which we've been playing host.
"It's by Lew Welch," he explains, "a somewhat forgotten Beat poet. Welch attended Reed College with Gary Snyder and Philip Whalen in the late 40s/early 50s and met and was encouraged in his writing by William Carlos Williams there. On May 23rd, 1971, he walked out into the woods near Snyder's farm and has never been seen or heard of since. This poem dates from around 1950, and reflects something of the bittersweet humour of much of Welch's work, I think. It also shows fairly clearly that he'd been reading Williams."
As Billy points out, this poem reveals a clear debt to Williams' 'This is Just to Say', particularly in the final lines, and in the cleanness and simplicity of the language, too. What do you think of it?
Anecdote of Tangerines by Lew Welch
I with fifteen cents to spend would make a gift of tangerines
walked 47 blocks and back where they were cheap enough with 8 fruit bought from the man with a cart at Paddy's market
so cold it was that day that when an old lady lifting up her veil spit the spittle on the sidewalk steamed
the son of a bitch slipped 4 spoiled ones in and the girl phoned up breaking the date
so I ate them the 4 remaining tangerines section by section alone in my room spitting the seeds into a dish
they were
sweet
