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Authors: Roger Zelazny
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power as sources of extreme reading pleasure to me. Rilke and Lorca were there early, too. Pound I respected, but that’s hardly the same thing. Eliot seemed to have too many answers, and I was always suspicious of him no matter how well he phrased them. Galway Kinnell came later, and much later Diane Wakoski—along with a whole string of others. My formative years were past by then, though, and there is nothing to be gained by listing the names. Mainly, Hart Crane it was who struck the first chord I can recall, arousing my interest and later my respect, then love for the games the language plays.
Hell. I talk about these people and things as if I were a pro in this area, and I’m not. I mean only to state a few preferences and probable influences for Those Who May Care. I once knew the area fairly well, but I’m hardly out to reverse my decision of seventeen years ago and return to a first love with a boyish grin and a fistful of flowers. I feel more like one of the cows who’d wandered up to a trellis for lunch and later ruminated, “Everything’s coming up roses”.—Sorry about that, but there you are. I did have an extra reason for saying it, though.
I did win one other literary competition involving poetry in my college days. Cleveland poetess Collister Hutchison was asked to judge the contents of the April 1959 issue of Skyline magazine, selecting a single piece to receive a small cash award and a letter of comment. She gave it to my poetry parody piece “Decade Plus One of Roses” and allowed that despite its flippancy the author might amount to something as a writer one day if he applied himself. (For whatever it’s worth, here it is. It doesn’t belong in the body of this book, but it can occur at this point as an autobiographical gesture indicating interests and attitudes. Anyone with rose fever go directly to the end parenthesis and wait with the cow :
I. GERTRUDE STEIN.
The Rose rose from rose-rows.
II. HART CRANE.
Find me my paper,
here’s my pen;
Don’t bother to bring them back again.
IV. VACHEL LINDSAY.
The roaring rose reared, raging rosily.
V. W.B.Y.
Mystic Rose! Missive of powers Too powerful to thwart. Circle, rose,
Sword, cup and book. Let the throwers
Of darkness see the silver moon rose.
VI.ROBERT FROST.
You drowsed in the hammock that day
I planted a rosebush for you.
I think I’ll go and see your roses play
Among the winds. (Why don’t you come to?)
VII. e. e. cummings
Row sof paper ,pen-
siveth ought blown
up onpaged plen-
titudes ,m own
!
VIII. T.s. etc.
April is very cruel,
Consequently no roses in this hemisphere
(But among the Bavenda
Red flowers figure prominently in funeral rites).
IX.DYLAN THOMAS.
Paper rose! green in morning’s bed,
Gold in the evening, dead:
Hell rose in your writing to red.
X.WALLACE STEVENS.
One dozen ways of wearing roses,
And no one is wrong forever.
XI.ROSE ON THE ROAD.
Beat rose!
alcohol-petalled,
caricature-flower—
walked on in the defiling night
by fuzzyheaded disciples
of the rival-red poppy.
Homo rose!
crushed in the staggering morning,
spit upon,
cursed in the garbage-spilt light.
Gutter rose!
brother!
Well. End of gesture. He was a good kid and it was nice meeting him again. He began taking things more seriously immediately thereafter.)
As with my stories, I have nothing to say concerning the substance of the following pieces. They either say it themselves or fail to. In the former case, my comments would be redundant; in the latter, too late. I like to think that if I’d stayed with it I could have amounted to something as a poet. I hope these pieces at least show the direction in which I might have gone.
Roger Zelazny
Santa Fe, New Mexico
May 1978
THE POEMS
WHEN PUSSYWILLOWS LAST
IN THE CATYARD BLOOMED
When pussywillows last in the catyard bloomed . . .
Fine line.
Lacking an accompanying thought, perhaps,
yet...
My life is full
Hell. I talk about these people and things as if I were a pro in this area, and I’m not. I mean only to state a few preferences and probable influences for Those Who May Care. I once knew the area fairly well, but I’m hardly out to reverse my decision of seventeen years ago and return to a first love with a boyish grin and a fistful of flowers. I feel more like one of the cows who’d wandered up to a trellis for lunch and later ruminated, “Everything’s coming up roses”.—Sorry about that, but there you are. I did have an extra reason for saying it, though.
I did win one other literary competition involving poetry in my college days. Cleveland poetess Collister Hutchison was asked to judge the contents of the April 1959 issue of Skyline magazine, selecting a single piece to receive a small cash award and a letter of comment. She gave it to my poetry parody piece “Decade Plus One of Roses” and allowed that despite its flippancy the author might amount to something as a writer one day if he applied himself. (For whatever it’s worth, here it is. It doesn’t belong in the body of this book, but it can occur at this point as an autobiographical gesture indicating interests and attitudes. Anyone with rose fever go directly to the end parenthesis and wait with the cow :
I. GERTRUDE STEIN.
The Rose rose from rose-rows.
II. HART CRANE.
Find me my paper,
here’s my pen;
Don’t bother to bring them back again.
IV. VACHEL LINDSAY.
The roaring rose reared, raging rosily.
V. W.B.Y.
Mystic Rose! Missive of powers Too powerful to thwart. Circle, rose,
Sword, cup and book. Let the throwers
Of darkness see the silver moon rose.
VI.ROBERT FROST.
You drowsed in the hammock that day
I planted a rosebush for you.
I think I’ll go and see your roses play
Among the winds. (Why don’t you come to?)
VII. e. e. cummings
Row sof paper ,pen-
siveth ought blown
up onpaged plen-
titudes ,m own
!
VIII. T.s. etc.
April is very cruel,
Consequently no roses in this hemisphere
(But among the Bavenda
Red flowers figure prominently in funeral rites).
IX.DYLAN THOMAS.
Paper rose! green in morning’s bed,
Gold in the evening, dead:
Hell rose in your writing to red.
X.WALLACE STEVENS.
One dozen ways of wearing roses,
And no one is wrong forever.
XI.ROSE ON THE ROAD.
Beat rose!
alcohol-petalled,
caricature-flower—
walked on in the defiling night
by fuzzyheaded disciples
of the rival-red poppy.
Homo rose!
crushed in the staggering morning,
spit upon,
cursed in the garbage-spilt light.
Gutter rose!
brother!
Well. End of gesture. He was a good kid and it was nice meeting him again. He began taking things more seriously immediately thereafter.)
As with my stories, I have nothing to say concerning the substance of the following pieces. They either say it themselves or fail to. In the former case, my comments would be redundant; in the latter, too late. I like to think that if I’d stayed with it I could have amounted to something as a poet. I hope these pieces at least show the direction in which I might have gone.
Roger Zelazny
Santa Fe, New Mexico
May 1978
THE POEMS
WHEN PUSSYWILLOWS LAST
IN THE CATYARD BLOOMED
When pussywillows last in the catyard bloomed . . .
Fine line.
Lacking an accompanying thought, perhaps,
yet...
My life is full
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