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Morton Marcus: Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the Poetry Show. I'm your host Mort Marcus. And right off the bat, I would like to thank Plaza Books on Pacific Avenue in Santa Cruz for the generous donation which makes this program possible in

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part. Tonight, we are very happy to have Janet Wondra with us, who will read her poems. Janet is no stranger to Santa Cruz, though she lives in Alameda now, she is a graduate of UC Santa Cruz, then San Francisco State. And she has done a lot of

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teaching, especially in museums, and has had a number of publications. Welcome to the show, Janet. Janet Wondra: Thank you, Mort. I'm glad to be here. Morton Marcus: Well, it's good to have you here after all this

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time. And did you get a chance to spend some time in Santa Cruz today? Janet Wondra: Well, just a little bit. I dropped into Bookshop Santa Cruz where I used to work and where I think we

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met, and went out to dinner and that's about it. But it's been delightful, good weather. Morton Marcus: Good weather. And it's great to see people who have left come back and who are a part of the very exciting and

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vital poetry scene several years ago. We, certainly I, certainly hate to lose that vital core of poets and painters and potters and everything that were once so prevalent here in Santa Cruz. But we are going to hear what has happened to you over the

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years. And I would like you right off the bat to read us a poem. Janet Wondra: Okay. Morton Marcus: And let the people out there know what Janet

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Wondra's poetry sounds like. Janet Wondra: Okay, I think I'll start with an older poem called, "Swans and Geese." And this poem is sort of an imaginative extension of what might happen after the fairy tale The Wild

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Swans, and it starts with a quotation from that fairy tale. SWANS AND GEESE The swans came close up to her with rushing wings and stooped round her, so that she could throw the shirts over them. And

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when that had been done, the swan skins fell off them and her brothers stood before her in their own bodies quite safe and sound. But as one shirt wanted the left sleeve, so the youngest brother had a swan's swing instead of a left arm.

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ONE The youngest prince has the wing of a swan, he remembers best. At night, his brothers ask for the story of their flights, how the lake rocked them between the reeds. He stretches his white

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wing as they watch and folds it to his human side. TWO My father calls to say, "We follow the geese. They are flying over the house now. Can you hear them?" I imagine the

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phone suspended. Every morning they fly across the valley, every evening back. We sat in the car toward dusk, five miles off we heard them crying. Then we followed. Your mother stuck her head out the window, all the way to the reservoir, but they

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didn't stop. We don't know where they go. THREE The valley is caught in the visible spectrum, this rainbow lid. The lungs swell to the turquoise that rises to purple

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and the geese. The far curve of the hills does not propel them. Their wedge-shaped flight, their trailing feet, sketch shopping centers, housing tracks where street lamps flash on as wings of light. My parents sit, silent in their dark car as the valley

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cups itself to the song of geese. "We follow them into the hills," my father says. The headlights FOUR picked out monkey flower and Indian paintbrush but they went

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on. Maybe they transform another spot. It is a fairy tale deeper in the hills. Your mother hung her head out the window, they didn't stop. Maybe we will sleep there tonight. FIVE

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The princes asked their sister to knit them new shirts, to take the nettles again between blistered fingers, better than shoes, or the book, or boundless kingdom is the moment neither swimming nor flying, legs longing toward that lake-bound

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glide. Morton Marcus: Now a poem like that is obviously symbolic. And would you say, if I may go so far, that the the geese, for example, really are our dreams and our hopes of a more ideal

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world, which is, in many ways contrasted with the shopping malls and things like that, which you mentioned? Janet Wondra: Well, yeah, I think so. I tend not to, you know, analyze it too closely. I tend just to basically to write

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it, but I think that's true. I mean, this is something -- part of this -- is something that really happened. When I grew up in the San Fernando Valley, we did seem to be on this flight path with the geese, and it's strange now that I'm living on

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the island of Alameda, there are quite a lot of geese, probably about thirty geese who spend part of the year at a nearby golf course, and every day fly over my house there. And there's something really wonderful about seeing these wild geese in a

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totally urban setting, wondering what they must think of it. But to me, it just seems like a really magical moment when they fly over, and I do find myself wishing I could go too. Morton Marcus: There was a sense of that, of "The Wild Swans at

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Coole" by Yeats in the poem. I think that was an intentional echo was it not? Janet Wondra: Well, I do admire Yeats tremendously, so I think, you know, I think we're working in the same vein a little bit,

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but I don't think that I was thinking of that poem when I wrote it. Morton Marcus: Okay, you come from Santa Monica, I take it, or somewhere there-abouts?

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Janet Wondra: I grew up in Tarzana. Morton Marcus: And tell us a little bit about that. Janet Wondra: Well, it was a great place to grow up. I used to walk through orange groves to get to school and my cat would

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go into the orange groves and bring home a baby jack rabbit and he never hurt them. He really he liked them very much. So there was the sense of growing up kind of on the border between suburbia and a wilder kind of country because we're

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right at the edge of the Santa Monica Mountains. So for me, it's quite sad to have seen that turn into such an overdeveloped and overpopulated area. Morton Marcus: No more orange groves whatsoever I take it?

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Janet Wondra: No, there's an occasional orange grove left in the yard of, you know, the houses that took the place of the orange groves. Morton Marcus: Okay, I think you actually have a poem about Santa

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Monica and all those years ago. Janet Wondra: Uh huh. Let's see. Yes, this this poem stems from a story that my parents told me when I was a child. And then after I wrote the poem they

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claimed not to be able to remember having told me the story, but the story is, that's where it came from. So this is called: SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA 1949.

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In the moonlight, a man and woman walk a curved street. The grass is edged to box-like perfection. Every lawn smooth enough for lawn bowling. The hour is moderate, the couple moderate although newly married, the weather foggy so the

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electric lines crackle and hum like a radio. Or the sky is clear and the evening star is rising. That same star the woman will point to when it is the morning star and she is my mother. She wears loose flannel pants, a jacket of houndstooth

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and a worried look because her hair is losing its wave and maybe she isn't pretty enough. The man is happy and sorry, because the night is navy blue, but he has a mother and a grandmother, and now a wife although she's different and

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doesn't complain, but they call and call. Before the street straightens there is a house golden with a many-paint window curved at the top, and framed is a room with the radiance of a banquet. In this curve rests a harp. A young woman with wavy

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hair plays it, and the couple imagine her bow sitting behind the draperies or to the side at the invisible edge of the dining table. The harp undulates, the electric lines buzz, the music floats and settles as the woman silences the strings with one

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hand. She rises, leaves the window. They imagine her joining her friend who is tall and straight and sure. My father stares at the empty frame and says, "Someday you will have a harp and a curved window." My mother is silent. She rests her

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hand on his arm, tips her head back and smiles a little. She wants so much, a golden light like a banquet, my father to be happy. Morton Marcus: Now, these are two poems read on your parents.

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I take it you're very close to your parents. Janet Wondra: Well, you know, comme ci, comme ça. Morton Marcus: Were there a cycle of poems, or a lot of poems written about them?

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Janet Wondra: Oh, there was kind of a short cycle. Trying to, to, I think kind of use them as a way to deal with the idea of kind of an ideal world. I think in my family, there's a certain sense that it's kind of like being kicked

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out of paradise, you know, that at some- at some stage -- which you can never figure out whether it existed, I mean, it didn't exist -- there was a more ideal world and we're always longing after it.

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So it's an idea that troubles me. And I think that's sort of where these poems came from. Morton Marcus: Interesting. Yeah, they have that, that sense of the Golden Age, attend to get

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back to it. Also, what's really great is it so there's a real pristine quality about your language and- and the words themselves, how everything just sort of follows very clearly, like sort of lights sparking off diamonds, and things like that.

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Janet Wondra: Oh, thank you. Morton Marcus: So I've noticed that about your poems before. Okay, let's go on to another poem. And, you know, and introduce it any way you want.

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Janet Wondra: Okay, this poem is one that I sort of associate with the time that I lived in Bonny Doon. And you and I have talked about Bonny Doon before, your hikes up there and poetry writing. I lived on a forty acre property and about thirty acres

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were meadow and I used to spend a lot of time in the meadow, writing poetry, reading, and particularly watching this small group of deer that lived there. So this is called: TO A LITTLE CLATTER OF HOOVES

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She looked at him like a deer feeding, steady brown eyes. It wasn't boring because she might bolt anytime. She said, "Sometimes every sound sounds like music." It was the summer the fruit was succulent but tasteless, oddly. At first they

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didn't notice. She made the most of it holding an apricot to her cheek saying, "Imagine if I really were this color." She dissolved to a little clatter of hooves, apricot, close-brushed fur on a flank. "You act like you're stalking." She glanced

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sideways. "The way you use your eyes, one step behind me but hiding." A shadow of pressed grasses in the meadow where she had been lying. He had never seen a woman so quickly unfold her legs.

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Morton Marcus: Okay. Janet Wondra: What can you say? Morton Marcus: Well, no. Okay, now I'm- I mean that poem, are you watching the deer, or these people are watching the deer?

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Janet Wondra: Well, in a sense, I think that the deer are just there as a kind of an imagination, as a comparison. But for me, it's interesting, the animals that we choose to compare people to, it seems significant. And that's one

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thing I was thinking about as I was driving down here today, you know, what is it about geese that captures my imagination? What is it about deer. And some of it is grace, although I don't think of geese as being graceful, except really when

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they're flying. But also, I think about how we choose the characteristics that we want. I mean, for example, with swans, swans look tremendously graceful when they're moving across the water. But one reason for that is that we don't choose to

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imagine, you know, their sort of paddles, their little orange paddles going on underneath the water. So it's kind of selective viewing and I think that's going on in this moment between the man and the woman.

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Morton Marcus: Interesting, interesting. Okay and you've got one more poem in this series. Janet Wondra: Okay. Morton Marcus: If you're wondering what's going on out

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there, folks, I've got a little list of poems that Janet plans to read. Janet Wondra: Let's see, this is a poem that I wrote soon after I moved to San Francisco. I was living on a sort of a gentle

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slope, kind of a hillside coming down from a reservoir and I could hear the movement of the weather, I could hear like a rainstorm coming towards me and then it would hit. So this poem is called:

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FINE The storm rushes the hillside, electricity tensing, what you could hear before the doorbell rang, before she walked in on the words, "It's over." It's been empty for a long time. And

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you remember the sound of air before the doorbell and you think it crackled, a piece of paper you were trying to smooth out. You thought you had something fine, the crackled paper you smooth and smooth. Its tiny creases marbling the

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surface, or maybe a crackle glaze on a shard with still a little dirt clinging. You thought it was beautiful, you thought it was supposed to look like that. Morton Marcus: To me that is beautiful because it's so much

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that you don't describe, that is just implied and comes in through the language. And that- the image of the cracked paper alone, which is very, very interesting, what's left out in that case really works. In fact, in a lot of these poems, it's

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what's left out. This pristine quality sort of just say exactly what needs to be said, and then the waves of suggestion move from that, which is really, you know, something devoutly to be wished by most poets. Well, let's go on, I know that there

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is a series that I want to get in. What we're going to do here tonight, in fact, is we're going to hear a series now, from Janet, and we're going to talk about it and then after the break, we're going to have some experiments that Janet has been

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doing, and we're sort of moving chronologically through her work and what we're gonna talk about now is a group called the Darwin Series. And why don't you tell us a little bit about the series and some of the many things you're trying to do in it?

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Janet Wondra: Well, the series is actually called, "Darwin Said." And I think that the genesis of the series is interesting. I was reading a poem in a magazine by another poet and she had taken sort of a large chunk of quotation from

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Darwin and sort of stuck it in the middle of the poem. And I thought, well, it's an interesting idea. I don't think that it's really successful in this situation and in my great pride and hubris, I said, "Well, I could do a better job!" So

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that's how I got started. And what I've done is I've read a lot of Darwin, "The Origin of Species," and journals of his and letters and so forth. And in a way it was a bit like taking a vacation when you don't have the money, it was an opportunity to

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travel to the Galapagos- Morton Marcus: Especially with The Beagle right? Janet Wondra: Right. Morton Marcus: From the Beagle, they're incredible.

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Janet Wondra: Yeah, yeah. Morton Marcus: Beautiful, descriptive writing. Janet Wondra: So I've borrowed some of Darwin's imagery and then tried to weave some of his quotations into the poems.

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Morton Marcus: Now, okay, so we've got this idea of the poet as scientist, or the scientists- the relationship of scientist and poet. Janet Wondra: Uh huh. I think that there are quite a few

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parallels between scientists and poets. Both scientists and poets have to observe very carefully. And not only that, but I think the role of imagination in science is sometimes neglected, that in order to to come up with a hypothesis a scientist has to

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be imaginative. And I think from childhood, I've had a tendency to kind of, you know, pretend I'm a scientist, you know, and go out in the world and observe things and try to cook up explanations. And the poetic part comes in, I think, because

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lots of times I like the explanations, not because they're the most efficient or the most elegant in their simplicity, but because the quality of the imagination pleases me, so that's why I'm not a scientist.

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Morton Marcus: Now there is a note here about Herzog. Janet Wondra: Oh. Morton Marcus: I take that that's Werner Herzog? Janet Wondra: Yes.

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Morton Marcus: The movie director? Janet Wondra: Uh huh. Morton Marcus: That interests me. Janet Wondra: Yeah.

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Morton Marcus: This has to do with Fitzcarraldo or something like that? Janet Wondra: Well, no, actually, there's one little bit of imagery here that sort of came to me from- now, can I

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remember the name of it? Morton Marcus: Give me the film and I might be able to help you. Janet Wondra: Okay, it's the one where the explorer- Morton Marcus: Okay-

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Janet Wondra: 15th, like 15th century. Morton Marcus: Right. Okay and that is- Janet Wondra: Aguirre, the Wrath of God Morton Marcus: Aguirre, the Wrath of God

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Janet Wondra: Right, great title. Okay, let's read the poem. It's called: HERE, CAUGHT By the dissecting lamp, I see we don't love to be good. The

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explorers gathering the clearing in the village in green light to prepare for the adventure. They go down the path and they don't come back. Asleep, we can love each other. "There is grandeur," said Darwin, "in this view of life." Whilst the planet has

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gone cycling on, according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning, endless forms most beautiful have been and are being evolved. In my dream, you are a little wooden boat. In my dream, we grow sails and drift away.

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Morton Marcus: Now, you put that in his mouth. But how much of that is yours and how much of that is Darwin's? Janet Wondra: Well, actually, I think mostly just the quote, the part that starts, "There is grandeur in this view of life,"

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that's mostly the Darwin part, and then I'm sort of playing around. Morton Marcus: The reason I asked that question is that I did- several years ago, I did a dramatic piece called "The

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Ecstasies of [unidentified]," based on letters, and no one thought that I had written any of it. Janet Wondra: Oh, really? Morton Marcus: You see. And that it was all actually the letters

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and the quotations, and I said, "Wait, wait, wait, wait!" Janet Wondra: Give me some credit! Morton Marcus: You know, and it was just very curious. And I just got this over and over again so for the people out

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there, when a poet uses a quote and says it's his poem, then most of it is going to be his or hers, and doing with it, you know, what he or she wants to, do not just take Darwin and divide them into jagged lines or anything like that.

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Janet Wondra: Right. Morton Marcus: And I was very surprised to see that reaction, even from some people who should know better. Janet Wondra: Uh huh.

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Morton Marcus: So it's very curious. Anyway, I just wanted to- Janet Wondra: Yeah. Morton Marcus: -make that clear. More poems from this series?

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That was really good. Janet Wondra: One reason that I liked working with Darwin is I think he was really a beautiful writer. And he took a lot of care with his writing and was quite proud of it, in the same

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way that Freud was very proud of his writing. I mean, I've heard that the award that Freud valued the most was an award that he got for the quality of his prose. Morton Marcus: Which was still pretty thick going in German.

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But for those people out there, I would certainly recommend, "The Origin of Species," but even more than that, I would recommend, "The Voyage of the Beagle," which is just one of the great travel books of all time, if you can look at it that

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way. But it is also the seminal book in which he goes to South America and finds and begins to move back towards the Galapagos Islands. And you begin to see the ideas flowing in his head, but it's also just beautiful descriptive travel writing.

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Anyway, go. Janet Wondra: Okay, this next poem is called: TESTING BY THE KNIFE This dream in which every morning we wake to testing, how

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I hate this subject. I don't want the firefly again. When the insect was decapitated, you write, "The rings remained uninterruptedly bright, but not so brilliant as before." We are denatured in science, our sustenance fails, as the

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firefly, headless, grows dark and small. Local irritation with a needle always increased the vividness of the light. Absence, the firefly retires across the field and cuts its light in the tall grasses. My mother taught me that things left sitting

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separate. I'm close to that experiment. Our conclusions imply that beauty is a reflex, and reflexes are understood by the knife. I tire of explanation. When the hawk falls slowly on open wing to recover one moment before the hillside,

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when the ship's prow cuts the sea to its phosphorescence, again, this cutting. From these facts, it would appear probably that the insect has only the power of concealing or extinguishing light for short intervals, and at other times

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the display is involuntary. What on dissection is not involuntary? The firefly in the air is a different nature. It is not the solidity fading on your dissecting table in the dark room after closing the door on the laboratory when you walk

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from moment to moment of light on the empty street. Morton Marcus: Let me remind the listener out there that the -- and tell me if I'm wrong, Janet -- these poems are the poet as scientists so, therefore, they're really metaphors of the

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creative act, and the search for beauty, and especially that one is gorgeous. Janet Wondra: Thank you. Morton Marcus: Really lovely and yet done as though you are doing

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an analysis. You know, it's almost- well, I guess one of the new schools that's out is the essay poem, which people are writing more and more of now, though I know this was- Janet Wondra: Oh, really?

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Morton Marcus: -written a while ago. Yeah, and this works beautifully. It's one of the things that's come from Milosz, I think. Janet Wondra: Oh, uh huh.

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Morton Marcus: But this is just beautiful. I mean just follows the metaphor all the way out, you know, and talks about, even if beauty is involuntary, you know, you look for it and you get the moment, just gorgeous, very, very well done. Read more;

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they're lovely, lovely poems. How many are there in the series, by the way? Janet Wondra: Oh, there are about eight. Oh, let's see, maybe I should read the last poem in the series, which is

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called, "Darwin Said." Morton Marcus: Okay, and then we will take a break, how's that? Janet Wondra: That sounds good. Morton Marcus: Okay.

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Janet Wondra: Okay. DARWIN SAID The tree trunk grows into monkeys, climbing hand over hand, or sitting on branches, delicate, perplexed, but not

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unhappy. And the arms reach into a thatching of green blades. Immobile, yet climbing, this is the perplexity. The living monkey shun these trees except the largest in a clearing, where they gather on the ground at dusk and chatter and then fall

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silent. A tree haunted by open eyes, I drift outside the mechanics of science into those open hands that shade the jungle floor. Our footsteps leave an Argentine trail of crushed foliage, which writes itself in our absence. Our steps are

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always new in this submarine light, small, but not unnoticed. In the flickering light, we lift our hands. The light is not empty. Morton Marcus: Hello once again, this is the Poetry Show and

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tonight we are talking with Janet Wondra, and she has been reading her poems. In case you wondered who the poet was. And the poems that she was last reading were, "Darwin Said," from a group of eight poems about Darwin, and we will get

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back to Janet in a second. Let me remind you, and Janet may want to hear about this, that Storyline Press here in Santa Cruz invites submissions of first book manuscripts of original poetry for the first annual Nicholas Roerich Poetry

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Prize. Now again, the winning manuscript will be published by Storyline Press in 1988. Its author will also receive a cash prize of $2,000 and will read at the Nicholas Roerich Museum in New York to celebrate publication of the book. To be

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eligible, send the following materials postmarked no later than October 15th -- so you've got time out there -- to this address: The Nicholas Roerich Prize, Storyline Press, 325 Ocean View Avenue, 325 Ocean View Avenue, Santa Cruz 95062.

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Should be a manuscript of original poetry in English of at least forty-eight pages, a biographical sketch of one paragraph in length should be enclosed, as well as a self-addressed stamped envelope otherwise the manuscripts will

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not be returned. A ten dollar entry fee and handling fee will also be asked for in a check made payable to Storyline Press. Also, on Saturday, August 15th, Maria Gitin, who was on this show around a month ago, will have a weekend of poetry and it

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will go on Saturday August 15th from 9:30 to 4:30. And after which there will be wine and hors d'oeuvre, and then Sunday also from 9:30 to around seven. It is a weekend seminar and it is led by Maria Gitin, poet, author of three published books,

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and the area coordinator of California Poets in the Schools. And if you remember around a month ago, Maria was here and a very, very impressive evening. That- you should address all inquiries, by the way, let's do it that way to 722-8535, all

00:33:07.520 - 00:33:26.750

inquiries to 722-8535 for Maria Gitin. And that is coming up soon, so it's the weekend after this, so make your phone calls now. Okay, we are here with Janet Wondra. And Janet, since that was the last poem, I take it that we are going to go on

00:33:26.750 - 00:33:36.030

something new now. Janet Wondra: Uh huh. Morton Marcus: And this is going to be experimental poetry. Now, it is interesting to see the development of Janet. She has

00:33:36.030 - 00:33:53.010

come out of the Golden Age, and she has now come into Santa Cruz, and then gone to Darwin. Now, I think that everyone out there realizes that we can detect a pattern here and that is that Janet is very, very close to nature and close to the

00:33:53.010 - 00:34:07.650

earth and this informs much of her imagery. So let's see where we're going now on the second half of the show, and why don't you tell us about the new things you've been doing? Janet Wondra: Well, I've been working a lot with poems that

00:34:07.650 - 00:34:28.470

have multiple voices in them. And it's interesting to me that this development seems to have come about just about the time that two friends and I formed a small press and published our first book. So a lot of these poems have three voices in them

00:34:28.500 - 00:34:37.260

so that when the press goes and does readings, it's very convenient because I've got my two friends to help me. Morton Marcus: Are any of these books available here in Santa Cruz?

00:34:37.440 - 00:34:47.010

Janet Wondra: Yes. The book is called, "Emerging Island Cultures: A Collection of Stories and Poems," and it's available at Bookshop Santa Cruz. Morton Marcus: Okay.

00:34:47.490 - 00:34:56.330

Janet Wondra: And I highly recommend my friend's fiction. Morton Marcus: And now is this in the fiction section, the poetry section, or-? Janet Wondra: It's in the poetry section under my name.

00:34:56.390 - 00:35:02.290

Morton Marcus: Under Wondra- Morton Marcus: That's W-O-N-D-R-A. Janet Wondra: Yup. Janet Wondra: Uh huh. So, since there are only two of us here

00:35:02.290 - 00:35:12.070

this evening, I brought along a two-voiced poem and I'm going to ask Mort to help me read it. Morton Marcus: I'd love to. Janet Wondra: Okay.

00:35:13.440 - 00:35:23.760

Morton Marcus: Now I read seven, four, six? Janet Wondra: Yeah, totally unrehearsed. So actually, why don't you start with number one, and we leave the numbers off. Morton Marcus: Right.

00:35:23.760 - 00:35:29.430

Janet Wondra: Just read the lines. Morton Marcus: Okay. Janet Wondra: So this is called: THIRTY-NINE PHRASES YOU HAVE HEARD BEFORE

00:35:31.550 - 00:35:36.830

Morton Marcus: Say nothing about what you have seen. Janet Wondra: Say nothing. Morton Marcus: Close the door. Janet Wondra: I have some shocking news.

00:35:36.860 - 00:35:40.430

Morton Marcus: Control yourself. Janet Wondra: She's not here. Morton Marcus: She's dead. Janet Wondra: Oh, no.

00:35:40.550 - 00:35:44.120

Morton Marcus: Oh, God, Janet Wondra: Forgive me. Morton Marcus: That's not true. Janet Wondra: You know, it isn't.

00:35:44.450 - 00:35:49.790

Morton Marcus: It's not your fault. Janet Wondra: There's one thing we have to do, we have to. Morton Marcus: Come with me. Janet Wondra: Wake up.

00:35:50.240 - 00:35:56.990

Morton Marcus: That's what I'm trying to find out. Janet Wondra: It's the truth that matters. Morton Marcus: I didn't kill her. Janet Wondra: You wanted your revenge? .

00:35:57.020 - 00:36:02.390

Morton Marcus: Is that the truth? Janet Wondra: I'm sure that at least. Morton Marcus: You leave that for me to decide. Janet Wondra: I know he's out there.

00:36:02.720 - 00:36:07.100

Morton Marcus: Nothing. Janet Wondra: Absolutely nothing. Morton Marcus: I can't rest. Janet Wondra: What is it?

00:36:07.430 - 00:36:13.760

Morton Marcus: I think you should have a word with him. Janet Wondra: I swear it. Morton Marcus: Your brother is dead. Janet Wondra: God only knows.

00:36:14.510 - 00:36:20.300

Morton Marcus: You don't believe me? Janet Wondra: I believe everything you say. Morton Marcus: Are you satisfied? Janet Wondra: Put him in the cell.

00:36:20.960 - 00:36:29.160

Morton Marcus: Father. Janet Wondra: It wasn't him, Morton Marcus: Then you can rest. Now that, of course, is a very interesting experiment because I

00:36:29.160 - 00:36:39.340

don't know how any of those phrases are supposed to be read, if there is a right way, and I suspect there isn't. Janet Wondra: You did a great job. Morton Marcus: But as the people out there I think can imagine,

00:36:39.490 - 00:36:50.620

each one of these lines, especially alternating, can take on many different nuances. And so I just queued off your voice and things like that, which is great, must be great when three people are doing it.

00:36:50.830 - 00:36:57.760

Janet Wondra: Well, actually, this one I've just done with two. I should try it with three, it might be- Morton Marcus: No, no. I mean one of the other poems that have to be done with three voices.

00:36:57.000 - 00:37:11.130

Janet Wondra: Yeah. Uh huh. Well, this one has an Morton Marcus: Well, I'm always fascinated by accidental interesting origin. I do know some poets who do a lot with randomization and I thought, gee, wouldn't that be fun? So

00:37:11.130 - 00:37:28.920

anyway, one day, one evening, it was a winter evening, I was very bored. And I had on a zombie movie on television. And I was in sort of a heater trance, I was standing in front of the heater. And I started writing down some of the lines from the

00:37:28.920 - 00:37:48.030

movie. And I just wrote down lines that I had heard before nd I did this for quite a while nd then I stopped, and then I ead them over and the poem is retty much, you know, as I got it from the television, I mean, I only wrote down lines that I'd

00:37:48.030 - 00:38:04.380

heard before, but there wasn't very much editing involved at all. So there is some good to b gotten from watching zomb e movies. composition.

00:38:04.470 - 00:38:17.650

Janet Wondra: Uh huh. Morton Marcus: And years ago when it was out, and I think it's now back on the market, that wonderful book, which, whose name I forgotten by Gerald Rothenberg- Jerome Rothenberg,

00:38:17.950 - 00:38:33.610

what is it? A lot of different kinds of poems, half the book was a commentary on the poems themselves, and it talked about accidental composition. That is a brilliant, brilliant book, and I have forgotten it. And if Jerome is driving by and

00:38:33.610 - 00:38:48.190

listening, I'm sorry. But I used the thing for around ten years and it's just a magnificent introduction to the art of poetry using primitive -- if I may use that word -- poems, American-Indian poems, African poems. Go ahead.

00:38:48.270 - 00:38:53.700

Janet Wondra: Let's see, "Shaking the Pumpkin," is the- Morton Marcus: That's the second one, that's the American-Indian one. Janet Wondra: The first one is, oh, "Technicians of the-

00:38:53.700 - 00:39:00.820

Morton Marcus: "Technicians of the Sacred." Janet Wondra: Yeah. Morton Marcus: Great, great book, and a wonderful introduction to poetry and how it really does work and how we

00:39:00.820 - 00:39:13.840

can build on those basic assumptions. And he starts right off with a one word poem, and just builds all the way up on- so, yeah, I just loved it. He's had great Jackson Mac Low poems in there, which just deal with light, and just sound, and Mac

00:39:13.840 - 00:39:26.560

Low is really a composer. And so he just gets off on the sounds of words and makes lists of sounds, it's just exquisite. Janet Wondra: Uh huh. Morton Marcus: Anyway, let's go on. Can we read any more of

00:39:26.560 - 00:39:38.790

these? Or can you read any more of these maybe in different voices? Janet Wondra: Well, you know, unfortunately, I am not yet adept at using different voices. That's- I mean, I feel as if

00:39:38.790 - 00:40:00.100

they're inside there but I think I'm not at this point enough of an actress to be able to do them justice. But I've got a prose poem that sort of has different voices in it. Morton Marcus: Okay, now, people ask me all the time, what is a

00:40:00.100 - 00:40:08.140

prose poem and why do you write it? So I'm going to ask you that question. Janet Wondra: I knew you would. Morton Marcus: And you can answer it for people out there.

00:40:08.600 - 00:40:27.080

Janet Wondra: Well, I've given that some thought and the way I look at it is the prose poem is just another form of free verse. Actually, maybe we'll skip this poem that I was going to read and go on to a different one, which is, I think, a better

00:40:28.970 - 00:40:47.660

example of what I'm going to talk about. This poem that I'm going to read next, I tried to make it into a free verse poem with lines. And I tried very hard, I put it in lines, and I put it in long lines, and I put it in short lines, and any way I

00:40:47.660 - 00:41:09.740

handled it, it seemed too artificial and too self-conscious and too written. And finally, I just had to acknowledge that the poem was basically a flow of words and it wanted to be prose. And since I feel pretty strongly about the

00:41:09.800 - 00:41:30.560

poem itself telling me what form it wants to be in, I just had to listen and now it's a prose poem. So this is called, "In the Other World Where We Are Guilty." And it's such a flow that the first time I read it, which I think was in Santa Cruz,

00:41:31.070 - 00:41:46.090

I nearly passed out because I hadn't taken the time in advance to put in breathing marks. I did it pretty much in one breath. Morton Marcus: Is it punctuated? Janet Wondra: Yes, it is. It is punctuated but it kind of rushes

00:41:46.090 - 00:42:01.060

along, so I hope I've got a better pace now. Morton Marcus: I hope so too. I didn't bring my first aid kit. Janet Wondra: IN THE OTHER WORLD WHERE WE ARE GUILTY I guess that's why I like the outside, you walk out, the sun

00:42:01.060 - 00:42:16.660

is on your back, the houses hold still, usually. There's so much there you can't take it personally. You know that part in "The Ma" where Claire says, "We must be very guilty if objects accuse us." The telephone implies someone to

00:42:16.660 - 00:42:33.940

call or answer, but it's not so specific. Window sills carry a tremendous weight, I feel their reproach as I sleep. It's the weight, I think, object say I'm doing my share in that voice like, and of course they're right. And it's not that things

00:42:33.940 - 00:42:50.500

need to be done, although that's part of it. It's more moral. The deeper layers like original sin. I feel my energy being sucked out the soles of my feet, the world is paved with leeches who work without breaking the skin. I know I've done something

00:42:50.500 - 00:43:05.500

wrong. These things know it, but we never, we're all afraid, so I go out to escape the armchair and the rug that just lies there saying nothing, even the water in the faucet holds its accusation for the right moment. And I walk to the park because

00:43:05.500 - 00:43:21.670

the trees don't know me so well, maybe they haven't heard, although these objects have a way of spreading information fast, and I sit on the bench waiting for the reproach to start. Sometimes I'm safe, and I can sit still for several hours,

00:43:21.850 - 00:43:38.290

sometimes it starts right up, more upsetting than the drone of a small plane you can't find in the sky. If it starts outdoors, it's worse than home with the rows of books holding back their language. It's as if each blade of grass won't say a thing, I am

00:43:38.290 - 00:43:55.030

such a- I should thank them for letting me breathe. Then I go home, to bed under the weight of those sad blankets and try not to use up much air. Perhaps if I were smaller, and it makes you think how being inarticulate is a concession to objects, how

00:43:55.030 - 00:44:11.050

they take you into their world and you go willingly because you must pay them back in their coin, which is silence. We are a tiny island the mother country wants back but it doesn't make them happy because you can never be silent enough. You use more

00:44:11.050 - 00:44:26.560

and more vague words until you are mouthing sounds, maybe then you shut up and they're happy but I don't think so. You think this is? Think about disease, why do you think the doctors say you have stones in your organs? Where do you think stones come

00:44:26.560 - 00:44:42.970

from? Or you have a mass in your left breast? I tell you it's an alien physics in your body making you inanimate. Don't you wish to be inanimate sometimes? Don't you ever feel like a lump? It's so clever. You're wanting what they want, if wanting is

00:44:42.970 - 00:44:57.490

something they do. Maybe these things, all of them, are people, more and more thing-like, maybe that's where I'm heading. Someday you'll be walking through the park and you'll think that looks familiar, and you won't know why. You'll think

00:44:57.490 - 00:45:17.830

it's a- but the branch has a curve to it that looks like- except you'll get a picture of- and won't be able to say. Morton Marcus: Read another one. Are they all similar in the rush of language and ideas and images, or do they take on

00:45:17.830 - 00:45:22.840

different styles? Janet Wondra: Well, I'll let you be the judge. Morton Marcus: Okay, good. That's why I want you to read another one.

00:45:23.500 - 00:45:38.130

Janet Wondra: This next one is one that does have another voice in it and it's called: THE TIGER IN THE SILK SLIP The silk slip sashays between the tables so la-dee-da. Kiss me

00:45:38.130 - 00:45:55.620

now but don't smear my face. Under the yum yum tree, the tigers chase each other into butter, which the silk slip spreads on her toast. There's no excuse for feeling that way but the tiger's stripes were soft and flash multicolored in the

00:45:55.620 - 00:46:13.230

twilight. Notice how darkness isn't mentioned in twilight even though that's where we're heading. You're heading for trouble young lady. The tigers rumba beneath the jungle foliage, form a conga line with the first tiger snarling, ritual

00:46:13.230 - 00:46:33.660

expressions of feeling. This is too hard. The game show host appears from behind the gold lamé curtain with an envelope. "I have the judge's decision. Drumroll." This is too hard and the audience goes wild. The tiger drives the car. The silk

00:46:33.660 - 00:46:47.100

slip leans against the door fanning herself with your palm frond saying "yes," and "no" alternately. The sound is like the ker-thunk of crossing divisions in a long bridge, you could almost sleep to it.

00:46:51.830 - 00:47:07.220

Morton Marcus: Now that sounds very much like a first person narrative, a story, and there are strong story elements in the other poem also. And it interests me that when we go into prose poems, a lot of times, suddenly narrative

00:47:07.220 - 00:47:17.760

becomes very, very strong and begins to force its weight against the lyric impulse. That's not a criticism, you know I write prose poetry also, and that's what always happens. Janet Wondra: Uh huh.

00:47:18.920 - 00:47:34.020

Morton Marcus: So it's interesting. That one, I mean, it's like a child's remembrance of mammy. Janet Wondra: Uh huh. Yes, I think that's quite accurate. Morton Marcus: And just great. Nice stuff, nice weaving of

00:47:34.020 - 00:47:44.210

things and making things unexpected, which are very domestic, really, and very much part of the modern- or contemporary American life. Janet Wondra: Uh huh. Well, I'm very interested in bringing

00:47:44.240 - 00:48:01.370

elements into poems that I think more traditional people would say, "You can't put that in poetry." Like I mean, can you have a talk show host? Can you have a gold lamé curtain? And I think absolutely, if you can get it in there, sure.

00:48:01.460 - 00:48:14.780

Morton Marcus: No, I actually think we've been released into that. Are poets still doing that? Restricting the imagery you can use. I thought that actually T.S. Eliot was the one who- and what Walt Whitman before him and before him who

00:48:14.780 - 00:48:26.050

started to use, what is still called, I guess, non-poetic images, which are the images of everyday life. Janet Wondra: Yeah. Well, I think that there's always a movement somewhere to restrict, you know, what is "poetic,"

00:48:27.070 - 00:48:38.020

yeah. Morton Marcus: Oh, well, not here. Janet Wondra: Oh, good. Morton Marcus: We are impure at KUSP. Okay, I think you have

00:48:38.020 - 00:48:56.560

more of these. And I don't know whether you want to get on to a poem incorporating popular culture and politics because we have approximately six minutes, I'd say. Janet Wondra: Okay, let me read one more prose one. This sort of

00:48:56.560 - 00:49:17.020

ties in with what you were saying about the narrative impulse. This one, I think, is really toeing the line between a prose poem and a very short story. And it's called: I was walking along the alleyway. It was night and I was

00:49:10.070 - 00:49:30.550

WAR going home. A German soldier came up to me and started talking. I said, "Get away. Don't you know what I am? I am French." But he persisted. He was not too rude. I kept walking

00:49:30.550 - 00:49:47.110

and persuaded him to go away before I reached my house because I did not want him to know where I lived. We didn't have much. I was very worried. Everyone had lost their jobs. We had given up cigarettes long ago. When the German offered me

00:49:47.110 - 00:50:03.760

one, I wouldn't take it. I wanted to knock it to the ground. But as we walked and he smoked, and the leaves broke under our feet, he held the cigarette out and I inhaled. I never arranged to meet him. He would appear after dark on my

00:50:03.760 - 00:50:22.930

way home with a loaf of bread under his arm. The streets were always empty because of the cold and the war. He asked me to open my blouse. His eyes were soft when he asked, I didn't know blue eyes could get soft. He said he knew I needed money and

00:50:22.930 - 00:50:39.730

he would give it to me anyway. He said because he was German, he offered money. Because he was German. When the liberation came, they gathered people up and in the square, the women shaved the heads of the collaboratrices. I went to th

00:50:39.730 - 00:50:55.930

women and said, "Shave my head. And they said, "No, Cecile, w don't want you." "No," I said "shave my head," and I sat i the chair beneath the chestnu trees. They loosened the neck of my blouse and I closed my ey

00:50:58.870 - 00:51:11.500

Morton Marcus: Now of course, that comes from actual experience of collaborating women in France during World War II. Where did that come about or how did that come about as a poem for you?

00:51:12.190 - 00:51:31.000

Janet Wondra: Well, you know, I'm not really sure. I had not written for quite some time, and I had begun to believe that maybe I wouldn't write anymore. And one night as I was trying to fall asleep, I felt this sort of internal pressure. And I got up

00:51:31.000 - 00:51:38.060

and went out in the living room and this poem came out. Morton Marcus: Hm. Janet Wondra: And that's all I know. Morton Marcus: Had you been reading anything or seeing any

00:51:38.060 - 00:51:53.810

movies? Janet Wondra: I had been- I hadn't been seeing any movies. It's possible that I had been reading the Gertrude Stein work about the war. I'm not sure, is it called "Wars I Have Known,"

00:51:53.840 - 00:52:03.700

it's got some-? Morton Marcus: No, I I'm not even familiar with it at all. Pardon my ignorance but- and she wrote about those incidents? Janet Wondra: Well, I don't think that she wrote about that

00:52:03.700 - 00:52:20.800

in particular, but I was pretty interested in her book about her and Alice B. Toklas' experiences of kind of living in the country during the war. And I've always been quite interested in the French Resistance. So obviously, some things were cooking below

00:52:20.800 - 00:52:36.820

the surface, but I wasn't really aware of the sources. Morton Marcus: Hm, interesting, very interesting yeah. Okay, we are now on to poem incorporating popular culture politics. Janet Wondra: Well, and this relates directly to what I was

00:52:36.820 - 00:52:46.480

saying about Gertrude Stein, because it's got a quotation from her, I seem to like borrowing other people's words when I run out of my own. This is called: WHAT'S INSIDE

00:52:47.680 - 00:53:08.830

It's Annette Funicello telling me what to eat. Here is your bed, lie down, lie down and go to sleep. The radio man says the government sent two thousand troops to Central America, that is El Salvador. "Troops, not advisors," he says, "troops."

00:53:09.730 - 00:53:29.980

Spring in the city promises a new scent, something rotten, keep walking. On Geary Boulevard on the way to the bank, what should I do? Drive into the sea, Gregory Peck jumping off a troop carrier into the surf. I'm cubby, I'm a net, I'm sick to

00:53:29.980 - 00:53:49.540

death of this whole business. Every day remedy seemed futile but resistance at any level holds them up. An envelope sealed with egg white cannot be steamed open. "I am cutting the hedges," says Gertrude Stein, "even the very tall one on a

00:53:49.540 - 00:54:12.070

ladder and I am not reading the prediction book anymore. And I am walking and I am not knowing what the news is and Alice Toklas makes raspberry jam." Urban operators on duty, nature equals hidden, high enough to hide what was loved and human. I

00:54:12.070 - 00:54:31.570

fear the disembodied leg in the trash bin at the park. Where's the money going to come from? Even the delight of something free is perilous. So where will you be in ten years at this rate? This is a math problem, word problem. Trains eating the

00:54:31.570 - 00:54:52.510

track toward each other, there are lots of happy endings, just that things don't stop. A young woman bleeding, the fog embodies the air over me. One month ago, a ten year old disappears from the forty-three bus line. Another word problem. That was

00:54:52.510 - 00:55:09.480

the sum of yesterday. I am putting on my shoes to collect encouragement, even the trash bin, I am cutting the hedges, because. Morton Marcus: A wonderful, final poem, poem for our time,

00:55:09.570 - 00:55:27.960

unfortunately. But we could really see the development of that style, a very interior style in the last half hour actually. And the development of the interior self set against this contemporary world, or if not against it, you know, some

00:55:27.960 - 00:55:37.420

way trying to find its equilibrium within it. Janet Wondra: Yeah, I think that's nicely put. Morton Marcus: Well, it's been very enjoyable having you here. Thank you very, very much, Janet. We've been listening to

00:55:37.420 - 00:55:43.690

Janet Wondra tonight. Do you have any final words, Janet? Janet Wondra: No. Morton Marcus: That was it. Janet Wondra: Thanks very much. I'm delighted to be back in

00:55:43.690 - 00:55:57.360

Santa Cruz and doing poetry. Morton Marcus: Great. Well, delighted to have you and that will not be the last time, we'll do this soon again, I hope. This is Mort Marcus and I would like to thank Plaza Books on Pacific

00:55:57.360 - 00:56:14.790

Avenue in Santa Cruz for their generous donation that makes The Poetry Show possible in part, as you know, you out there are the people who really make it go, and make KUSP go. Please stay tuned for Tim Folger and "Things Ain't What They Used To Be.' And

00:56:14.820 - 00:56:33.030

listen for the tie-in, the segue music that he always uses. It's always an interesting counterpart, or counterpoint, to what we've been doing in here. Next week, folks, Joe is back and he has gotten back from vacation and he will be here on

00:56:33.030 - 00:56:45.450

the Poetry Show once more as we start doing our show in tandem again, and I look forward to seeing you in two weeks, possibly three. Have a great week out there. This is Mort Marcus saying so long.