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Morton Marcus: This is KUSP community supported radio for the Monterey Bay and Salinas Valley. This is the Poetry Show and I'm Mort Marcus and I'm here on this beautiful Wednesday overlooking the Monterey Bay to bring some

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more poetry away, and today some rather experimental, very interesting poetry. Before we start, I would like to thank Plaza Books on Pacific Avenue for the generous donation that makes this program possible. And now, I would like to welcome our

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two guests, Bill Minor and Paul Oehler, who have written a very interesting book together, which I search for here, and which is called, "Natural Counterpoint, Poems by Paul Oehler and William Minor," who I will call Bill Minor, since I know him and will

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take that liberty. It is a very interesting book by two friends, two poets who have known each other since they both went to San Francisco State. I will very quickly tell you who they are. Paul Oehler was born in Sausalito in 1940, spent much of

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his early life in Auburn, California, got B.A. and M.A. degrees from San Francisco State, another M.A. from UC Davis, taught for fifteen years at Sacramento City College where for three years he was head of the Department of English and

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currently resides in Sacramento. Bill Minor was born in Pontiac, Michigan. He has an M.A. in painting and drawing from Pratt Institute, no, he received that from UC Berkeley, went on to get an M.A. in language arts from San Francisco State where he met

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Paul Oehler and has been living in Pacific Grove and teaching at Monterey Peninsula College for- how many years, Bill? William Minor: Since 1971. Morton Marcus: 1971, a good healthy fifteen years and has

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several books of poetry out and is expecting a forthcoming book of fiction, fictional reminiscences, called, "Extremities," from the wonderful Capra Press down in Santa Barbara. Gentlemen, as I turn "Robin's Nest," all the way

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down, welcome to the Poetry Show. William Minor: Thank you. Morton Marcus: This is a very interesting book, which one of you would like to tell the idea behind the book?

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William Minor: I'll start initially because I wasn't quite as imaginative as Paul was about this. He approached me with the idea of doing a book together, and I respect his work greatly and so I wanted to do that. And then I thought of it as being

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two sections, his poems, my poems, and Paul already came up with the idea of organizing the way we have, the form it is in now. Paul Oehler: We broke it down into four sections: the first

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section is called "First Person," and it's poems that are- deal primarily with the feelings of the individual poet. The second is called "The Outside," which is an attempt to evoke the spirit of place. The third is called, "Cranial." I

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wanted to call it Cranial Cavities but Bill wouldn't let me. Morton Marcus: He hates dentists, I guess. William Minor: I just had my wisdom teeth taken out.

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Morton Marcus: But not the wisdom, that's the important. Actually what I'm doing, folks, is I'm playing off some of the use of metaphor in the book itself. Paul Oehler: Those are poems that have an idea as the center

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of the poem and then finally, "Other People" which are portraits, dramatic monologue, that kind of thing. And I thought by intermingling the poems that we would achieve the idea of counterpoint. Bill would like to say something about an

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idea that he had at that time in terms of maintaining anonymity. William Minor: Yeah, if there's anything unusual about the book is that after the initial section titles, it's not apparent who's written the poems, in each section the poems

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remain anonymous. And I have a feeling that much of the poetry of our time is anonymous. That's not very comforting, in some ways, but I think we work in a common idiom. I don't think there's that much really distinction of voice among

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poets, you know. And if you look at medieval anthologies, you find what [unidentified] poems may be set next to religious verse, but you don't know who the authors were, and I have feelings, perhaps in the future, that might be true ourselves. I

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don't know if that's comforting or discomforting but it was- it was nice to give up some ego and just hear the poems. I think there's a lot of resonance among the individual poems, and I've had people say, "Well, I can't tell reading which are yours,

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which are Paul's." Paul Oehler: Of course, the authors are identified in the individual tables of contents. Morton Marcus: Right, there are four table of contents, each one

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setting off a different section. And in that, in parentheses, we have the last names of the poet who wrote the poems. I disagree with Bill, I could definitely tell in the first section by style who is writing what in almost every case. I made that a

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little game, which the reader can do too because I certainly suggest that they go down and get, "Natural Counterpoint." It has some really beautiful poems in it, as well as some enjoyable -- I don't want to say fun poems, because I hate that kind

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of Monterey Bay usage -- but there really are some very, very witty poems in here and very enjoyable poems, and as well as some very deep poems. So they're all- it's a large range that's covered, in mood as well as in subject matter. Where can you

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get the book? William Minor: Locally, in fact, I just dropped them off this morning. Plaza has them and Bookwork Santa Cruz. Morton Marcus: Okay, so Plaza Books, Bookwork Santa Cruz, has

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the book both poets will be reading from today. Last question, before we get to the poems, it is not clear and so therefore I'm going to ask you, did you just collect poems that you had already written and put them in this form? Or did you

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start to write poems on these four topics, and with the idea that both of you were sort of talking to each other in the poems? Paul Oehler: No, these are poems that we've done over the years.

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We just kind of categorized them when we decided on the structure for the book. We've talked for years about doing a collection of poems together, and so this is just the form that we decided to put it in. Some of the poems, a few are quite old as a matter

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of fact. One of Bill's that I'll read a little later in the program is a poem that I published as editor of "Transfer" at San Francisco State before I ever knew Bill, it was an award winning poem, so and that was 1963, I think,

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three or four? Morton Marcus: Well, let's get to -- now that we've got the background of how this book is put together -- let's get to the poems themselves. And Bill, Paul who wants to read first?

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William Minor: I'll start with- Morton Marcus: Sure, great. William Minor: This is the poem from the first section based on personal experience, it has the modest title of, "Satori," and

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I'll explain just a little the background which might help. Each spring I go down to the Nacimiento River when it's still quite cold and peel down and walk in, and it's a sort of ritual, though not without some humor. Last time I did it, I

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stayed in too long and came down with hypothermia. So the poem is I hope a mixture of serious intent and some humor. SATORI Nacimiento each spring, mol cule for molecule I meet the

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ce cold water of the stre m, having crossed the yell w valley, fallen trees, the near silence of insects. Stroll to t is pool carved years ago by the rmy Corps of Engineers, site for my Satori. The depths aban oned now, the solitary mirr

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r, green cold water, smooth as a surface of a winter pond and oyhood in Michigan. It's Cali ornia now, sun bright, hot, an I, a man I think, cautious, de cending, sun-struck, sun strut m forty year old, stunted by w rry but still tall, wavering

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ody that shimmers like heat on glass or the hood of a car. In silly jockey shorts, whit flag of truth, which I stri now down to total sad self. Toes first feel the shock of col but willing go, more brave than my heart. Having less to lo

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e, linger at the edge, try aga n. This moss dark cold bene th branches and overhanging ro k, this liquid ice bright where he sun strikes and small sto es shine holding sunlight lik a heart in that deep middle, ix to eight feet down. I'm up to

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my ankles now, game, moving s calves contract, knees numb socket ball, frozen thighs stiff, refrigerated rock har hams and then, my God, my nut contract to pathetic marbles walnut rough, proud cock gone castration by cold. Then th

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circuit spine, those nerves t kill our cell on going furthe ; we go. Hips fold forward, ba k, stupid hydraulic pelvis, em ty shell ridge, starched fem r, this perfect poise architectu al wonder of myself. The carni al elbows bend, bowel mus

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le meeting the water, belly c ld tendons, chest hairs erect n w, penis vanished. Blood pu p, liver, lungs, valves fro en closed as I submerge. My o n veins, the smug arteries cut o f as I flow, frozen, green to t e neck, green to my bones, quarr

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, dark liquid thing, myse f further into it now, neck, che t gone, center of feeling, final y sweet brain, keeper of cell , three pounds reluctant jel y rebels but thought stu f precious maiden, memory seal d up, I'm under, and nothing b

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t peace and cold, cold and pea e now, delight, frozen, tamed, a l given up, the cold world clos d ove Morton Marcus: Okay, and what we may not have made clear, this is from the first section of the book, which is called "First

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Person," and that certainly was a first person poem. Paul? Paul Oehler: Well, I'd like to start by reading a trilogy, if I might. It's a poem about a woman who was very dear to me for a couple of years and who eventually returned to Britain,

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she was born and bred there and is now residing there. So it's a little painful for her to be eight thousand miles away but I'd like to start with that. The first part was written when she was still here. It was called:

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FOR SUSAN BUT NOT ABOUT HER I'm writing again, with a difference. For the first time, I have a muse: black hair with a gray fringe, yellow eyes like lanterns, temper of a cranky mountain lion. But this is no

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love poem, this is a poem about poetry. Homer never had it so good with Erato, clumsy classical heroine that she was, but this is no love poem. The love seems to creep occasionally in like a comedian with good timing. I've renounced all that

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long ago. Love poetry is as foolish as a storm reciting flowers in April, my muse would never permit it. I plead innocent. Flowers like lions nurtured in a hothouse are ephemeral at best, wavering in the eye of a mirage.

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The second part is called: SUSAN RETURNING TO BRITAIN Now that she's leaving, what craft or rhyme will compensate. Now that she's leaving, talk instead, you fool, of seashells

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drying slowly on deserted beaches, even of a deserted brain and this, more honestly, in a desiccated body. The percentages are wrong, but her eyes are yellow, and she's taking them with her. Not a well-combed politician in this

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matter, I must resort to a rumpled language unsuited to its purpose. My only defense, a mouth-to-mouth poem designed to span an ocean at least. I'd like to cheat a little bit and read the third part of the

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trilogy which was written after the publication of the book called: MISSING SUSAN: A RETROSPECTIVE Perhaps there were not enough small things we shared, not

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enough unbuttered toasts, not enough leaves needing raking in a backyard, not for that matter enough backyards. We shared the butter if not the toast, we shared the trees if not the delicate deaths of leaves, we shared a home without a

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backyard. Not enough it seems. Your absence is the absence of tiny intricacy, the absence of the smallest of gestures, important as the death of a leaf for a precedent. I remember you blowing at your hair, I remember you doubling your negatives,

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looking at me fondly, as you would at a dying leaf or a piece of unbuttered toast. My attempts to gesture pretended to be grander, poems, even books with dedication are not gestures, are not the smallnesses, which, like the stars and like your twitch

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beside me at three in the morning, make a difference before the taking of a toast and tea. This stubborn attempt is made clearly in your absence. Morton Marcus: Great. Can I ask you, since we're reading the

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first section, I would love you to do two poems that really caught my eye in the first section, and which shows the difference actually between the both of you as I saw you, in voice, in this thing. And it starts over the beautiful,

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"Intensive Care Ward," by Paul, and will you- I don't want to pry personally here, but I take it you were in the intensive care ward? Paul Oehler: I was, in fact.

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Morton Marcus: And I hope you're fine now. Paul Oehler: Yes, this was some time ago. Morton Marcus: But this is a wonderful, beautiful use of metaphor and it really works throughout. And it just doesn't

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seem to me like there is just one syllable that's wasted in here. And it just moves with a wonderful sense of lyric, which I get in a lot of your poems in here. So if you could read that, and then this is followed, and this is how you get almost this-

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and that's why it's the question as to how this was put together, of almost talking on the same subject or talking with each other about the same subject with Bill's illness. So could I ask you to do that? Okay.

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Paul Oehler: INTENSIVE CARE WARD The mind doesn't fight the weakening anesthetic, it surfaces as a fish, a large tropical fish in a tank, surfaces for food, slow, heavy, ponderously buoyant. It breaks

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the surface, it nibbles the world, recognizing there a nurse, a mother, a friend, a dead father. Then it sinks back to the bottom of the tank, back to the surreal hills, the awful landscape of seaweed and pearls.

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William Minor: JUMPED IN ILLNESS As if to prove relived desire, the doctor upholds my whim and confirms a disease. He draws a pretty chart, there noodles amble in my head, one of them cramped, distraught, the one

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that leads to my ear. "And that is why you cannot hear," he says, "you lost your sense of equilibrium." I jump from the table, grateful, tearing the spread white cloth. My equilibrium, as if I ever had any. But this man does not speak

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in metaphors. I can hardly wait to tell you here. You say I speak and nothing else. A real disease. You laughed when I left for the doctors, thinking all pains in my head a mere metaphor. I swore that when he had me pumped out, open-eared,

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he'd find my head was filled with bobby pins, candy wrappers, old stamps, and daffodils. I never thought he'd fish a real disease. I've lost my equilibrium. He's right. I can feel it. I've known it all along. Driving home, I lean to

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one side, favoring my loss. I can hardly wait to tell you. For you, my dear, the street is level, trees upright. I tilt from left to right. In my world, trees lean like winter girls far in the wind. My clouds walk downhill, dead on one side, I

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wake to a new perspective. Yet, tomorrow, if I take the drops, I've been given, five at a time, every third hour, I shall be cured. My tubes will be clean as hospital gloves. Tomorrow I stand upright unless far in the night, when you and the upright

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world are fast asleep, perfectly horizontal, some mad thief steals to the kitchen where, reading with grief the words I read now, caution, do not exceed, keep tightly stoppered. He, in praise of rare perspective, pours a bottle's

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contents down the drain. Morton Marcus: And it is both attitude and tone which really came through in my hearing here of whimsy and self irony, which comes up in your poems and your prose again and again, and I

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think it's a different use of language and image even from Paul. So these are the two different voices I kept hearing through this, though you do get lyrical and deadly serious at times.

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William Minor: I made the mistake at a reading one evening of explaining our respective diseases, and that killed me even though there might be- [Laughter] So I don't do that anymore.

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Morton Marcus: Good. I'm glad to hear that. Okay, well, let me give this back to you and go where you want with it. But I did want to read those two poems in conjunction because they seem seminal to me.

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William Minor: Thanks. Paul Oehler: Yeah. Okay, I'd like to- I don't typically write trilogies, but I do have one other that I'd like to read. This is from the second part of the book, "The Outside,." It

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concerns a small town in Wales where Dylan Thomas lived for many years and did some of his best work. Those listeners who might know, "Under Milk Wood," know a bit of Laugharne because that play for voices is about that time. In a mini essay on

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Laugharne Thomas said, "Here we just are and there was nowhere like it anywhere at all." The first part is called: LATITUDE AND LONGITUDE This is a town where poetry is those objects which come easily

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to touch like deer addicted to salt. This is a town where the tide wanders, then rushes, muse-like into the estuary, surprising between real hills. The paving slabs are loose and echo between the three mariners and the chemist's. This is a

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town where the tide lusts for the town clock tower, but settles for a tourist's car driven foolishly onto the fleck(?). The people here are mad. They have hedgerows and a regular tide, but they measure space by the length of an arm

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and time by the swish of a cat's tail. It's a saintly madness, St Francis of Tonypandy chatting weathers with birds on either shoulder. It's an occult madness, mirthen(?) transmuting elements in [unidentified] house, and smiling quickly in

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Brown's Hotel. The people here wonder about the tide and about the law, and about which is better: the repose of the said or the eloquence of the unsaid. Part two is:

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THE CASTLE The castle is a ruin. It stands a monument to Sir John Perrot, and the largesse of Richard the First. The restoration is slow, the scaffolding has been a part of the architecture for as long

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as I've tasted the town. It looks over the estuary guarding against invaders who come now by car from the other direction. Brick on brick, stone on stone, it stands and looks with sightless eyes at the now and then of druids, [unidentified]

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and cockle shells. The town settles down each night, or doesn't, round the feet of this castle, which will always be ruined but quick as you who read this. Third part is:

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BACCHANAL Amid the carpeted downs between two graveyards near a lost holy well, which mulch-like crumbled, these people [unintelligible] Llewellyn and Danny Ray, sing hymns round pints, trim

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hedgerows that goes somewhere, and offer up with the diamonds of their commerce the very stuff of poetry. The landscape from ferryside across the estuary to Sir John's Hill, the landmarks from the [unidentified] past the castle and the town hall to St.

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Martin's hangs suspended, waiting for the poet's eye, but only for his eye. Pens and scraps of paper are as superfluous here as the scribes who wield them. Poetry runs in the streets as the bulls run in Pamplona, into the Brown's for

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six quick pints and defined how Tommy got a black eye in Carmarthen. Into the Mariners for six more and [unidentified] frenzy as he draws them. One has only to join in the run, the lesser are gored and recollect in tranquillity. Better the

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company of these poets than that of the honored dead in Westminster. These are wiser. Morton Marcus: Yes, that is a very, very nice poem. You don't become Thomas at all, though you're using a lot of his

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elements and there are little bits of his poetry and Eliot's poetry, lines here and lines there which give us these wonderful echoes. Paul Oehler: Well, I went to Laugharne first because of my

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connection with Dylan Thomas, because of my enthusiasm for him, but- I went there for a weekend. I've now spent- I've been there seven different times, seven different years, for all collectively a year or close to it. And some of the

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best friends I have in the world are there. I go back not for any Dylan Thomas reason, I go back because of the friends that I have there. Morton Marcus: Well, that's- that feeling, that sentiment is

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right here. I mean, you know, the town full of poetry is what we're all looking for. Bill, we've got time for one more and until we take our famous thirty minute break here. William Minor: I think I was going to put two side by side. I

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guess there's not time. Morton Marcus: Okay, well, if they're not overly long, that's fine. William Minor: I think I'll just- just do the one which-

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Morton Marcus: Well, okay. William Minor: Why don't I do one stanza from a poem about the Midwest and one about California, because I think I'm a different person in each one of those.

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Morton Marcus: Great, why don't you do that? I mean, we can run over a little, there's no set rule. William Minor: I have poems on two places in this section, "Outside." First is the Midwest in which I grew up, I'll just do

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one stanza from a long poem called: MIDWEST Oh middle of heart, Amorica. Midwestern people, poor, decided, pure, opposed to travel anywhere, never go crazy. They

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just stay there. Desolate I've been, thank God, a moral edge in this, my age of edgeless morals. The puny sweet morass of shoveled snow, well-clipped grass, my neighbors have a flag, American. It's big as any make of car or girl and hung just

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like the sun each day. The age is lubric, sad, the flag is gray. I fail for lack of faith in what unfurled, the five- flag unwilling knows, tomorrow. The blind white art of baited laundry lines, and under every stone, an Indian buried.

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The California poem is called: THE KITE I left with a little bit of string, an endless three-spool flight. My son put it up then ran away. Why the hell must I

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bring it down? The kite covers air, though unseen. My hands hold string. We bought that skinny yellow parchment yesterday and brought it to the beach today. We set it up, two spools for spite and one, the distant one, for curiosity. All

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three are far from sight, just like that kite which yellow first rose above dunes, a shadow then beyond mountains, a vestige now of string. It rose in great blue yelps of air in a hurry, I think to free itself from us. My son ran off. I bend to it now,

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on knee salute and reel in string, that endless, aching, knife-sharp, tough white angel lasso in the sun. It passes through hands, but not to tie, the first spool comes with mocking ease, the second knot takes centuries. Is this the

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angel of paradise, gentle, unbroken, times swung to a halt? What vision I have says no. All afternoon I reel, fingers cramp, turn on, knees burn sand. It comes a, small bright yellow handkerchief, snotty with sky in perfection. The spool grows

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larger than vision. The kite dips, sputters, and stands. Seven feet left at the end of string, it crashes on its own into a dune. My son runs back for pieces. "What happened?" he says, "A kite." I rise from more than knees, a pound of fare in

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hand and all that string. Morton Marcus: And we'll let the music go behind us, this is the Poetry Show and Mort Marcus again. We have been talking with Paul Oehler and Bill Minor on this wonderful book called,

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"Natural Counterpoint." I'll get the music a little louder in the background. And we will continue talking with them about the book and have them read poems from the last two sections after we do our usual announcements and heading the list is the

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announcement that World Tour '86. It is [cut-off]. Wednesday 7:30pm at Sweet Williams, the Indian Summer Cafe reading series continues with Ellen Bass, Charles Atkinson, and Harryette Mullen and an evening of poetry and prose. And

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I don't know whether you remember Harryette Mullen, but her poems were just really dynamite when she read here. I think it was with a third group from the Muse poets readings. And I would advise you to go to 538 Seabright tonight and attend

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this, the only continuous poetry series that is going in Santa Cruz County at the present time. Also the National Writers Union, that is the Santa Cruz and Monterey Local announces this year's poetry competition. The judge is William Stafford, the

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famous American poet. First prize is $150 and publication in the American Writer, circulation of more than ten thousand. Second prize is $100 and third prize is $50. You can put $3 per poem as your entry fee or- not can, you have to put $3 per poem

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as your entry fee. For more information, write the Santa Cruz/Monterey Local National Writers Union at Post Office Box 2409, Post Office Box 2409, Aptos, 95003. Post Office Box 2409, Aptos, nine- two nine- 2409. Sorry about that. And most

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interesting, an announcement from the Poetry Center at San Francisco State, Phil Levine, the really exceptional American poet, in fact one of my favorite American poets, is having a residency there, which will begin on the 13th of March. He

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will be giving a reading himself at the Museum of Art which is on Market in San Francisco, on March 15th at 8pm. And if you've never heard Phil Levine, or you've never read his poems, may I urge you to go to that reading. That is Phil Levine,

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reading his poems on March 15th, 8pm, at the Museum of Art in San Jose, at Market and San Fernando. There will be others, he'll be giving a number of workshops and I guess one of the first things that he'll be doing is that he will read on the

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15th. But on the 13th, Edward Hirsch and Garrett Kaoru Hongo will be reading their poetry at the University Chapel and that's on the 13th of March at 4:30pm. Now, there are just many, many

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events and are many panel discussions and workshops. So let me just tell you to get in touch with the people at the Poetry Center and that's in San Jose, dial one and then 277-2834, that's 277-2834 in San Jose.

00:35:55.640 - 00:36:10.550

Well, again, we are here with Paul Oehler and Bill Minor who have written this book, "Counterpoint," which is divided into four sections, we've heard poems from two of them now. And we're going to go into the last two sections, which is called

00:36:10.580 - 00:36:25.280

"Cranial." And really, to limit it down more, they are poems about poetry and then, "Other People," which are poems about other people. I, again, I'm going to turn this over to them so you can hear more about this book. Again, "Natural

00:36:25.280 - 00:36:38.270

Counterpoint," by Paul Oehler, Bill Minor. It is available at Plaza Books and the Aptos Bookworks in the Rancho Del Mar shopping center. So gentlemen, let me turn it over to you again.

00:36:39.710 - 00:36:50.690

William Minor: I make jokes about this at readings, but it's probably true. I didn't contribute as many poems to "Cranial' because I do not think as much as Paul does, or probably as well. But I do have two poems about poetry which I

00:36:50.690 - 00:36:57.860

will read. Before I do that, I think I will mention the the music you've been playing- Morton Marcus: Yes. William Minor: Because of the theory of anonymity that we had

00:36:57.860 - 00:37:08.330

you mentioned bringing in some medieval music. And last night, we sat down and listened to Tommy Flanagan and Hank Jones were two fine highly-respected jazz practitioners and we thought that would be appropriate listening to their

00:37:08.330 - 00:37:22.160

natural counterpoint. So we didn't want to be too monkish. Morton Marcus: That's very good and I'm glad you got the idea of that counterpoint in there. And I let the record go now, just long enough for you to have said that, and there it goes.

00:37:23.690 - 00:37:36.590

William Minor: Okay, the first poem is called, "Choices." I think I will mention this is a poem that deals with John Berryman, who, when I met him, was drinking two quarts of whiskey a day and committed suicide, I'm afraid, shortly

00:37:36.620 - 00:37:50.690

thereafter. CHOICES ONE - After the famous poet read at the party, I squat between Berryman slumped and Gen, my friend, his new girl, Kathy, so

00:37:50.690 - 00:38:07.470

finely rumped within that carpet, all our fingers laced too firmly unopposed on many whiskies and words. TWO - That's over now. At evening, remorseless braille remembered like Kathy, that poet's poem, her body bedded

00:38:07.470 - 00:38:26.910

like rhyme, dead now in someone's world, unknown. Who's not my friend.? And Berryman? I hardly knew. A poem, pick anyone. And Gen, we stay alive, pal. Yes, pal. Morton Marcus: If I may just comment, a lot of the poems in

00:38:26.910 - 00:38:44.700

here that you write, again, with this whimsy, it's like finding its tension between the real world and between the world of poetry. And that certainly is what that last one does, you know, like, okay, great poet, it's all in poetry, but life has

00:38:44.700 - 00:38:56.040

to go on, there is more. It seems like you have made choices and the choice is to live, you know, and that that's more important than art. That's a great Giacometti story, I don't know whether you know it, where he was being interviewed, this

00:38:56.040 - 00:39:12.720

person interviewed him out in his work area, and there are just literally hundreds of unframed paintings, and a little cat was walking back and forth. And the reporter, I think, was from [unidentified[ News or somewhere said, "I have to just

00:39:12.720 - 00:39:27.810

ask, if there was a sudden fire, which one of all these paintings would you save?" And Giacometti,, without even hesitating, said, "Hm, I'd save the cat." And that sort of is what that poem does.

00:39:27.840 - 00:39:34.470

William Minor: Now, I have another which I think Paul is going to read called, "Persian Miniatures," which is- Morton Marcus: I love that one, it's a beautiful, beautiful poem.

00:39:34.470 - 00:39:44.610

William Minor: You could also say the day would come when a painting could cure a toothache and there's that metaphor again. But yeah, I think it should serve some purpose, I hope. I think maybe I'll just- I'll let Paul work with those.

00:39:45.690 - 00:40:01.650

Paul Oehler: Yeah, I'd like to read, "Persian Miniatures." It's the poem that I mentioned at the opening of the show that I published as an editor many years ago, and I would like to read it in refutation of the idea that I think more than Bill

00:40:01.650 - 00:40:15.660

does. I think this poem is full of thought, although Bill has been driving me absolutely crazy in the last couple of days with a kind of folksy approach to life. PERSIAN MINIATURES

00:40:16.920 - 00:40:33.330

Pure form is like a nun who never works, you will respect her chastity but wish that she would pray for you, or teach a child, or do some menial job among the sick. By her work, her grace is best exposed, as in this world of rhythm and of

00:40:33.330 - 00:40:50.770

shape where line is both itself and loving Persia. Whose face and gilded horse peer over hills? A man of valor and a thing of line. This green umbrella tilts to make a shape but also tilts to shade a Sultan's head. The light blue

00:40:50.770 - 00:41:07.750

horse on which the monarch sits surrounded by a galaxy of flowers, is music of the painters craft alone. And more; for there the Sultan really sits, upon a horse whose midget feet reside in wheels- fields of white and dark

00:41:07.750 - 00:41:22.060

vermilion flowers. This quiet work in which each part is placed to tell and yet transform the Sultan's day outshines the brightest flame, and makes one think more secrets lie in fabric than in fire.

00:41:22.600 - 00:41:34.290

Pure form is like a nun without a church, a Sultan who has lost his canopy. Morton Marcus: It's really a beautiful poem, it's one of my favorite poems from the book I think, just beautifully done.

00:41:38.070 - 00:41:59.490

Paul Oehler: I'll read one more. This is one of my own, the only one I intend to read from the third section, called: JULY 20TH, 1969, I'd like to dedicate it to the granddaughter of Martin Muller(?), Shree McGrath. July 20th, 1969, by the

00:41:59.490 - 00:42:13.470

way, refers not to the date of composition but the date of the landing on the moon. They landed in the Sea of Tranquility, while Martin Muller lay comatose in North Dakota. The hardware came tumbling down

00:42:13.470 - 00:42:30.900

as carefully as wheat grows, and Martin Muller fumbled consciousness continually, for the first time unaware of his ninety years of stone. The power [unidentified] initiation began, [unidentified] in North Dakota bloomed. Heat streamed across

00:42:30.900 - 00:42:49.410

the wheat, the sun rose out of the wheat, the moon rose out of the wheat, and again the sun, and we had lift-off for the return. A giant leap, Martin Muller joined the pioneers in his backyard, sans cloud, sans weather, sans sound.

00:42:52.380 - 00:43:03.590

Morton Marcus: Let me ask, is this an occasional poem for the death of Martin Miller? I mean, is that what kicked it off? It is not that. Paul Oehler: No, no, those two events occurred on the same day.

00:43:05.150 - 00:43:22.700

I learned- I never knew Martin, but I did know his granddaughter and she told me about the fact that she was in North Dakota at the time the astronauts landed on the moon. And at the time, her ninety year old grandfather was in the back room dying, and

00:43:22.700 - 00:43:44.210

did in fact die, you know, within minutes of the landing on the moon. And it's- I suppose the poem is an attempt to understand and place in perspective one is end in terms of the other. And, in a sense, to give as much meaning to the

00:43:44.210 - 00:43:57.370

one as to the other. Morton Marcus: Well, it certainly does that, and the dramatic tension that's in it and that really comes across as the evocation of this tiny present and the Seas of

00:43:57.370 - 00:44:15.010

Tranquility extending backwards in the past as well as in the future on the moon. And there's also a real sense of irony in here, but I mean, it's not a humorous side or you're sarcastic, it is the irony of time and the human condition and

00:44:15.040 - 00:44:24.490

the irony of history itself, you know, everything falls- [cross talk] Paul Oehler: -to metaphorically span the two events. Morton Marcus: It's a wonderful poem and I was going to ask you

00:44:24.490 - 00:44:36.430

to read it, got a note here, so I'm glad you did. There are also other poems. I think you want to get on to the last section, though, right? Yeah, that's why I don't do these. Yeah, well, there are many other poems in the section, dear listener, that

00:44:36.430 - 00:44:51.880

I would have these people read, but I know they want to get on to the last section of the book. Maybe Bill wants to read another one from this section, so that's again another reason for you going out and buying this book at either Plaza Books or the

00:44:51.880 - 00:45:03.740

Aptos Bookworks. William Minor: Well, I'll move to the last section. I'd like to start with a poem of Paul's, it's the last poem in the book. I didn't notice this at the time we put the book together, but we

00:45:03.740 - 00:45:18.320

have poems about other people which conclude- Mine are probably fairly closely disguised poems about self. I don't know- Paul's are genuine monologues about other people and I respect them highly. This is one of my favorites, it's

00:45:18.320 - 00:45:36.440

about John, or Doc Holliday, of O.K. Corral scene. JOHN H. HOLIDAY, D.D.S. at the O.K. Corral, Tombstone, Arizona 1881 A dentist, aye, and more, a killer. Sharp as a cough, a

00:45:36.440 - 00:45:54.890

killer crisp as a killer smile, a killer painless as a painless dentist. He wore a black string tie, my God in Heaven, and oh, honest-to-god black string tie. is clothes were unrumpled; he hose to use a shotgun for the irst time. The dust of the

00:45:54.890 - 00:46:11.630

orral drifted with the dust o his crumbled lung, reminded hi of the dusty blood on his shir front the night before. H reached for the shotgun as he ould for a drink, quickly, natur lly, each time for the first ime. The Clantons were so many

00:46:11.660 - 00:46:29.130

eeth standing in a row waiting o be pulled. His shotgun was a uick sting and dust in the m Morton Marcus: And we got back to the cavity metaphor? [Laughter] Yeah, that's wonderful. No, Doc Holiday is

00:46:29.130 - 00:46:41.190

one of my favorite characters from the Old West and, of course, the O.K. Corral I guess has become a myth to all of us. But a wonderful, wonderful event, especially when you realize what Wyatt Earp really did represent, unfortunately.

00:46:45.000 - 00:46:53.910

Paul? Paul Oehler: I'll read a couple of portraits if I can, one about my great aunt called: THE OLD STANDARDS

00:46:55.490 - 00:47:12.530

My great aunt, two hundred and forty pounds and short, could play by ear. She's dead now. Her fingers were pudgy and soft like warm chocolate. They spread across the keys until we couldn't bear it, but she was always right and her hair was

00:47:12.530 - 00:47:28.490

always red, and she's dead now. She was an alchemist before we knew, my cousins and I, what alchemists were. She had the patience of a distiller, the quickness of a turkey in the straw. Her fingers, I remember her fingers, could turn brittle,

00:47:28.910 - 00:47:49.550

you'd swear they'd break. Her smile was a sliver cloud- sliver moon behind the high cloud, but she's dead now and her death was like the breaking of old, old glass. Another one, a portrait. This was a woman that I actually

00:47:49.550 - 00:48:10.070

spotted in the Pancake Parade, 30th and J, in Sacramento. Eighty years old at least, freckled, alone, knit cap askew, a woman tastes her tipsy toast on the edge of the restaurant, shifts diagonally and loose to nibble again. Busy again, she

00:48:10.070 - 00:48:28.400

purrs beyond sound at her waffle. 3 AM, her clock strikes, then strikes again. She twists quick as a whippet confronts the salt cellar. She rises, cracker-brittle and [unidentified] across my eye to find a strange way home.

00:48:30.740 - 00:48:40.670

William Minor: Bill, I'll do one last. I created a character called Mr. Moker who was the type of person who spends a lot of time sitting and staring out the window. This is one Moker poem.

00:48:41.780 - 00:48:56.980

MR. MOKER AT SIX O'CLOCK Dusk, he sits beside a window filled with shrunken roses. He is trying to decide which was the last to die, for summer's gone, autumn come to a place without seasons. He can feel it

00:48:56.980 - 00:49:13.660

in his bones and knows October's punishment, November's first kind frost. They hardly seem to matter here but the fact he wears trousers that resembled Baghdad pajamas and ancient letters sweater and no shoes. All without seasonal impart, as

00:49:13.660 - 00:49:30.190

far as Moker knows, who knows but one thing: obsessed is always with the eternal in the elemental. His pipe just went out, nothing works. His phonograph hums above and beyond the Mozart it promised to deliver. A trap just snapped in

00:49:30.190 - 00:49:46.900

the kitchen, crushing the mouse it promised to bring home. Trapped in her jeans, a girl strides by, she's promised nothing that is not performed. Dusk, his wife is at jazzercise, shaping her body to the size of a mouse. She'll want her drink

00:49:46.900 - 00:50:04.870

when she gets home, the one he has pledged to deliver. Love, he tells himself, is not a rose outside the window, trapped in autumn, lured by cheese and peanut butter, the false portent of life beyond ourselves, beyond our own. Love is what happens or

00:50:04.870 - 00:50:19.180

doesn't happen. He'll fix a drink for himself as promised, and think of what the two of them will do together for that dead mouse. Morton Marcus: I still got plenty of time. When I was

00:50:19.180 - 00:50:28.400

reading these poems, I got the feeling of an updated Robinson from the old Weldon Kees poem- William Minor: Oh my goodness. Morton Marcus: And it was really wonderful. This is something

00:50:28.400 - 00:50:41.780

that has really been lost, I guess, Bill Stafford, who I just mentioned before as the President of that contest, is one of the few people who does do this, but really talk about people, about relatives, and really tried to fix them, you

00:50:41.780 - 00:50:56.210

know, even though they may be gone in some kind of their environment and as products of their environment, and it's real socio pictures of Americana. So it's very interesting to see poems like this again, but go on, I don't want to take- [cross

00:50:56.210 - 00:51:08.890

talk] Paul Oehler: The true dramatic monologue has always been a favorite of mine. This is a poem called, "Nativity." The speaker is St. Joseph, who has always been an interesting figure to me

00:51:08.890 - 00:51:29.500

because I know that there is a standard theological line as to why he was never upset about the events that occurred that night but it's often also occurred to me that he must have had some other human feelings. In the New Testament, he's never mentioned

00:51:29.500 - 00:51:50.740

after Christ's 12th year, but in this poem, I take some license and assume that he lived to be an old man, survived his foster son, and is now reflecting back on what occurred. NATIVITY

00:51:51.950 - 00:52:08.720

I don't remember what season it was. There were shepherds, I know, for I remember their fear. Their flock was underfed, their eyes bright, but not especially happy. Immaculate conception, I still don't know though once I thought I knew, in one instant I

00:52:08.720 - 00:52:28.010

thought I knew. He was stretched across her lap, dead. They stayed as if by choice without moving, both as solid as anything I ever built. And I saw her eyes and heard her wordless song and I thought I knew, I can't remember what. I remember

00:52:28.010 - 00:52:42.680

my doubt as I played the midwife, knowing he was no creature of mine. As I laid him in the trough, I thought, perhaps an animal will make a meal of him. A small morsel he was, the hint of a curl and the fuzz on his head. It was hard

00:52:42.680 - 00:53:02.180

not to love him. But she, always distant, she was never more so than then. Then, when she last held him, there was something ruthless about her despite her pain and loss of blood. I was tired, I believe I knelt. I never had her warmth, only her

00:53:02.180 - 00:53:21.770

glory. I had knelt many times before that night and have not knelt many times since, never to thank, only to praise. Stillness hung that night like ice from branches, but forgive the wandering of an old man and the turning of these few images that

00:53:21.770 - 00:53:34.730

catch the light that stained my memory. Morton Marcus: Okay, we still have more time. Bill, would you like to do another one? William Minor: I'll end with a short poem which relates to the

00:53:34.730 - 00:53:43.790

Joseph poem in a slightly different way, shares an envy and perhaps a suspicion of saints and sages. This is called: THE SAGE

00:53:45.670 - 00:54:04.540

"Such warmth, such wealth and curiosity," he said, "yes, we had that fault. We were sorry." He'd grown slowly beyond our ages and just sat now, resplendent, a snug Chinese complacency. We envied him. He was a part of everything but us.

00:54:05.200 - 00:54:22.030

Inside, his wife, five months pregnant, surrounded by plants, slim violets and sturdy shade-grown Coleus bent to her weaving. Outside, we drank his tea. We listened along his forehead for waves to speak. From time to time, imperfect, we

00:54:22.030 - 00:54:38.380

glanced at the house, the rhythm of the loom was constant. We were curious about his wife, just what kind of child she'd had with no help from him. Morton Marcus: Paul, I see you looking through it, we still

00:54:38.380 - 00:54:53.530

have time for a short one. Paul Oehler: Okay, I got a short monologue called: LAZARUS RISING AGAIN, a biblical thing. He didn't know what he was saying. I heard him vaguely, but

00:54:53.530 - 00:55:13.570

his words fell like wounded birds around my ears, and then I knew the pain of my knee and I knew I had been called as a dog is called. Embryonic, old beyond years, I looked at my shroud. Again, he said something. He was an instrument. I moved and

00:55:13.570 - 00:55:35.990

wondered why. The rock rolled back, grating stone on stone like an arthritic joint. The day was brighter than fire, he more innocent than beasts. I stood before uninformed faces, gaping. Morton Marcus: Thank you very much. That was Paul Oehler, and

00:55:35.990 - 00:55:50.780

the poet before him was Bill Minor, and they had been reading from a very interesting book called, "Natural Counterpoint," which is available at Plaza Books and at the Aptos Bookworks. It is a book, as we said, but if you tuned in late,

00:55:50.780 - 00:56:04.940

we'll tell you is composed of four sections in which they have poems which sort of talk to each other and relate to the same subject. And I think you will probably agree with me that they are rather wonderful in their diversity, in their language,

00:56:05.990 - 00:56:21.680

and in their feeling. Gentlemen, thank you very, very much. Next week, my friends, Joe will be back. I want to thank Plaza Books for their wonderful donation of funds that have made this show possible. Leon will be here cooking up some good jazz

00:56:21.680 - 00:56:26.600

grub in "The Jazz Kitchen," and this is Mort Marcus saying, see you in two weeks.