SKY by Michael Benedikt
(Wesleyan University Press, l970)
Poems appear in 21st Century updates
[ Last Modified 5/26/05 ]
Here so far: 2 Poems about plants & roses--a magic garden in Tuberoses. More haunted horticulture in Go--& Whisper To Roses
Passing Through Troy--a poem about urban environments & their influence on individuals living in them. With Note on poem
Money--poetry about battle of cash & happiness (excerpt) . Domestic advice in Naming The Baby. Some modern Psalms (I & IV).
Eerie blast from the British political past in Clement Attlee. A spring cold brings Spring fever & visions of Spring revels in Prayers
New: A paean of praise for Jane Fonda, starring in this poem in the daring later l960's Sci-Fi cult classic Barbarella
New 2: A too-often overlooked phenomenon of global significance receives appropriate attention at last in Modest Undressings
Background Note re Sky:
The Body (1968) is an 'earthly' book but
with a certain Surreal humor
which perhaps enables it to shake off the term 'earthy.' However, some
Body poems tend to tug at earthly moorings,
And almost all the poems of Sky (1970) tend to soar in some way--whether
or not they refer to anything aerial.
Sky smiles--but it's a collection of verse with a Platonistic basis
& poetry with modern Romantic, Visionary intentions.
Alt book jacket design by Charles Frazier. Book jacket as published with sky image by Tom Wesselmann, is at Thematic Index page of site.
Sky-poems recently posted or which we plan
to post at this page later in '05
Definitive Things Jane
Fonda in Barbarella
Modest Undressings
Rose The Bed Beyond The Bed On The Lawn
Wonders of The Arm
Tuberoses wound around my ankles
Spears of green in ears
I stand like some stone garden statue,
a moss-covered multiple plant-holder or a figure covered by vines,
here by a running stream.
Lilac fashions pervade
Around these damp shoes, which do not parade.
These hands with which I reach out to you
have green growing beneath their fingernails
So that either greeting me once or knowing me well
Is like taking a walk in the woods.
Here, Little Red Riding Hood rushes into an old cobbler’s shack,
smiling, her bonnet thrown back
And over her arm a big basket of buns.
Silently, the forest murmurs approval.
Not far off, in a clearing, the Three Little Pigs are busy
Rebuilding a broken city.
Elves tap with tiny hammers.
Magic & The "Musicians of Bremen," are present.
"Go, & Whisper to Roses"--old song
1..
The Morning Glory outs ide my window was planted so late in August by
my Sweetie & me
That it only had one flower, which bloomed in early October
just before the first frost killed it.
We called it "Evening Tragedy"
2.
Dabbing incessantly at our eyes with our handkerchiefs
we listened to the flow of tears running down our cheeks & onto our
breasts
& then as far down as our socks & shoe-tops
As we recalled tales of how Great Oaks have sobbed when cars collide with
them in Redwood Forest,
of how large liana vines have been frustrated en route to their destinations,
interrupted by a small boy's foot;
Stories of moss that moans like Jews, trampled beneath picnic tables &
wailing,
of branches squeaking & breaking after people who think that they
own the Earth
& everything on it, come to swing on them
--Tales too of jolly woodchoppers' axes ringing out in the morning,
followed by trees howling as they come crashing down
Together with rumors of cries arising from petunia-patches gone dry,
Legends of beanfields weeping beneath the strong sun in Spain,
histories of grief among undamp cotyledons
As well as the everlasting shrieks of weeds.
(I can see their stringy bodies stacked up in yards, preparatory to later burial or burning)
3.
Talk to a plant next time you see it and a plant will say something nice back to you
My Sweetie was propagating a snake-plant and a fern, but she loved the
snake-plant most and said
"Hi there" to it every morning, so it put out a flower in return--lovely,
even though it was of course ugly, waxy, hairy and funny-looking.
My Sweetie swears that she can even hear sounds of protest
from plants uprooted, whether deliberately or by else accident,
& Which she reports come forth with such force from cities in California
during earthquakes
As to be readily confusable to her keen ear, with readings on
seismographs
So go--and whisper to roses.
Top Top of 'Go--& Whisper To Roses'
Get the sensitive children of America out of Troy, New York! Canopies
hang slackly before doorways in that city,
And sooner than usual every young Sweetie feels the skin wrinkle
and soft eyes grow smudged as glass on the Town Hall clock.
As for the young Gentlemen of Troy
It seems that all they do is sit on curbstones and spit on Greyhound busses,
like the one I’m riding on,
back to New York City.
O cities of the universe
You are not improving anybody much
Except maybe, in some few of you, in the sections that are ritziest
And what child can afford to live in them after 20; or return to them,
unless really rolling in it,
after perhaps age 40.
Fifth Avenue I love you--but when will I live on you again? Seven more
years must be waited.
By the time I can cross 67th street once more, and once again enter Central
Park Zoo conveniently
No doubt my favorite raccoon will be dead.
In the playgrounds of Troy, New York
They have no monkey bars, but things like Lincoln Logs in cast iron
When they grow a garden in Troy, New York, it isn't cultivated, it's invented.
Each leaf is a tiny can or a small nail file
The City Fathers probably think that the arrangement of gas tanks, barbed-wire
topped fences,
and offensive oil-drums that surround the
town, and constitute the suburb through which we are now passing
Is some kind of an arboretum.
That's just about enough about you now, Troy, New York
But sensitive children of the universe (and of Troy, New York)
I make this suggestion: that the ugliness of Troy, New York, may be
transcended
Move out
But move out to schools & academic communities located in the countryside
on the East Coast for example
and become architects in more beautiful
surroundings
And then come back, and for all people
Build more ritzy districts
So that the mind of man may hum with unearthly earthly beauty,
which after all is only the beauty of
materials
May you begin with the specific:
The creation & maintenance of cities we can stand to stay in--
All the way from Troy New York to places in Georgia, like Athens.
Top Top of 'Passing Through Troy'
Author's Note '04 On 'Passing Through Troy' We can't help but be influenced by the environments in which we live. Younger people--who are perhaps more impressionable than older people--perhaps especially. So 'Passing through Troy'--a poem about an unfortunate urban environment with sidelong looks in verse at architecture & city planning--focuses on young people trapped at a certain point in time (1968) in a sorry place due to relative lack of mobility. Since last we passed through Troy way back then--riding on a Greyhound bus from NYC to Bennington college in Vermont & our first teaching job--we've little doubt that the city has become a charm spot. And still more certainly, our vision was probably limited back then by what was visible on the municipal roads taken by the bus. In any event, above are the impressions of a modern wandering troubadour, a poet & scholar, drafted as he passed through a decidedly unhandsome urban landscape--with sympathy for those exposed to it & wishing like heck that some other US cities seen both before & since then, were also a whole lot prettier. Many poems in Sky have similar themes--a certain Beauty being what we were looking for, then as now. Top of Poem
Funny money. It giggles as it goes. Whenever we're about to spend
some, just as we reach into our pockets, it goes “Ho Ho!”
Inklings may come to us that it's attempting to soothe us at the
expense of the truth, for after all, even to money that giggles there
is an end
But we go along with its masquerade, since we want to do what makes
it happiest.
Yes!--we want bills of both large and small denominations to fluttcr
with laughter in our hands
We want dimples on the faces of all currencies, coins to be smiling as
they are shipped into slots
Every vending machine to be regarded as a cornucopia of jokes and mirth,
mankind receiving a smile with every gumball, candy bar,
soft drink, pocket comb, foot vibration, cigarette. etc.
We want merriment residing in change-purses and pockets,
Piggy banks squealing to be broken.
When we walk into a bank we want to hear tittering from the tellers’
cages
Muffled chuckles from safe deposit vaults
High hilarity from all the halls
And the whole littered with packets of newly minted bills and rolls of
pennies and silver, all throwing themselves around on the floor,
guffawing...
[ To Be Cont'd ]
Everything is used up, everything is used up, everything is consumed by
History.
Thirsty and hungry History, there is no such thing any more as the
oasis of the baby
And it seems we are prevented from starting anything anew or afresh.
Why else dear friends is it so difficult to name this baby today,
to identify this human leaf of Eden, which we pray one day may arise,
to join the tree of men
--Why else are some children born wrinkled?
Byron will write many poems, then sink in the sea
Harrison is overly fond of tweed
Vladimir and Otto will compose electronic music
Jean-Luc will make movies
Oswald will shoot the president
Nikita’s head is a knob
Rudolph has a red nose, or a concentration camp
Adolf will have an inscrutable fondness for Bavaria
Arthur enjoys round tables
Cedric will smother his uncle
Harvey thinks he’s a rabbit
Felix will have a little high-pitched voice and show a marked
preference for milk
Albert will promulgate the theory of relativity
While Phineas will purchase the circus
Estes will appear on television, heading a committee to investigate crime
Cliff will hurt his head by falling off some rocks
While Geronimo will also always be jumping off of or out of things with a
cry
Phil will develop an excessive fondness for fried finches
Pablo will spend all day up in his room, thinking and painting
Rembrandt will always be borrowing money
You'll never catch Babe at home since he'll always be out in the lots
with a bat and a ball
Clark will fall in love with somebody named 'Lois'
Percy Bysshe will always strike some people as extreme
W.B. will write great verses, which suffer initially from soft surfaces
W.H. will write great verses, which suffer initially from hard surfaces
T.S. will write great verse but stop writing them too soon
Mick will wear tight trousers and walk around whispering
Donovan will dunk doughnuts and get drunk
Franklin will have a four term Presidency, and then a cerebral hermorrhage
While Peter, Paul, and Mary will walk around all day
eating immaculately conceived candy bars
Errol will always err
While Michael will accomplish much with regard to expanding our
ideas of poetic form & structure, & with regard to broadening our
ideas
about the different kinds of diction which can be used in verse, ranging
from high to low,
despite criticism from the poetically old-fashioned,
backward-looking, dumb & entrenched
No no don't ask me about possible names for this baby
All I can suggest is that we call him Time--for one thing is certain,
surely time must be born again.
PSALMS I & IV FROM FOUR PSALMS
Nothing can be fitted into the past, once it‘s over. Once it’s
over, it's over & done with. No future act can be
committed there, or somehow inserted there afterwards
much less for openers.
& Not only that, but to re-create itself, the future has to wait around
until more of the present arrives.
Similarly, although actions which take place in the future can repeat those
which take place in the past,
they can't take place there
But rather must remain prospective, rather than retrospective.
While the past & future are busy neatly situating themselves in their
time-frames & in the scheme of time
What's the present supposed to do in the meantime?--sit around playing solitaire,
or fiddlesticks,
or else perhaps just lie around on a huge
chaise lounge, yawning? Or perhaps pass the time by counting
grains of sand in an hourglass?
Yes.
How was the world ruled when it was mere Chaos, before Creation? How will
it be
governed after Completion? Surely not in
a manner more boringly orderly than that.
IV.
Nothing works. The wave the general gave to say "forward, brave
boys!--up and at 'em"
catches in the wind, carries him back to the
beachhead.
A frilly valentine you sent to a lace-loving lady gets delivered to her
dog,
who eats it, without reading it.
An octopus you ordered from the South Seas arrives without any arms; and
3 weeks later,
its little suction cups arrive in separate
crate. You throw the crate out
concluding--after a single, perhaps somewhat
overly hasty glance into it--that perhaps what's in there
Is simply all the buttons you've lost from your shirts since age 12.
You even imagine that perhaps someone who's been watching you
has prankishly returned them to you just to
taunt you
Knowing full well that lately you've given up wearing detailed, restricting
clothing,
& have switched over to wearing loose
blouses or else long flowing burnooses.
Nothing works. Minds keep manufacturing amounts deemed irrelevant.
The world awaits the invention of the conceptual wheel.
Note:
The Conceptual Wheel
is also the title of a song cycle by distinguished US
composer Meyer Kupferman.
Song texts are 3 poems from Body and Sky.
1..
Except for me, almost nobody remembers Clement Attlee.
The winds of change and cold snows too, have flowed all over his features
and figure,
and now all we can see is a
Sherlock Holmes cap and a large pair of earmuffs.
Occasionally, a bear comes by and finds a boot to bite.
Oh, wake up Clement Attlee, another inch of time
and not only will no one admit to being so old as to be able to remember
you,
but nobody will actually be able to be found who's honestly ever heard of
you!
Clement, Clement!--Hi ho, first post-war English Labourite
and somewhat Socialist Prime Minister--hi ho, hoo-hoo.
2.
The other day, in a moviehouse (after all these years shall I really start
to call it ‘cinema’)
100 people chuckled
when a venerable French general with large weights affixed to his eyelids
claimed that once, in his teens, he'd been a member of the “Underground
Resistance.”
Upstairs, 12 students from nursery school are discussing The New Global World
New Order.
At a party I finally meet God! He's with a student. He's embarrassed, he
grimaces a lot
(the student).
Elsewhere, an entire graduating class at Oxford, is entering a mosque.
Apocalypse!
3.
In bed--place from which all creation is sent forth--I feel a shiny bald
head
with a bristly walrus moustache upon my pillow
And under the coverlet, sense that suddenly I'm wearing checquered knickers
& carrying a walking stick.
Cautiously, a frayed black monocle-cord starts to make its way
back across my cheek...
SPRINGTIME PRAYERS
O Innocent days of illness and attending to oneself
After somehow surviving a particularly long, hard winter & then
coming down with a really bad Springtime cold
O Diverse daily routines of care and hourly devotions to the body
at whose shrine we regularly pray
O Warm sweaters we incessantly wear, to keep
seasonal chills & aches & pains away!
Still the mind looks on with a long, long face and a terribly cross
look,
yearning as usual to be playful.
Restlessly, The Spirit weeps tears like a lover ignored or bereft,
or like some formidable mistress greedy for a gift.
Like an outsider, it sits in the corner biding its time
All during long daily litanies of Coricidin, Cheracol, and Vick's
Vapo-Rub
Awaiting its Easter
When at long last Pleasure will once again will be resurrected.
And you await me too Love, there at the edge of distant meadows of
delight,
with your love like an irresponsible, childish pastime
Cherishing nothing. I too await our Day of Resurrection,
body & soul & thoroughly--
& You, the Easter Bunny
Top Top of 'Springtime Prayers'
FOR JANE (& ROGER) BUT CERTAINLY NOT FOR HENRY,
OR BARBARELLA
Above: Section of
a rare Barbarella movie-poster. Web Premiere of this relatively early,
ingenue Jane Fonda image. Most of poem, below.
Notes:
Revision of this particular Sky-poem
retains original 1968 perspectives. Although "For Jane (& Roger)..."
hints at
events to come later on in the dazzling life of amazing Jane Fonda, we continue
to think of this poem mainly as a 1960's movie-fan pop-culture
period piece--replete with the semi-old-fashioned moviehouse lobby popcorn
machine which appears near the close of this
excerpt.
Re the "But Not For Henry" part of our title:
JF's father is the distinguished Hollywood'Golden Era" film star Henry
Fonda.
JF stars with HF (& Kathryn Hepburn) in the 1981 film On Golden
Pond.
It, too, is daring cinema--a visceral film about Father-Daughter & other
older-generation/younger-generation conflicts & resolutions.
Its autobiographical aspect has been remarked on by JF herself, in various
relatively recent interviews.
JF's most recent film is the comedy Monster-In-Law (2005).
Info forthcoming re JF's recent activities in su pport of quilting as an
American Folk Art.
Jane Fonda starring in Barbarella I have a secret message for you,
a secret public message for you.
I single out the Jane of Barbarella because there have been other
Janes
and other films in which you’ve appeared or starred
even in the course of your short Hollywood film career so far
--Already, you’ve been cast and shot in many other ways, Jane.
However, the way you appear in this 1968 film is different, Jane.
In this film you appear--eek!--semi-nude most of the time.
& What with all the transparent clothing & peek-a-boo fashion you
wear in this daring new Hollywood film
Everybody's saying that it's the degree of nudity in Barbarella which
makes it so exciting
--Everybody that is except for the people who enjoy the weird science-fiction
costumes
you wear and there are quite a few of them, I mean
there are quite a few of both weird sci-fi costumes and people who seem to
find the film remarkable because of them. For example,
the 3 fashion-design-savvy gay friends with whom I first went to see this
film...
--But that's unusual, let's just say that: The Majority Enjoy The
Semi-Nudity.
No, no, that's where they’re wrong--like most public truth
That too, is a truth which is far too general; there too, there's a
misapprehension to be corrected:
It’s not the degree of nudity in Barbarella compared to other
Hollywood films which distinguishes it,
any more than it’s the clothing which you threw aside which distinguishes
you.
--After all, some day all clothing may go out of fashion, some day society
may
throw it aside entirely; there could come a time when nudity too, could go
out of style;
some day nudity both onscreen & offscreen may become so ordinary
that everybody will go around mistaking it for just one more form of fashion;
Some day the world may even begin to think of skin
as just one more maddeningly intimate form of underwear...
Jane, Jane, this is my secret message for you
Jane, Jane, this is my secret public message for you (and also for your husband
Roger Vadim,
who happens to be the director of this film and who happened previously to
be the husband
& Director of Brigitte Bardot, whom I also didn't mind too much)
Here in the lobby of this moviehouse having just seen you in Barbarella
for the 3rd time in just 2 weeks,
Writing upon this crumpled scrap of paper & standing next to an already
slightly faded movie-poster
while using the glass on one side of a popcorn machine as my desk
I scribble out in ink that’s almost invisible because doomed for the
outrageous oblivion of the audience
for true poetry here in this world of impossibly public perception we presently
endure
That I too, belong to that Club Of Love, that not-so-secret society totally
enthralled by your good looks
As you stand there in the poster with your perfect hour-glass figure posed
almost in profile,
With both bosoms half-bared & wearing tights & tall boots
& looking vulnerable yet still defiant
with your right hand propped on your right hip & with a sharp knife held
in that same hand...
--Which is why Jane, whatever you may do on the future
perhaps with this poster as reminder, fans like me will always remember
Your young daring; & how you looked & the sexy way you moved &
the eager, breathless way you spoke
Even early on, even in your l968 film Barbarella.
Top Benedikt bio Top of 'For Jane Fonda / Barbarella'
Modest undressings, unlike the daring, bold & brazen & self-conscious
ones
of seasoned show-offs on the modern stage and screen
You too may lay claim to the affections of sensitive men and women!--
Undressings in the doctor's office, efficient & indifferent; bored
and tired undressings of employers & employees changing wearily out of
work-clothes at the close of day; impetuous, ingenuous undressings
of chattering groups of schoolgirls inside gymnasium locker-rooms, preparing
for p.t.;
solemnly ritualistic undressings of nudists just arrived at far-flung,
secluded nudist colonies,
peeling off garb at top speed in cabins & cabanas, anxious to blend in
with prevailing norms;
hilarious undressings of people engaged in serious daily tasks,
yet whose pants or panties fall down suddenly by comic accident;
Functional, matter-of-fact undressings of individuals prior to taking routine
showers or baths--
not to mention somber, eerie undressings performed daily by white-garbed
attendants
beneath the glare of fluorescent lights, prior to washings of corpses in
mortuaries--
And just as I do not forget undressings for practical purposes, including
everyday ablutions of various kinds,
I do not forget disrobings at the ocean performed by swimmers before sporting
on the surface,
or by divers before submerging beneath the waves or even those performed
by just plain waders
Nor do I overlook all those stripping off garments zealously yet impetuously
just prior to skinny-dipping;
much less vast hordes of enthusiasts hastily tossing off excess
street-garb
of diverse kinds, before leaping with gleeful outcries into rivers or lakes
or ponds….
Water’s a great undresser! Whenever we see water somewhere,
particularly if it's someplace secluded & well beyond grim industrial
circumstances,
We can usually count on someone or other in the immediate vicinity
either undressing or else shyly looking around for a place to conceal himself
or herself,
preparatory to undressing...
Oh, & let’s not forget the coolly poised, relatively experienced
undressings of the professional artist’s model,
nor the strangely shy, relatively tentative undressings of the novice striptease
artist or trembling tyro porn-star
Nor diverse peelings enacted almost absent-mindedly & to obfuscating
gyrations
by the artfully discreet classic fan-dancer behind her fan
Or even the curiously aimless ease of people undressing at home at leisure
& just for pleasure
like artists of old in attics reclusively practising the lonely craft of
"Art for Art’s Sake"--
yawning withal, as if nudity were some kind of hobby
& All too often unappreciated except for true connoisseurs of such modesty
such as me;
Nor do I overlook inadvertent tendencies towards nudity or nudity effected
simply for the sake of mere convenience,
by vast multitudes of somnolent bare-bottomed or even totally pajama-recalcitrant
sleepers
& Tenderly too do I behold in mind's eye the trembling undressings of
true lovers,
mostly doomed to glimpsed only briefly by just 2 pairs of wildly dilated
eyes--
or, as in the case of orgies, perhaps only 10 or 20 pairs--
Even though surrounded of course by unseen presences of virtual armies of
the wildly curious;
& entire nations of eager would-be voyeurs and incipiently prying
peepers.
Ah, shy blossoms, alas mostly fated to bloom like flowers amidst some
secret, secluded paradise
too soon-to-be-forgotten; and then alas mostly fated to die there on the
vine
with their petals falling forever within abandoned, discarded gardens
All, all still are flowers!;--though they may not be orchids, still they are surely no weeds.
Top Top of 'Modest Undressings'
Complete bio. appears in Who's Who in America + Who's Who in World + Who's Who in Entertainment, etc.
Selections from Benedikt's other poetry books appear at listings at end-of-page at Other Benedikt Websites:
Contemporary US Poet Michael Benedikt's publications in print media include 5 collections of poetry: The Badminton at Great Barrington; or Gustave Mahler & The Chattanooga Choo-Choo (University of Pittsburgh Press, l980)--a sequence of poems about the joys & sorrows of love; & with Wesleyan University Press: Night Cries (prose poems, l976); Mole Notes (prose poems, l971); Sky (l970); and The Body (l968). His work appears in ca. 70 anthologies of US poetry. Relatively recent poetry in Agni, Iowa Review, Jerusalem Review, Lips, Michigan Quarterly Review, The New Republic, New York Quarterly, Partisan Review, The Paris Review & Washington Square.
Anthologies of poetry in translation under Benedikt's editorship are The Prose Poem: An International Anthology (Dell/Laurel, l976); and The Poetry of Surrealism (Little, Brown & Co., l974). He's also co-Editor & co-Translator, with theatre critic George E. Wellwarth, of 3 anthos. of 20th-Century European plays: Modern French Theatre: The Avant-Garde, Dada, & Surrealism (E.P. Dutton, l964); Post-War German Theatre (Dutton, l967); and Modern Spanish Theatre (Dutton, l969). He's the editor of Theatre Experiment: American Plays (Doubleday, l967). Benedikt is a former Associate Ed. of Art News and Art International. A former Poetry Editor of The Paris Review, his editorial selections are represented in The Paris Review Anthology (Norton, l990).
Benedikt taught Literature & Creative Writing as Visiting Prof. at Bennington, Sarah Lawrence, Vassar, Hampshire College and Boston University. Grants and Awards for poems published in print media have included a Guggenheim Grant, a NY State Council On The Arts (Creative Artists Public Service) Grant; and an National Endowment Fellowship. Readings at many colleges and universities around the USA, & in l986 he gave a videotaped 'retrospective' reading at invitation of Library of Congress. Poet is a long-time resident of Upper West Side Manhattan, & a graduate of NYU's Washington Square College & Columbia University. More recent readings at several Barnes & Noble 'Superstores' in the NY Metro area. E-mail: benedit2@aol.com
Benedikt, circa 1970
OTHER
PAGES OF THIS BODY-SKY Website
Has a more detailed Bio. than appears here . Also 1968 & 1998 photos of Benedikt.
Page 2--Selections from THE BODY
With Selected Poems from much-anthologized first book by a contemporary US Poet. Subjects in The Body (l968) range from droll to dark. Surrealist 'Black Humor' abounds. Quoth a reviewer writing in 1969 in Poetry: A Magazine of Verse--in which periodical many poems from Body first appeared: 'Benedikt's poems are a highly serious form of play.' Titles of the many, many 1960's-era & other literary magazines in which Body and Sky poems were initially published, are given at this site's closing page (p. 6--Thematic Index).
Page 3--'Dark Love Poems' from THE BODY
Dark page from The Body for College-Level & Above only, please. Page also has one, thus far uncollected, 1963 Poem.
Page 4--S p o o k y P o e m s Fo r H a l l o w e e n & A l l Y e a r R o u n d
Particularly eerie poems, mostly from The Body. Award-Winning Halloween-&-Horror Page includes large-font versions of "The Helper" & "Mr. Rainman." And one poem from Sky.
Page 5--Selections from SKY
This page, with 21st Cent. updates of Selected Verse from Benedikt's 2nd poetry book. Sky's verses have long lines extending into strophes & verging on prose poetry--a genre which dispenses with the line-break altogether. Titles of the many 1960's literary magazines in which poems from both Body and Sky were first published, are given at this site's closing page (p. 6--Thematic Index). Note: After Sky (l970), Benedikt wrote prose poems exclusively for about 6 years. Those prose poems are collected in Mole Notes (1971); and Night Cries (l976). Links to sites with selected prose poems here
Page 6--Thematic Index to THE BODY and SKY
Index of Topics of poems in both The Body and Sky. Has thumbnail graphics of original book jackets. This college-level teacher & student modern poetry resource lists & classifies by subject-matter, all poems in both books. Notes & Commentary on some thematic categories give an overview of these two first books. So far, Notes offer perspectives on the close relationship of both books to the visual arts (Surrealism, Pop Art, Minimalist Art, 1960's 'Happenings" etc.); & on poetic techniques used in both books, some innovative. Notes also focus on the philosophy behind both books--Sky especially. Thematic Index may be helpful as teaching aid for classes & courses in later 20th Century Poetry & Contemporary Poetry, & also Graduate students writing Modern Poetry theses & Undergraduate students writing Modern Poetry term-papers. General Readers may also enjoy Notes & Commentary. New: Info on emphemera published prior to The Body (1968) & Sky (1970), including chapbook Changes (1961). Illustrated with photos selected from Benedikt's extensive 1960's Literary & Art Archive.
Searchbox. Search
all 6 pages of this site from near top of
Thematic Index
Page
Top of this Page Top of Links to Other Pages of this Body/Sky Site
SITES WITH SELECTIONS FROM HIS OTHER PUBLISHED POETRY BOOKS
After completing THE BODY (l968) and SKY
(l970),
Benedikt wrote Prose Poems exclusively until l976.
Those prose poems were published in MOLE NOTES (l971) and NIGHT CRIES
(l976).
Selections from N.C. are online at
Brief Prose
Poems
Prose Poems
& Microfictions
A couple of MOLE NOTES
at
Theater, Film,
& TV Poems
And there's another from MOLE at--of all
places--a music-enhanced Xmas
Site
'Xmas On Bay State Road' & Other
Poems
Selections from author's 5th book of poetry
(1980) at
The Badminton at Great Barrington
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