Muse: A Novel (25 page)

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Authors: Jonathan Galassi

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He could almost see the new wave rising to the south, climbing higher, gray on gray; he could practically hear it, roaring in his ear till it became another kind of silence. What would it bring? Dissolution. Purification. Renewal. Everything would be swept clean, and reconstituted: virgin again. Out with the old; in with the aftermath. It was time to start over.

Paul loved this view, its primal constancy even in the worst weather. He loved the repetitive heaving of the ocean. And he would love it too after the storm, maybe more than before.

He opened Ida’s
Complete Poems
and for the thousandth time read the poems of
Mnemosyne.

GOLDENROD

Mnemosyne remembers as she sits

and stares across

the water every day

hard as she tries

she finds there’s no reprise

far too much

evades her failing eyes

but always she sees hair and forehead

lips meeting lips

and skin on ageless skin

she summons its faint mineral scent

and knows what she remembers isn’t sin

and though she can’t have back

each gone embrace

each breath each hopeless kiss

she knows she does own this

the last time

that she watched you turn

to trace your footsteps

through the goldenrod

she remembers

that she heard you call

miss you darling

see you in the fall

Mnemosyne remembers that was all

The Poetry of Ida Perkins

A Concise Bibliography

Virgin Again
(Norfolk, Conn.: New Directions, 1942).

Ember and Icicle
(Norfolk, Conn.: New Directions, 1945; London: Faber & Faber, 1946).

Aloofness and Frivolity
(Norfolk, Conn.: New Directions, 1947; London: Faber & Faber, 1948).

In Your Face
(New York: Impetus Editions, 1950).

Bringing Up the Rear
(New York: Impetus Editions, 1954; London: Faber & Faber, 1955) [translated by Renée Schorr as
Mes Derrières
(Paris: De Noël, 1956)].

Striptease
(London: Faber & Faber, 1957 [includes
In Your Face
]; New York: Impetus Editions, 1958). National Book Award for Poetry, 1958; Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 1959.

The Face-lift Wars
(New York: Impetus Editions, 1963; London: Chatto & Windus, 1963).

Nights in Lausanne
(Cadenabbia: Drusilla Mongiardino, 1964; incorporated into
Arte Povera,
1982).

Exquisite Emptiness
(Geneva: Éditions de L’Herne, 1965; incorporated into
Half a Heart,
1967).

Half a Heart
(New York: Impetus Editions, 1967; London:

Chatto & Windus, 1969) [translated by Elsa Morante as
Cuore dimezzato
(Genoa: Edizioni del Melograno, 1973)]. National Book Award, 1967.

Remove from the Right
(New York: Impetus Editions, 1970; London: Faber & Faber, 1971) [translated by Ingeborg Bachmann as
Aus dem Rechten
(Hamburg: Festiverlag, 1974)].

Barricade
(New York: Impetus Editions, 1972; London: Faber & Faber, 1973) [translated by Claude Pélieu-Washburn and Mary Beach as
Les fortifications intérieures
(Geneva: Editions de la Trémoille, 1980)].

The Brownouts
(London: Faber & Faber, 1974; New York: Impetus Editions, 1975).

Translucent Traumas: Selected Poems
(New York: Impetus Editions, 1975). National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, 1976; Pulitzer Prize, 1976.

Doggy Days
(St. Louis: Ferguson, Seidel & Williams, 1979; Hamburg: Festiverlag, 1982).

Arte Povera
(New York: Impetus Editions, 1982; London: Faber & Faber, 1982) [translated by Harry Mathews under the same title (Paris: Mercure de France, 1986)]. National Book Award, 1982.

Marginal Discharge
(New York: Impetus Editions, 1987).

Age Before Beauty
(New York: Impetus Editions, 1991; London: Faber & Faber, 1991).

The Anticlimaxes
(New York: Impetus Editions, 1995; London: Faber & Faber, 1996). National Book Award, 1996.

Aria di Giudecca
(New York: Impetus Editions, 2000; London: Faber & Faber, 2000) [translated by Marialuisa Spaziani under the same title (Venice: Marsilio, 2002)].

Mnemosyne
(New York: Purcell & Stern, 2011; London: Faber & Faber, 2011; and 37 editions worldwide). National Book Award, 2011; Pulitzer Prize, 2012.

The Complete Poems
(New York: Impetus Editions/Purcell & Stern, 2014; London: Faber & Faber, 2014).

Underwater Lightning: Uncollected Poems and Drafts,
edited by Paul Dukach (New York and San Francisco: Purcell & Stern/Medusa, 2020; London: Faber & Faber/Medusa, 2020).

Prescriptions and Projections: Prose Writings,
edited by Eliot Weinberger (New York: Impetus Editions, 2021).

SEE ALSO

Elliott Blossom.
Brownouts and Brilliants: The Instances of Ida Perkins
(New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2016).

Paul Dukach.
Ida Perkins: Life and Art and Life
(New York and San Francisco: Purcell & Stern/Medusa, 2019).

Alan Glanville.
Mnemosyne Remembers: The Life of Ida Perkins
(New York: Impetus Editions, 2018).

Hebe M. Horowitz.
The Ida Era
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2019).

Rosalind Horowitz.
My Night with Arnold Outerbridge (and Other Tales from the Good Old Days)
(New York: Boatwright Books, 2020).

Acknowledgments

The author gratefully salutes the following for help and encouragement of many sorts: Hans-Jürgen Balmes; Katherine Chen; Eric Chinski, Andrew Mandel, and my colleagues at Farrar, Straus & Giroux; Bill Clegg; Bob Gottlieb; Eliza Griswold; Margaret Halton; Michael Heyward; Leila Javitch; Jennifer Kurdyla; Laurence Laluyaux; Maureen McLane; David Miller; Darryl Pinckney; Justin Richardson; Stephen Rubin; Lorin Stein; and Roger Straus.

Special thanks to Tenoch Esparza, for everything; to my wise agent, Melanie Jackson; and, above all, to Robin Desser, for her prodigious insight, enthusiasm, and, well, impetus.

A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jonathan Galassi is a lifelong veteran of the publishing world and the author of three collections of poetry, as well as translations of the Italian poets Eugenio Montale and Giacomo Leopardi. A former Guggenheim Fellow and poetry editor of
The Paris Review,
he also writes for
The New York Review of Books
and other publications. He lives in New York City.

To view the reading group guide for
Muse
, please visit:
http://knopfdoubleday.com/book/239494/muse/

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