Collecte Works (53 page)

Revised version published in a numbered group of “
FOUR POEMS,
”
Black Mountain Review
6 (Spring 1956): 191-92.

Paul/when the leaves   
MFT, T&G, MLBW
[FPOP, EA, VV].

Poem I of “
FOR PAUL: GROUP 8
” MS, dated Dec. 31, 1953.

“FOR PAUL: CHILD VIOLINIST,
”
Quarterly Review of Literature
8.2 (Spring 1955): 118.

On the Aug. 30, 1955, MS sent to Dahlberg, the poem includes a dedication: “For the ten year old violinist.”

Untitled in “
EIGHT POEMS,
”
Monks Pond
1 (Spring 1968): 6.

VV dedicates the poem
“To the Child.”

I've been away from poetry   
T&G, MLBW
[FPOP, EA, VV].

On Aug. 30, 1955, MS sent to Dahlberg:

variant line 3: and now the leaves need raking

variant lines 5-6: between your house and mine/ I must scratch green.

FPOP variant line 6: Scratch green.

Revised to the present text in
Elizabeth
9 (March 1966): 30, where it is titled
“Autumn
.”

Also in
Of Poem, An Anthology
, ed. James Weil (New Rochelle, N.Y.: The Elizabeth Press, 1966): 59.

I am sick with the Time's buying sickness.   
T&G, MLBW
[FPOP].

MS dated March 10, 1954, provides two early versions:

(i)

Yes, my Time's waste.

My future ready to be filled, waits.

If this costly cold can

flanged to my house for flowing oil

to a stove not costing as much

were a piano

I'd sing, dear friend,

that thirtieth: “When to the sessions

of sweet silent thought”

“sorrows end.”

(ii)

If I were buying a little piano

instead of an oil drum

—more dollars for this cold can

than bought my stove—

I'd sing, dear friend,

that thirtieth tune “When to the sessions

of sweet silent thought”

“sorrows end.”

Revised for FPOP with one variant from the present text, line 3: serves a stove not costing as much.

Revised to the present text for
Origin
ser. 3, 2 (July 1966): 9.

The death of my poor father   Unpublished [FPOP].

On the Aug. 30, 1955, MS sent to Dahlberg, variant lines 14-15: to probe the trees/ at the river

Revised to the present text for FPOP.

To Aeneas who closed his piano   
T&G, MLBW
[FPOP, EA].

MS dated Oct. 3, 1953, carries two drafts:

(i)

To Aeneas who closed his piano

to dig a well thru hard clay

Chopin left notes like drops of water.

Aeneas could play the Majorcan sickness,

the pig-boat whips, Aurore, all the countries'

narrow sand-strips. “O Frederic” he sighed

“think of me digging below the surface—

we are of one pitch and flow.”

LN's annotation: “Was amazed and delighted to find it fell into stanzas with end rhymes (as over). Do you like this block or the other (over)? Aeneas is a Greek Catholic name. The McA's say Anis but if they're spelling it Aeneas as they do, I suppose it ought to be pronounced Een
ás? If I keep this for
FOR PAUL
I might use Enos instead? Aurore is George Sand's 1st name.”

(ii)

To Aeneas who closed his piano

to dig a well thru hard clay

Chopin left notes like drops of water.

Aeneas could play

the Majorcan sickness,

the pig-boat whips,

Aurore, all the countries'

narrow sand-strips.

“O Frederic, think of me digging below

the surface—we are of one pitch and flow.”

Alternative last stanza:

“O Frederic—can you forgive

this well deep piano?

—we are of one pitch

and flow.”

LN's annotation: “sandstrips—they dig here till they come to a sand-strip.”

A single stanza attached to the above MS alludes to LN's friendship with her neighbor Aeneas McAllister and to a proposal of marriage (there is no indication that the stanza was to be included with the Aeneas poem):

I don't know what wave he's on

if he'll be slowed.

Once was one extended his hand.

I've lived on a bigger river—

I present a load.

“To Aeneas who closed his piano” is poem II of “
FOR PAUL: GROUP 8
” MS, dated Dec. 31, 1953, revised to the present text. LN's annotation: “Chopin got sick in Majorca and had that terrible journey home. I've tried everything: the rough sea journey etc. but always come back to original.”

Origin
ser. 2, 2 (July 1961): 30.

My friend the black and white collie   Unpublished [FPOP].

An alternative poem V of “
FOR PAUL: GROUP 8
” MS (undated) inserts two lines between the present lines 3 and 4:

A silent long tail-waving moment

then I embraced her.

Another undated MS reduces the above line 4 to “A tail-waving”.

Revised to the present text for FPOP.

LN to LZ, Feb. 2, 1953: “I guess you said or Celia: better to have a dog at my door than the wolf! Lovely huge collie, beautiful face” (
NCZ
212).

“Oh ivy green   Unpublished in book form [FPOP].

Three drafts for “
FOR PAUL: GROUP 8
” precede the present text. The first is undated:

               “Oh ivy green

      oh ivy green—”

you spoke your poem

as we walked a city terrace

and said if you could hear

                  —sneeze

      sneeze on the corner—

             Handel clean

Christmas would be cherished

Christmas would be cherished

                To the mother

      color

does not matter

with her son's cold

no better

                unless

    a friend should tender

             rest and hold

her warm till winter's old

    warm till winter's old

The second, poem VIII of “
FOR PAUL: GROUP 8
” MS (undated), revises the above draft: “cherished” of lines 9 and 10 changes to “green” and “till winter's old” of lines 19 and 20 changes to “in green cover.” On this MS, LZ suggests changes: he restores the “cherished” of line 10 though not of line 9, changes “color” of line 12 to “ivy,” deletes “tender” from line 17 and “rest and” from line 18, and changes lines 19 and 20 to “in a green cover.”

An alternate poem V of “
FOR PAUL: GROUP 8
” MS, dated Dec. 31, 1953, adopts LZ's changes and revises further by compressing lines 6 and 7 into the following line:—and I heard you sneeze—

Revised to the present text for “
FOR PAUL: CHILD VIOLINIST,
”
Quarterly Review of Literature
8.2 (1955): 118-19, and FPOP.

LN's poem refers to Paul Zukofsky's poem “O ivy green” based on Henry VIII's “As the holly groweth green.” LZ quotes Paul's complete poem in “A”-20. See
“A”
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978): 436.

As I shook the dust    Unpublished in book form [FPOP].

In a numbered group of “
FOUR POEMS,
”
Black Mountain Review
6 (Spring 1956): 192-93.

They live a cool distance    Unpublished in book form [FPOP].

“FOR PAUL: CHILD VIOLINIST,
”
Quarterly Review of Literature
8.2 (1955): 119. LN to LZ, Sept. 29, 1955: “Very difficult problem to state—I feel I haven't yet got it all, left out maybe their love of this thing. The stoic enters in but is only one aspect. I hope the poem doesn't get over just the one idea that it's a principle. It's a compulsion to express thru difficulties, a love of the thing. At any rate,
don't
set it up between us” (
NCZ
224).

Violin Debut
    Unpublished [FPOP].

OTHER POEMS

Horse, hello    
T&G, MLBW
[FPOP].

MS dated June 28, 1949.

New Directions
12 (1950): 185. In MS and magazine, the poem is presented as a single stanza with variant lineation. Only in
MLBW
does the first line appear as a title—not adopted here.

An undated letter from LZ to LN praises the poem as one of her best. He notes its passion and its relation to the English epigrammatic tradition.

Energy glows at the lips -    
T&G, MLBW
[FPOP].

In both the MS dated Nov. 20, 1949, and in
New Directions
12 (1950): 185-86, the present poem is a single six-line stanza to which the following second stanza is appended:

Time on his wrist,

soft wool zippered suit,

he speaks:

Got pure gold, boss,

if we clip the gopher now.

In FPOP the six-line stanza has been broken into the present two three-line stanzas, but the “Time on his wrist” stanza remains.

Revised to the present text for
T&G.

Hi, Hot-and-Humid    
T&G, MLBW
[FPOP].

Undated MS,
New Directions
12 (1950): 185, and FPOP all have a variant line 3: She marsh wallows, frog bickering

Woman in middle life    Unpublished [FPOP].

We physicians watch the juices rise    Unpublished [FPOP].

MS dated June 4, 1952.

1937
    Unpublished [FPOP].

Untitled in “NG” MS.

European Travel/(Nazi New Order)    T&G, MLBW
[FPOP].

MS dated “Nov ′45?” and titled “European Travel/1943-44.”

Revised to the present text for FPOP.

Depression years    T&G, MLBW
[FPOP].

The early “NG” MS version is untitled with variant lines 2-3: I was certified,/ then for weeks I raked leaves

Revised to the present text for FPOP with variant title,
“Depression ballad.”

Titled
“Depression years”
in
Origin
ser. 3, 2 (July 1966): 8.

So you're married, young man,    Unpublished [FPOP].

There are five previous drafts. Of the two dated Oct. 22, 1953, the first begins with LN's note: “First version which to MD states the case better than the second but the second is less jingly. Mebbe I shdn't ever have gone to NY to meet the real writer but shd. have stayed in my little country patch and written country ballads to be sung with a geetar! Do I dare use the second version for
FOR PAUL
with a preface about a banjo or guitar in place of a violin? Of course St. Louis Blues streams through my head and a much better thing it is than I cd. do.”

What's wrong with marriage?

Women's rich fads.

Women and those “buy! buy!”

technicolor ads.

They need spinners and dryers

they need nylon slips

they need deep-well cookers

they need power shift.

You'll find the same man

working twice to give

all the things to his wife

she demands but why live

if you can't take time

to be home from this grave

or you do and your wife's out

with another slave.

She'll sue for divorce

he'll blow his brains,

the old work horse

free at last of his reins.

Oh that diamond-digging St. Louis

woman was a breeze—

now the gals got you trembling

before a deep freeze.

The second draft (dated Oct. 22, 1953) is a four-stanza poem beginning with the first two stanzas above, adding the following as the third stanza (where it remains in the present text):

A man works two shops—

home at last from this grave

he finds his wife out

with another slave.

and closing with the final stanza above.

Next, two undated versions, the first of which is an alternative poem VI of the “
FOR PAUL: GROUP 8
” MS (undated), and comprises stanzas 1, 2, 3, and 5 of the present text. LN ignores LZ's suggestion that she change “this” in line 10 to “his” and “his” of line 11 to “the”.

The second of the two undated versions is six stanzas long: stanzas 1 and 2 of the present text plus stanzas 3 and 4 of the first version dated Oct. 22, 1953, with the following small revision, to the opening two lines of stanza 3:

You'll find the same man's

Got two jobs—he must give

A fifth draft, an alternative poem IV of the “
FOR PAUL: GROUP 8
” MS dated Dec. 31, 1953, adds a title,
“If you were Pete/and I played guitar”
to the present text (FPOP).

“Changes in
FOR PAUL
” (Jan. 29, 1955) omits the poem, but it is restored by the time of FPOP (Dec. 1956).

She grew where every spring    Unpublished [FPOP].

I sit in my own house    Unpublished in book form [FPOP].

LN adopts Dahlberg's 1956 suggested revision to her Aug. 30, 1955, version. He suggests that she omit the two opening and two closing lines:

Time moves, no,