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| Cover of In Watermelon Sugar, by Richard Brautigan; my scan |
Hello,
toads and toadettes, hedgewitch here. It's my turn to provide a favourite poem/poet, and this
time it will be 20th Century American poet and writer Richard Brautigan
(1935-1984.) Almost all his poetry is quite short, so I've selected several examples.
Brautigan
wrote during the middle to end of the Beat era and the full onslaught of the 60's
counterculture years with black humor and directness. His bio page at
Poets.org, puts it this way: "Although
Brautigan, whose work largely defies classification, is not properly considered
a Beat writer, he shared the Beats' aversion to middle class values,
commercialism, and conformity."
Brautigan
had a difficult life, and wasn't with us long, but his poetry and short
novels--which to me are long prose-poems--remain full of wry
acceptance, hope and a sense of the flashing, absolute clarity that comes and goes, but always leaves something we need behind. Many of his collected poems can be found in The Pill Versus The Springhill Mine Disaster,
first published in 1968 and still in print. He
may be best known for his novella Trout Fishing in America, but his short poetry has a sad, childlike and
clean feel well worth a read or reread.
For those who'd
like more on Brautigan, an excellent archive of facts, sidenotes and details as well as a bibliography of
all his published works can be found at brautigan.net.
Below are a few examples that are among
my favourite poems:
Karma
Repair Kit, Items 1-4
1.
Get enough food to eat,
and eat it.
2.
Find a place to sleep where it is quiet,
and sleep there.
3.
Reduce intellectual and emotional noise
until you arrive at the silence of yourself,
and listen to it.
Get enough food to eat,
and eat it.
2.
Find a place to sleep where it is quiet,
and sleep there.
3.
Reduce intellectual and emotional noise
until you arrive at the silence of yourself,
and listen to it.
4.
©
Copyright 1967 by Richard Brautigan,
from All
Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace
"Permission is granted to reprint any of these poems in magazines,
books and newspapers if they are given away free. " per brautigan.net
"Permission is granted to reprint any of these poems in magazines,
books and newspapers if they are given away free. " per brautigan.net
Hinged
to Forgetfulness Like a Door
Hinged
to forgetfulness
like a door,
she slowly closed out of
sight,
and she was the woman I loved,
but too many times she slept like
a mechanical deer in my caresses,
and I ached in the metal silence
of her dreams.
like a door,
she slowly closed out of
sight,
and she was the woman I loved,
but too many times she slept like
a mechanical deer in my caresses,
and I ached in the metal silence
of her dreams.
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|
©
joyannjones
|
It
was Your Idea to go to Bed with Her
Snowflaked as if by an invisible polar bear
---unlucky bastard,
you're sitting on the fender of her kisses
while she drives the car down into the
perfect center of ice.
Snowflaked as if by an invisible polar bear
---unlucky bastard,
you're sitting on the fender of her kisses
while she drives the car down into the
perfect center of ice.
~ both © 1970 by Richard Brautigan, from my purchased copy of Rommel Drives on Deep Into Egypt, Dell Publishing Co. Inc.
Lastly,
for our resident victim of extreme haiku aversion--we all know who she is--I've
included this one:
Haiku
Ambulance
A piece of green pepper
A piece of green pepper
fell
off the wooden salad bowl:
so
what?
©
Richard Brautigan, from The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster.
Finally, for
those who like the spoken word, here's a video set to Brautigan reading one of
his poems, Gee You're So Beautiful It's
Starting To Rain:
All
poems and photographs reproduced in accordance with Fair Use principles.