New Poems
“The Wrath of Juno (A wandering husband)”
Metamorphoses III: 359–401.
“The Weavers”
Metamorphoses VI: 26–145.
“The Dolphins”
Metamorphoses III: 582–691.
“The Wrath of Juno (It’s the children)”
Metamorphoses IX: 280–315; III: 259–315; IV: 416–530.
“Pythagorean”
“It came to me . . .”: Metempsychosis, or the transmigration of souls. See Leopold Bloom to Molly. Xenophanes tells the story of Pythagoras intervening on behalf of a dog being beaten in the street, claiming to recognize in its cries the voice of a departed friend.
“Ceres Lamenting”
Section 3: Nirbhaya, developed by actors in Mumbai under the direction of Yael Farber, responds to the gang rape and murder of Jyoti Singh Pandey in Delhi, December 2012.
FROM Fire in the Conservatory
“De Arte Honeste Amandi”
Andreas Capallanus, The Art of Courtly Love
“Maudlin; or, The Magdalen’s Tears”
Georges de La Tour (1593–1642) painted the penitent Magdalen at least four times. But the speaker misremembers: the bare shoulder and the mirror appear in separate canvases.
FROM Waterborne
“Eyes Like Leeks”
This poem is for Daniel Evans, who played Francis Flute who played Thisby in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1994. And also for Archie Brechin.
“Maculate”
Most of the italicized passages in this poem are adapted from Luke 12.
“The Horses Run Back to Their Stalls”
This poem is dedicated to Jens Jensen, and to John D. Hertz, who gave him another job.
The nursery rhyme the speaker has in mind begins, “Ding dong bell / Pussy’s in the well. . . .”
“Waterborne”
DNR: Department of Natural Resources.
“Pass Over”
The film referred to in section 2 is P. T. Anderson’s Magnolia.
“Narrow Flame”
The title and bracketed phrases are from Sappho, fragment 31.
FROM Magnetic North
“Bicameral”
Sections 2 and 3 are based upon the work of the Polish artist Magdalena Abakanowicz (b. 1930) and on interviews published in Barbara Rose, Magdalena Abakanowicz. New York: Harry Abrams, 1994. The exhibit described in section 3, “Atelier 72,” was mounted at the Richard Demarco Gallery in Edinburgh, August 1972.
“Make-Falcon”
Frederick II of Hohenstaufen (1194–1250), Holy Roman Emperor, King of Sicily and Jerusalem. Student of mathematics, natural history, architecture, and philosophy. Crusader, falconer, poet. Founder of the University of Naples. Patron to Giacomo (also called Jacopo) da Lentino (fl. 1215–33), generally credited with the invention of the sonnet.
“Father Mercy, Mother Tongue”
“If the English language . . .”: Miriam “Ma” Ferguson, governor of Texas, 1924–26.
“At the Window”
The Confessions of St. Augustine, Book IX, trans. R. S. Pine-Coffin.
“The Turning”
Ingmar Bergman, Winter Light (Nattvardsgästerna), 1962. Cinematographer, Sven Nyqvist.
“Elegant”
In 2002 the Nobel Prize in physiology was awarded to Sydney Brenner, Robert Horvitz, and John Sulston for discoveries concerning “genetic regulation of organ development and programmed cell death.” C. elegans was the model organism used in their research. My thanks to Nelson Horseman for calling my attention to this beautiful work, to John Sulston for sharing with me the text of his Nobel lecture, and, above all, to Ron Ellis for his patient and generous tutelage.
FROM The Selvage
“Lately, I’ve taken to”
Forty percent: Unfortunately, what the speaker heard was correct. NASA studies confirm an unprecedented forty percent loss in the ozone layer above the northern Arctic in the winter of 2010–11.
An island in the Tyrifjord: In order to “save Norway and Western Europe from a Muslim takeover,” Anders Behring Breivik in July of 2011 killed sixty-nine members of the Norwegian Workers’ Youth League, who were attending a retreat on Utøya Island. The Youth League is, in Breivik’s view, too friendly to immigrants.
“Dido Refuses to Speak”
The child: In Marlowe’s version of the story, Cupid assumes the guise of Ascanius, son of Aeneas, and touches Dido’s breast with his golden arrow. The oxhide: For this account, see Marcus Junianus Justinus, Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus, Book XVIII. “Dido Refuses to Speak” was originally written as part of a commission for composer Susan Botti and the Blakemore Trio and premiered, as section 3 of The Gates of Silence, in Nashville and New York, February/March 2010.
“From the Life of Saint Peter”
His Shadow: Acts 5:15. The Death of Ananias: Acts 5:1–10. The Tribute Money: Matthew 17:24–27. The Expulsion / Saint Peter Released from Prison: Genesis 3:22–24 / Acts 12:6–10. The Baptism of the Neophytes: Acts 2:37–41.
“Still Life”
Section 2: Schindler’s List, directed by Steven Spielberg, 1993.