F A M I L Y P O E M S

R O B E R T G L U C K

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Other Books: Family Poems
A N D Y (1973)
M A R S H A POEMS {197?;
METAPHYSICS (1977)

Black Star Series

16 Clipper St.
San Francisco
CA94114 •

Copyright © 1979 Robert Gliick

JYAIB

F 3
"IF

H o m a g e t o C o u s i n Bette

She w o n d e r s why nice characters make

such a fuss a b o u t living, a b o u t
keeping the money that gives them credit.
They should embrace their fate.
They should roll over a n d rot.

With her gift for schemes

a n d shrewdness, if she were born today
she might become a poet or novelist
marshalling w o r d s & characters
like less real relatives.

She says, " O K n o w here's w h a t I want you

to do I want you t o — "

She tells us, " T h e reason you go around

so m a n y times is that you are the film
in a greater being's c a m e r a -
I'm taking pictures of the stars."
 Since he doesn't have a body he's
Invaders from M a r s
free from nature 6c by extension free
from limitations (death) &C by extension free
from morality. (Morality ? You better talk
t o your mother a b o u t that one, son, .
Every family has a genius she's the boss in t h a t department.)
w h o sits at the head & when
there's an argument Like " D o n o v a n ' s Brain," another movie,
father must be sent away. the Brain suspends in glucose becoming
malicious 6c invulnerable.
W h o puts his shoes outside Like so m a n y movies that we watched
his d o o r to get polished in nuclear radiance, movies about
by the m o m , he smiles ruefully heads cut loose &C the radiance lighting
& says: service with a smile. o u r dream screens.

And n o one can understand H o w grotesque the Beats looked, living

h o w he turned so with their bodies.
w o o d e n 5c misfit, his D e a r Abby w a s always printing letters
father's favorite, more precious by unfortunate citizens with Beatnik
t h a n a daughter, so that he neighbors' w h o walked around naked!
mortgaged his house to send him u g g l Pull d o w n your
t o the best, shades, said Ann Landers. Pull them
n o w he wears ho-chi-minh d o w n Abby chimed in.
fl face hair 8c drinks, n o w
he's a loner, builds bombs N o t forgetting the expression "he's a
in Livermore. n o w he can't b r a i n " in order to dismiss him &c wasn't
relate, n o w he hates us. he relieved ? D a r k & Gregorian he studied
the stars while some went pink
In the film "Invaders from M a r s " &C black eating two old fashioned glazed
the M a r t i a n is mankind advanced to &C a coke, &C others read through lyrical tears
the highest level. H e ' s a silver head a b o u t Quasimodo's broken pitcher
of a body, d u m b love.
inside a crystal globe, his body is
Still others were glamorous
flippers or undersea plants waving
loved evil Sc thought on suicide &C
uselessly.
Bye-Bye land, said
With the slightest flex of his face
"each breath is a mistake,
he c o m m a n d s his crew—their narrow
it w o u l d be a mistake to breathe"
shoulders &C big h a n d s & feet 8c hips.
&C w e n t on to lash themselves
They carry him around
with spiders of a foreign tongue.
Sc d o his dirty work.
 There is the beauty of regularity in Babushka
balanced environments like the salmon &c
the wolf &C the beauty of extravagance
w e share with animals that live in
extremity like deep sea fish of glowing
jaws &C the desert frog with its T h e n Rita had to go meet Sheila at the
flags of skin. d r u g store t o get a phosphate and talk
a b o u t Sheila's shy boyfriend, Marvin.
So his parents wear the mixed feelings of
pride &C hysteria when they regard him, 15 years: I visit
like the parents in Diane Arbus' photo, M r s . Perlsweig, the nobby furniture from Europe
" T h e Jewish G i a n t . " He's so far above &C dish of h a r d c a n d y ;
them 8c beyond them. M a r v i n devotes himself to his office like a slave
b u t Gloria married a doctor, see, she has four,
all geniuses. A wonderful man, Bobby,
Meanwhile someone comes across the lawn
he treats her like a queen. M y Gloria was
whose n a m e he can't remember. They talk. Then
never a beauty b u t n o w she's so happy
the person finally stops talking &c goes away.
she looks like a movie star. Here she is
relaxing in front of her swimming pool.
H e ' s on a knoll Sc looks up, there's a big pink
and
cloud relating by contrast to the steel gray sky.
Bobby, so tell me, w h o is this Allen
H e says to himself "Just look at that pink cloud,
Ginsberg t h a t Marvin talks about ?
just look at that pink cloud, just look at that
H e ' s also single ?
pink cloud," to s u m m o n more &C more of himself
and
b u t it's n o u s e - h e Sc the pink aren't equals
Bobby, your mother has the face
&C everything, even the pleasure, especially the
of a n angel a n d a heart of gold,
pleasure, is against him Sc in spite of him.
a n d you'll be sorry when she's dead.

10 11
T^

T h e Visit A relative teeters

o n the ledge of his ego over a traffic jam,
the relative looks more Sc more alienating
A u n t H o n n y , her antimacassars Sc w e w o n d e r if d o w n there in the cars
a n d flesh, why, she's as good I c o u l d n ' t find something tender.
if n o t better than pickled herring,
a n d sensitive—a fern in sensitivity. T o d o w h a t with it ? Brutalize ? Waiting for
the w o r d coward before and—
A n d when she leaned an elbow on the picnic lawn
treasuring every micro-mini-second that You start thinking of yourself as the Dictator
dilly-dallied along. O n all the cakes Sc d o i n g Dictator things like killing people
she sifted a quarter inch of powdered sugar 8c off with their h e a d s - p r e t t y soon
(in case we missed the point). everybody including you says when
They looked like the ghosts of sweet things. you tidal wave in on a scene, here
comes the Dictator.

O let it go let it go let them all go O r start thinking to yourself: Victim,

saying to the void, "But I thought you put a
o n hating Sc relating, let them hate Sc relate
clutch in last week ? $ i 3 p That was the brakes $85?
to you a n d let it all float o u t of—
But you said they were fine * z 10. It was the
compression that was fine ? $ 163 Then why did y o u - ?
Instead you reach for your pocket computer,
d o n ' t argue (effectively), take it
A h h h delicatesse, ahhh sweet 8c rotten,
saying thanks for the love Sc blackmail.
A voice from the past asks in the present
a n d for sensitive ? maiden hair fern,
"You w a n t me to w r a p this cane around your neck ? "
intelligence ? D o n o v a n ' s Brain, vulnerable ?
It goes on "I had three hits Sc SL miss,"
poverty, vulnerable ? a neck,
meaning three boys Sc a girl although some people
anger ? reshuffle, still angry ?
t h o u g h t three living & one dead.
break your skin, angry ? get
fat, angry ? accord
H o w bewildering, h o w humiliating, t h e m , d o n ' t , swallow,
I loved the Sunday afternoon movies, dreary Sc scratchy, spit, spin them
a life boat o r a dark corner with the rich saying
o n the spike of your consolation
" d a r l i n g " unconvincingly and William Bendix,
J i k e a gyroscope like the meaning
a g o o d joe or a hit man, b u t always
(gyrations inside of gyrations)
getting killed because he's working class
of family life.
and therefore expendable.

12
13
IT

The Continents tinent." I w a s familiar with the w o r d 'continent,' the sound of

the w o r d , b u t could n o t grasp what it meant securely enough
t o use it to solve N o r t h America. Naturally kids were begin-
ning t o fidget a n d laugh. I figured I would point anywhere, be
M y mother remarked that M r s . Scranage, my 3rd grade w r o n g , a n d vanish. M r s . Scranage sat blandly at her desk at the
teacher, w a s n o t a very good teacher, and I believed my mother other side of the r o o m . I pointed to something. Some children
because she w a s infallible. When she did have any doubts she sniggered, I felt it on my whole skin in the form of a deep blush.
w e n t into the dining room and talked with God. O n the other M r s . Scranage said, " N o , that's Africa, I said N o r t h America."
h a n d I remained devoted to M r s . Scranage w h o looked like the I pointed to an island. " N o that's England.Try again." I
world's grandmother, with a gray bun and old deep-set eyes. pointed. " T h a t ' s the Atlantic Ocean." " T h a t ' s India." "That's
She was large and w o r e ungainly Kate Smith dresses, big Australia." N o r t h America was a class secret, everyone
square necklines, so that the actual head and neck looked laughed, conspired, you had to k n o w a secret to find it on this
small, looked as though they sat on a table. I liked her because, sheet of nauseating splotches. As low on fortune's wheel as I
although I was the stupidest kid in the class, she talked to me was, I h a d t h a t reverse corresponding degree of pride to be
w i t h o u t condescension and treated me the same as she treated bruised a n d inflamed. I pointed. Everybody shouted, "That's
the children w h o went forward from victory to victory with South America." Everyone laughed, and laughing above them
each spelling bee and Cuyahoga County history quiz. M r s . Scranage kept repeating, "If That's South America Where
I spent most of my time in school phased out. I sat low, Is N o r t h America, If That's South America Where Is N o r t h
hidden by the curly b r o w n head of the fox-faced girl in front of America, If T h a t ' s South America Where Is N o r t h America—"
me, a n d set m y mind in a trance with t w o possibilities for But the w o r d s h a d completely lost their meaning, turned to
a w a k e n i n g : either the bell rang through the school and my mud.
body, setting m e free, sending my spirit out over the school's
This occurred twenty-two years ago in 1955 at the Taylor
red battlements which I loved because they spoke of distance
R o a d Elementary School, in Cleveland Heights, 18, Ohio. My
of time a n d place, o r else my name jerked me awake, there
family moved t o California soon after, but when I was thirteen
w o u l d be a question whose correct answer was immensely
I returned to visit, and I visited Mrs. Scranage. The playground
remote and unformulated.
I crossed w a s smaller b u t still saturated with vacancy and
O n e day I was slung deep in my desk, looking o u t the anxiety. T h e building smelled like blocks, fingerpaint and
w i n d o w at the blue, n o t really seeing blue but filling my eyes disinfectant, the halls echoed, and there were the eraser
w i t h it, when M r s . Scranage told me to stand at the front of the cleaners in the wall, suction holes that had fascinated me,
class. This time my confusion was not to take the form of the leading as I thought to a great void of darkness, of sucked-in
swift march of the smart over the heads of the dumb. I walked erasers. M r s . Scranage was still at her desk, the 3rd grade class
between the t w o rows of smooth wooden desks. When I quiet a n d printing. She didn't remember my name, I reminded
reached the blackboard Mrs. Scranage asked me to take the her a n d she remembered. I showed her an all A report card.
pointer and point o u t N o r t h America on the map. T h e meeting w a s a disappointment. She was completely
I really h a d n o idea w h a t she meant about N o r t h America. o p a q u e . She spoke like a third grader, slow and in capital
Harvey Summers, the class genius, whispered, "It's a con-

14 15
 letters, a little too loud. T h a t is, she spoke like an adult speaks Scar
to a third grader. " H o w Very Nice T o See You Bobby " " H o w
During dinner Ed began one of the stories out of his past and
IsYourMother?»"OhWhatAGoodReportCard.»Irealized
o u t of the blue whose connecting link to the present did not
t h a t she had never talked t o m e without condescension.
trouble either of them. It was about John Abeel's father, Ed's
Rather, she talked d o w n to everyone. I didn't k n o w then w h a t
I w a n t e d her to say. I wanted her to say, " W h y don't you go step-mother's ex-husband, a mechanic w h o made his living
over to the m a p and point o u t N o r t h America." with three yellow earth-movers and a few trucks for hauling
and dumping. Bob watched Ed tell the story more than he
If M r s . Scranage is n o t dead by n o w , she's almost dead. My
listened to the actual story. They sat by a window with white
3rd grade humiliation is only light waves traveling to the stars
curtains. T h e summery evening light reflected off a window
But here's the crux of m y story. I would love to rip her skull off
opposite theirs and o n t o their chicken and peas. Mr. Abeel's
t o p u m m e l her complacent gut, her small death's head. I mean I
garage h a d every kind of gigantic pipe-wrench, file, soldering
w o u l d like to kick and harm her dinosaur grandmotherly
iron, pliers, a n d so on, all in greasy black heaps, so that Ed
body. H o w d o I rescue this e x p l o s i o n - t h i s dishonesty
t h o u g h t this greasy disorganization was the main feature of all
supposedly surrounded by four directions-
garages a n d masculine w o r k areas. M r . Abeel made his son eat
t w o teaspoons of dirt t o m a k e him tough, t o make a m a n o u t of
him. M r . Abeel w a s very neurotic and went in and out of what
Ed called the "mental institution." Bob reflected that a lot of
people from Ed's childhood did that, and that Ed said it
casually. They seemed to go to sanitariums as one feasible and
even attractive alternative in life. Meanwhile Bob was noticing
a scar o n Ed's upper lip. He knew the scar but had never seen it
d o t h i s : every time Ed chewed d o w n the scar lit up, the blood
drained a w a y from the thin line, leaving a wire of light in the
dusky sky of Ed's skin. Ed was saying that then Mr. Abeel
became a Jesus freak. H e came preaching to Ed's front door.
Bob said, "I didn't k n o w people's parents became Jesus freaks,
I t h o u g h t only people did."

M e a n w h i l e the scar went on, off, on, off, with each bite
d o w n . Bob wondered if he should point it o u t to Ed but
^
decided no, decided t h a t it would be taken wrong, and in fact it
w o u l d n o t have been meant as a compliment. N o . O n the other
h a n d , Bob asked himself if he could love the scar and answered
yes. T h e n M r . Abeel became the manager of a seedy gay 90s
hotel in d o w n t o w n Tacoma. If he could love that scar, Bob
w o n d e r e d , w h a t else was he capable of loving ?

16
17
 T h e Body

A p a r t y : a bris, a bar-mitzvah, a wedding,

G r a n d m a ' s yellow kisses, lots and many pretensions to
I used to think the old big chested gentility, A u n t Sura with a telephone operator voice
aunts were lucky because they could misses because of a basic shrewdness which surfaces and
eat breakfast in bed on the shelf pushes aside self-effacement in the rites of humility:
;
T loved it isn't it beautiful," the facets reeling off
their breasts made. W h a t did you
expensive dots around the room, "It cost X X X but it was
used to think ?
w o r t h it your uncle nearly killed me."

And I was b o u n d by the odor of hand lotion

a n d the chains of flowers on my m o m ' s print housedress and: I almost died
a n d her body a big yellow rose of the bourgeoisie. and: It w a s so funny I almost died
W h a t were you b o u n d to ? and: I almost had a stroke
and: It killed me
T h a t was in the fifties. I Love Lucy did us
and in the midst Aunt Rose standing too close to me
the favor of exploding into hysteria.
spraying denture spit at my fraudulently
O n the late s h o w the gypsy reshuffles
smiling face:
the cards Sc look it's death again, how romantic

a silence fraught with silence

If you w a n t a subject to write about Bobby
If you w a n t a good subject to write about
o u t of stress

write about a w o m a n w h o was insulted Sc betrayed

money was born.
by her mother Sc father Sc sisters Sc brothers Sc by
her aunts Sc uncles Sc cousins Sc by her son and
Some of us went on to wear our erections
grandchildren Sc nephews 8c nieces, w h o got nothing
like jewelry and others of us didn't.
n o money n o attention nothing everything went to
Bertha the beauty, silks Sc laces, everything to
We were like this poem, n o t really interested in you, Charlotte w h o walked like a queen, and the boys
n o t wanting to d o you any good, moving at its own t o o k everything
pace, enveloped in itself, putting on its first
lipstick, crimson, and experimenting on tip-toe,
And truly everything left her
making kissing motions Sc goo-goo eyes in the mirror
Dick moved as far away as his money would
buy a ticket to Sc he setded down,
a little spider hung d o w n from the mirror in an invisible
m a d e an enormous family
web, waiting. I killed it saying the universal bug elegy:
T s k ! p o o r thing.

18 19
 her h u s b a n d of fifty years, smiling M a x the
tailor—everyone liked him better—moved out
time a n d time again while she crochets bitter
patterns Sc schemes like M a d a m e LaFarge, her secret A b u g crawls behind a painting of a mountain
real estate deals and her fear that M a x would I think, a b u g crawled behind a mountain.-
oudive her Sc spend all her money (he did)
A b a t h r o o m door swings o u t and voila!
Rose at the hospital: the sublime poet making cong-cong Sc shi-shi
her anger Sc the corresponding impenetrable cheerfulness for everyone to s e e - W h y not corral all
of the nurses until she throws her filled-up bedpans
these thoughts in the body, why not
a t them
as well as t h e -
Shvartzes! Shikses! u g h ! dirty dirty d i r t - f e h !
her last words—"But I took all my vitamins."

everything intense Sc scratchy 8c filled with breathing

And here her life gets used by me, I see it with
T h e class genius, Fatty Summers, explained
her paranoia, it's come back from the g r a v e -
the refraction of light into color: a grass
it walks a g a i n -
body absorbed all the other colors Sc held them
O bring d o w n the house she says—I'm so while green bounded off the grass to the eyes
a g g r a v a t e d - S A Y IT L O U D - I ' M SO AGGRAVATED I'LL of my body. M u c h light my body absorbed.
FRY THE WORLD IN MY HOTPLATE.
A gold star silver star or red star stuck
t o m y p r o u d forehead with teacher spit.
C h a n g e shaking in a change purse.

M r s . Bertram dark-eyed wife

w h o visited with news of cucumber
bargains across t o w n or sales
o n brisket o r Tide. Sitting next
to the laundry basket fresh from
the dryer she automatically starts
folding my mother's towels. My m o m
protests b u t M r s . Bertram says, "I
love t o d o this, I love the smell of
clean towels," a n d she holds a towel
u p to her face, breathes deeply, her
eyes glowing

21
20
 M a n g l e Story stick t o her w o r d . But when she only tapped my shoulder with
her fist I became sick with sensual feeling and frustration. I
begged her to hit me again, but then I could see her starting to
get m a d .
I w a s compromised into thinking everything was "nice," a
blanket of nice so t h a t it's hard to remember because so much
w a s n ' t nice:
I was practicing, or rather n o t practicing my ballet exercises So I organized this S8cM scenario with my mother in which
in the basement on the barres my dad had built into the wall for I w a s the masochist, b u t really the sadist because my will
m y 9 t h birthday. M y mother sat at the mangle. The mangle imposed o n hers. And where in this imbroglio of feeling was
was a sit-down ironing machine popular in the fifties. You ran m y father, the king of the enemy ? If I could have forced her to
it with foot pedals like a sewing machine. My mother had w o u n d me, w h a t triumph I would have enjoyed over him. If I
slipped her disc and the mangle was a precaution for her back. could have convinced her, w h a t victory of speech, of language.
I w a s talking to my mother and she was responding with W h a t evidence of my desire's power to seduce words into a soft
h u m m s a n d tsks, her back turned to me, her attention divided pillow and soft sheets in order to proceed to further seduc-
between me and the sheets. I was excited by the idea of tions :
rescuing her from this painful life. I felt a powerful surge and
to carry her up to the rook's castle
welling up of love for her, felt it with my whole body. I asked
at the top of the glass mountain!
her t o hit me. Of course she said no. I asked her again. I was
submerged, hardly ever conscious, and when I surfaced to
create a n event in the real world the form it would take was
always a mystery. M y mother, giving less attention to the
pillow cases, said, " W h y should I, you weren't a bad boy were A n d so this was a world of three elements: my father (more
you ? " I explained that I just wanted her to hit me, that's all. accurately my father's absence), my mother and myself. I
T h e urgency in my voice made her stop mangling completely w a n t e d t o challenge the elements as in dreams when you
although she still talked with her back to me. She laughed from breathe underwater or fly. If I could have swam through my
uncertainty and said n o she didn't w a n t to hurt me. I became father's tears breathing against his will. Instead he cast me into
playful. Then I tried child psychology. She generalized: she a sunken marble swimming pool filled with a delirium tremens
d i d n ' t w a n t to hurt any of her children. I pleaded that all she of snakes. W h a t a way to treat his Persian and heir to reading in
H
h a d to d o was hit me in the shoulder. I implored her. Reluc- the t u b the kingly Sunday paper. If I could have spread my
tantly she agreed. By then I was right by her side in the pose and arms parallel to the ground and run and with that extra
m o o d of Ingres' Jupiter and Thetis (except I was standing, but separate muscular life, that sensual lift, carried my mother up.
short). But the story required a gift, a wound, to transform its love and
M y mother tried to refuse again, her face showed "good anger into flight which in turn I could have given to you.
Instead I can only give this story, which is the same as sitting
h u m o r e d " irritation at the violence of my request. I made her
with m y back to you, half-listening.
22
 Poem Mexico

Last 4th of July I read in A black Sc white p h o t o : I have it here—backwards so that

the Chronicle a b o u t a man the w o r d s come o u t frontwards in the picture: "Tijuana 1959
w h o w a s half swallowed by a python M e x i c o " blazened above our heads on a muslin backdrop of
when his relatives found him 8c palms 8c banners 8c hillsides, and my family positioned in
tried to pull him o u t of front on a w a g o n , each of us under a racist s o m b r e r o - o n the
the jaws of death. c r o w n e m b r o i d e r e d b a c k w a r d s : PANCHO, TIJUANA, KISS ME SC
They heard a small voice from the OH BOY and a serape for my dad (laughter—he looks, he really
snake's esophagus saying looks Mexican) and bongo drums for my brother, and a pith
helmet for m y little brother w h o sat on a mule painted like a
let go Uncle Izzy, you dirty miser,
zebra t h a t supposedly drew the cart. We sat in the frustrating
you stole $ 35 from your own son
sunlight. We were an American family, each of us looking like a
you can't deny it
.pull harder Uncle M a x , Sc thanks for section of American family. Pop Sc hot mariachi music Sc fast
the schnapps Sc the shiny penny Spanish from tinny loudspeakers conflicted in the street. I was
let go A u n t Cora thirteen, I felt vulnerable in the face of these high curbs, pitted
pull harder A u n t Olga with your untapped astral goodwill roads, bleached o u t colors, squat buildings, constant hustle,
pull harder w i n d Sc dust. D o n a l d D u c k taught me that Mexico was a joke
let go to be exploited, with a slovenly language and jumping beans
pull harder Lewis, both of us stuck in a bad for traditions, a n d I didn't learn anything to the contrary. I am
situation Sc knowing it Sc knowing nothing else filled with sadness as I write this and I invite you to share this
let go Irene, insult spills from your face sadness with me.
o n everyone's face like a dish of acid We separated for shopping. I roamed eagerly through the
pull harder gram, with your shyness interpreted as pride,
intricate booths, admired the gods carved in alabaster, hand-
with your courage to break the feudal marriage Sc what
t u r n e d chess sets with mother-of-pearl inlay, rich things I could
you k n o w of light, now, in other times, in foreign countries
have cheap. There were also strip-tease decks showing middle-
aged w o m e n , and stilettos, switchblades, bull horns, cherry
gossip/insult/vanity/hostility/greed/domination b o m b s . And w e had told each other informationally that
bargaining w a s expected and encouraged. I had saved and now
I could acquire, the spirit of acquisition making my heart beat,
nurturing/instruction/kindness/generosity m y saliva flow Sc my eyes overbright. Although usually at a
high fearful pitch of trembling niceness, as a customer I could
haggle Sc sweat 8c worry a shopkeeper until he would put in
family poem
his o w n money and help me buy the object so that he could get
rid of me.

24 25
 I browsed along, relishing the high blue malls, and turned b e y o n d me. W h e n You Were Sweet Sixteen, Elsie Schultz-
into a store t h a t w a s like the other stores. It was heaped with enheim, I'm Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover, Old Black Joe,
cheap colorful things. I narrowed my eyes looking for the exact C o m i n g ' R o u n d the M o u n t a i n , Night Sc Day, Hava Nagila,
treasure. I looked a t the chess sets, the red lowfire pottery, the Dixie, America the Beautiful. They talked about my grand-
Aztec book-ends. I looked in a case of hammered silver rings. m o t h e r ' s will. W h o will get the building, the" good diamond
T h e as yet unseen shop attendant stepped into place. I looked earrings, the b a d diamond earrings, Aunt Helen will be pro-
at him. H e was very slender. H e was older but he reminded me vided for, the pearls, the lot in California City. M y sister said,
of Bernie Barbash from the 3rd grade, whose ears Sc fingers " I ' m going to p o k e you with this ruler if you d o n ' t answer me
were translucent and whose face always hovered in the out- a n d carry o n a decent conversation."
skirts of the cry position. "You like me to open the case ? " I W h e n w e arrived home I went into the pastel bathroom and
looked at him and shook my head no. I thought, " I bet he m a s t u r b a t e d . I feared the authority it would give t o the ex-
sleeps on a cot, I bet he's p o o r . " I felt as though I'd spent my life perience, locating as it did the h u m a n response. I sat there
sitting on a birthday cake. H e opened the case and I moved my utterly drained, hating Mexico 8c hating the USA. Tell me,
h a n d over the rings. H e stroked the t o p of my hand and said, given the options, where would your anger have taken you—
" A ring for your boyfriend? You have a boyfriend?" H e where has it taken you ?
smiled directly into my eyes. N o t having the tools to respond in
any way, I moved away slowly in order to disappear, but he
came around the counter and as I looked back at him, both of
us stepping over pottery jars, he brushed my thigh with his
h a n d saying, "You be my boyfriend?" Did he w a n t my
m o n e y ? I didn't exactly stay, b u t I didn't leave either. I just
moved around, followed, until, n o t knowing how to say good-
by to all this, I slipped away.

"I've been touched by a pervert in a border t o w n , " I said

over Sc over, I lost track. The colors of the pinatas, all the
degraded cheapness everywhere reiterated: "I was touched by
a pervert in Mexico. Touched by a pervert. A pervert touched
m e in a border t o w n . "
I met my family at the Cantina Tres Panchos. Soda from the
b o t t l e : even so on the surface of the p o p there floated a pubic
hair t h a t carried every disease in the world. The long drive
back. M y d a d looked for his lighter. "Somebody musta went
South with it." Laughter—we were South. I was preoccupied
with a ringing telephone in my crotch that wouldn't stop. I
sensed news of a misfortune so complete that its scope was

27
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IS

!
R e m a r k s o n N a r r a t i v e : the Example
of R o b e r t Gliick's Poetry
"There is a story being told
about you..."

—Marx, cited by J. P. Faye

1.
If nothing else— b u t there certainly is a great deal more here—
R o b e r t Gliick's offering of narrations attracts attention as
storytelling.' T h e stories and poems present themselves to us as
a series of developments of narrative possibilities in poetry
itself. As has n o w been apparent for some time, the poetry of
t h e '70s seems generally to have reached a point of stagnation,
increasing a kind of refinement of technique and available
forms, w i t h o u t yet being able to profit gready from the vigor,
energy a n d accessibility t h a t mark so much of the new
M o v e m e n t writing of gays, w o m e n and Third World writers,
a m o n g others. Ultimately this impasse of poetry reflects
conditions in society itself. In the meantime, however, poetry's
consciousness of itself in relation to society can often be more
progressive a n d open t o n e w awareness when it takes the form
of a critique of its o w n poetic forms.

2.
R o b e r t Gliick's narratives seem to me to be just such a critique
of m a n y recent formalistic tendencies in poetry, particularly
the n e w trends toward conceptualization, linguistic abstrac-
tion a n d process poetry. These various orientations appear as a
refusal t o be heard socially, that is, to speak to any real
audience. T h u s the function of the poem often seems t o
continue the a u t o n o m o u s Modernist sense of the poem's
existence on the page, and only there. Counteracting some of

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4.

these tendencies, Frank O ' H a r a in the '50s and early '60s, and If o n e of the concerns of a certain type of Jewish joke has been
then some of the poets in N e w York—Ron Padgett should be t o reconcile the unreconcilable, then what is being narrated
mentioned particularly—began to integrate narrative material here seems to insist on an extremely unreconcilable side of
as a technique to constitute the poem again socially. Robert things. "It cost X X X b u t it was worth it your uncle nearly
Gliick's poems seem to come from, and be a development of, killed m e , " says A u n t Sura. Of course—and we take it for
this countertendency to prevailing Modernist practices. His g r a n t e d — s u c h a family life is not healthy. But that after all
p o e m s in this respect bring out a strongly judgmental or m a y n o t be the main point. O r we could p u t it another way. We
juridical aspect of this narrative function in a tradition which might ask w h o the subject of these poems might be. And we
u p to n o w has not adequately or politically appreciated it. might also ask w h o or w h a t their object could be.
At the end of the "Mangle Story," for instance, we find that
3. t h r o u g h some sleight of hand it is we ourselves w h o have
become the n a r r a t o r of the story, and through a linguistic ruse
I say 'politically' because I think this is the real meaning behind
the subject of these stories has become only a conveniently
the confusing narrative disguises that these poems often take
transferrable function. And the narrator has become the object
on. They find it satisfying, 'for instance, to keep a running
of a n e w narration being told—this time by ourselves. What
commentary on themselves—the metatext that is spoken from
t h e n a r r a t o r seems to be claiming then is that it is the act of
the present—while onstage appear conventional anecdotes,
narrating itself that causes the narrative function to slip across
such as these narratives of someone's past, of ethnicity and
the invisible bar of separation—from him to us. Thus at the
family life. They are stories that mime a past as overheard by a
conclusion of this anecdote he tells us that he "can only give
mocking, sometimes cynical presence that seems to be ma-
(you) this story, which is the same as sitting with my back to
nipulating them for its own ends. But when we think a b o u t it
you, half-listening." Are the narrator's claims to indifference
these stories may seem rather odd in other ways too. Some-
sincere t h e n ? We suspect not. The narrator can hardly be
times they may seem t o have an air of the slightly risque, or else
indifferent if a t this point the question for both us and for him
of the puzzlingly factitious or 'worked up,' but at all events of a
is, w h o is the ' w h o ' telling the story ?—and h o w could we
certain rather embarrassing tone that for some reason appears
indicate this subject? Freud, knowledgeable enough about
t o be assuming our complicity in its own slightly shady or
such matters to follow his 'dream-book' a little later with his
seedy designs. We ought to be shocked of course, but we are
'joke-book,' thereby doubly accomodating the examples of
n o t . These feelings clearly w a r n us—be on your guard, because
w i t from his o w n tradition, may be invoked here to tell us
these stories concern you. But the question is, how ? For w h a t
something important a b o u t the story he disclosed as the
is after all to be done with a set of stories whose every
n a r r a t i o n of a dream 'structured like a language'—and always
ridiculous conclusion is a vaudeville death? "Bobby, your
taking place 'elsewhere,' as Lacan would later point out. For
m o t h e r has the face/of an angel and a heart of gold, /and you'll
Freud the question of the narration is thus the place of the
be sorry w h e n she's d e a d . " Certainly these stories are every bit
subject—the subject w h o is recounting that narration. It is to
as h u m o r o u s as they are intended to be. But aren't they also in a
this question, the question of the location of the subject
sense compromising—to the extent that we find them as
actually speaking these poems and stories, that we should now
h u m o r o u s as they say they are ?
t u r n o u r a t t e n t i o n — t o locate, that is, that offstage 'elsewhere,'

30 31

VSk
 mmm*mj*
-r^r

w h o s e region, insofar as it constitutes conditions of reality, can

n o w be called political rather than psychological. For it is only
o u t of social conditions that the narrating imagination comes
to be.

5.
Conditions of reality operate in these poems and stories as a
return to a social origin as well as to a destination of the
narrative—ourselves as that 'audience' both hearing and
producing these same stories. The narrative function reveals
itself in the technical features which characterize it. The
'deceptive' ending, o r ending of reversal, the rhetorical texture
of a h u m o r t h a t makes us accomplices of a narrator w h o seems
t o claim that ethnic and family caricatures are indeed reflec-
tions of ' h o w things are'; or else ("The Body") the juridical
a n d semantic usage of anger, acting as warnings or signals that
the poems are partisan, and intended to have real effects on
u s — a judgmental viewpoint that declines to be 'objective' in
any sense that would satisfy us. These devices constitute a
transfer of the subject from a local determination in the
speaking narrator to a more profound and generalized func-
tion which may be thought of as society itself, as it tells us the
story t h a t continues to constitute it.

These poems and stories, then, remind us of the actual,

t h o u g h unmentioned function of narration as a device for
registering social meaning. They take on special importance, in
my opinion, in clarifying our awareness of the relations of
p o e t r y to a material and social, or actual truth. They create the
need for an audience—the sense of the narration as it pre-
supposes a reception, and keeps in mind a destination. In a
poetry such as this we can see both possibilities for present
literary concern as well as signals for a future. A future that is
certainly on the other side of our present writing, but one that
m a y nonetheless reflect back to us some idea of what poetry
a n d society might be in a place still to come. VALR ?

Bruce Boone
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