“. . .and suddenly everything became clear to him.”
Ok, let’s stand back a bit and look
At this fragment of a sentence
From a distance—it comes to us
From a story by Chekhov;
Raymond Carver mentions it
In one of his essays on writing
But does not tell us its name
Or what it is about; it could be
About anything, that much is clear—
So what say we leave it at that,
Fast forward instead and imagine
This sentence as your epitaph.
That's some epitaph, and mine might be something like: she preferred writing to housework. Writing made everything clear. The cleanliness she left to others.
ReplyDeleteWell, thank you for that. I’ve just checked every short story Chekhov ever published, his letters and his notebooks and in none of them does the phrase “and suddenly everything became clear to him” appear although there is an inordinate amount of throat-clearing in Chekhov; seriously there is hardly a single story without someone clearing his throat, occasionally two in consort. The word ‘clear’ is one of which he was fond and if one discounts the clearing of throats, tables and the clarity of skies and eyes virtually every other reference is to mental acuity. Phrases like “it became clear to me”, “it was all perfectly clear to me” and “everything became clear” are common. The closest I could come was from the short story ‘The Kiss’ which contains the phrase, “quite unexpectedly had a clear vision in his imagination.” Obviously this is a translation from the original but I also came across “suddenly she heard clearly the sound of human speech” so I’m not sure why one instance might be rendered as “unexpectedly” and another as “suddenly;” I suspect we are dealing with two different words. I did read ‘A Storyteller's Shoptalk’ by Carver where he talks about the three-by-five cards he has taped to the wall beside his desk; that was interesting. Very good poem BTW.
ReplyDeletemy Chekov is next to my Gogol is next to
ReplyDeletemy Pushkin is next to my Doestoyevsky is
next to my .... Damian & wayyy up on that
top-most, dust-ladden shelf which requires
that ladder that I lent to my x-wife who has
yet to return it so's I can climb up't & check
from wench cometh that quote;
when I called her about the ladder she said:
"what ladder?", and in the silence
suddenly
everything became clear to me.
now? thew question becomes:
who the hell is "Raymond Carver" ?
I don't which is funnier--the comments or the poem here . . .
ReplyDeleteI say this as one who rarely sees with clarity.
Hahahaha .. this poem is kickass!! and the comments as well..
ReplyDeleteVassilis,
ReplyDeleteFrank O'Hara's reads
“grace to be born and live as variously as possible” and Ted Berrigan says in one of his poems--
I told Ron Padgett that I’d like to have
nice to see you
engraved on my tombstone.
Ron said he thought he’d like to have
out to lunch
on his
mine? well .. taking into account the mystery with which carrots grow-- here in India nobody takes a chance -- we burn everybody and that's that.
Nin,
ReplyDeleteet al,
I wasn't trying to be phunnie
after all
there jus' might be hidden a
mong these frage-meants
the germ of some future;
as for what goes on my tomb-stone ?
...you buy the stone and put what you like on it
won't make me no never mind:
Echoing both Nin and Aditya, reading all these comments was pure pleasure; it also gave me the opportunity to find out some interesting info about epitaphs, beginning with Elisabeth’s mind-sweeper and culminating in Aditya’s penultimate burning one, keeping in mind Ed’s wickedly funny one (by the way, Raymond Carver was the third husband of the poet Tess Gallagher, who was Carver’s second wife—something I’m sure Jim knows and I suspect Ed does too?) However, it remains a little known fact that the well-known Gallagher and unknown I were in some of the same classes taught by David Wagoner and Nelson Bentley at the University of Washington in the late 60s-early 70s. Now all of you know where this poem came from and where it’s going to end—
ReplyDeletethe Unknown.
Thanks to all of you!
Ray Carver was no slouch in his own right .
ReplyDelete.http://www.carversite.com/video.html
((check out the "story" on this (his) site)
& the 'bio' ))
Right on on both counts, Ed.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant, Vassilis. Puts me in mind (in a good way) of that Tail Without an Ending (but possibly a few kinks), The Poetry Lesson.
ReplyDeleteWell, I guess -- the comments.
ReplyDeleteFunny, but in maybe a different sort of way?
(The dithering geezer in the corner, down on the ranch we used to just shoot him in the foot sometimes for fun, hee-haw!)
Funny, you say? All I can bray about your "Poetry Lesson" is one hilarious hee-haw!
ReplyDelete