Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene: Gary Whited

The Red Letters

In ancient Rome, feast days were indicated on the calendar by red letters.

To my mind, all poetry and art serves as a reminder that every day we wake together beneath the sun is a red-letter day.

––Steven Ratiner

Red Letter Poem #248

How I Remember You

Standing by a fencepost, puzzled,

Dazzled by its grains worn smooth

From the hairy hides of cows pressing

Against the post as they pass, red white-faced

Herefords, quiet when they walk but for the

Dry hoof-clack in summer, the high-pitched squeak

Of frozen snow under-hoof in winter.

Here you stand beside the corner post

More exposed than most, harvesting your

Delight in the surprise of smoothness, coming

From whatever rough edge has afflicted someone,

Maybe you, your cheek or your palm warmed

By the sun-warmed smooth place, your gaze fixed there,

As though your life depends on it.

––Gary Whited

In the European tradition, poets were generally educated as to what sorts of objects were worthy of our deepest attention––and which might be suitable for carrying the metaphorical cargo our minds wanted to cram in their hold. Think of that fabled Grecian urn, or the stately ruins of Tintern Abbey; that island which the poet declares no man may become, or that prophetic cloud-mind we might wander lonely as. . .. One of the innovations that took place in the American literary enterprise was a broadening of our possible subject matter. After Walt Whitman’s voluminous cataloging of our young nation’s bustling panorama, nothing was off-limits. Today, I think of Ms. Bishop’s metal tubs lined up within her “…Fishhouses” poem, coated with iridescent herring scales; or that “red wheel/ barrow/ glazed with rain/water” that Mr. Williams reminds us we all depend upon. I can now add another iconic object (which a city boy like myself might never have noticed): those serviceable fenceposts that mark off territory or help corral livestock on the prairie lands of Montana that Gary Whited––not yet the poet or student of philosophy or psychotherapist he would become––took as icons, as companions. I imagine him as a young boy, his mind adrift in the flat unending terrain in which he was born, seeking experiences that might ground him, offer stability, and perhaps illuminate the dim longing of his restless consciousness. Judging from the number of appearances in poems throughout his sophomore poetry collection, Being, There (from Wayfarer Books) these fenceposts became resonant with emotional and imaginative possibility.

The speaker of this poem addresses––who? A sibling? A friend? A lost love? To my mind, this is the adult man reaching back to communicate with his former, more innocent self––as if to instruct (with one richly-detailed reminiscence) both of their free-floating minds. After all, the subject in question is experiencing some distress (just feel the buzzsaw of those Z’s in the opening two lines: puzzled…dazzled.) But the smoothness of the post––derived from the simple comportment of cows attempting to sooth an itch––provides an unexpected balm, reflected here in a little rush of S-sounds: the “hides of cows pressing/ Against the post as they pass.” The careful observations make us believe in the authenticity of this speaker, that he has spent more than a little time out on these plains, this farmland. But less clear is the emotional turmoil roiling just beneath the surface. “More exposed than most” may be a description of the fencing or the adolescent. This “someone” who has been “afflicted” by the world’s rough edges is in need of some sensation to assure him he has a place within this existence––and “your cheek or your palm warmed/ By the sun-warmed smooth place, your gaze fixed there” seems to feel almost like divine intervention––or so it may appear, looking back, allowing memory to shine down on the fenced-in borders of the heart.

The adult which this solitary boy has grown into has been shaped by the teachings of the Pre-Socratic philosophers––especially Parmenides, who Gary has translated and woven into many of his poems. Known as the “Philosopher of Changeless Being,” Parmenides argued for Monism, the belief that all of observable reality is a single immutable substance––change being only a harmful illusion that comes from our fallible senses. An alluring idea––but, true? I’m sure this poet has also investigated the antithetical philosophy of Taoism, where the essential nature of the universe is change and transformation. And so, crafting a poem to depict his personal development, we’re left with that provocative “As though your life depends on it.” And perhaps we are being set free to consider this all––clear-eyed as Williams’ observer of wheelbarrows, lonely as Wordsworth’s cloud who crosses––not a field of daffodils (certainly not in Montana, nor here in Boston)––but the prolific flowering of thought inside language. “How I Remember You” seems to maintain the confidence that the mind will uncover those truths it needs to continue growing––its own fence post weathered by the years. Gary, perhaps, has a foot in both worlds––the changeless energy and the constantly-transforming now. A poem, then, might be an attempt to saddle such a wild creature, to ride wherever it might take us.

* * *

[Postscript: by the happy accidents that sometimes seem to play a role in our lives, today, as you read this, Gary will be celebrating his 80th birthday. The Red Letter community can collectively close our eyes and make a wish––for Gary, for all of us.]

Red Letters 3.0

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And coming soon:

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The Red Letters

In ancient Rome, feast days were indicated on the calendar by red letters. To my mind, all poetry and art serves as a reminder that every day we wake together beneath the sun is a red-letter day.

– Steven Ratiner

Red Letter Poem #171

“Horses carry me as far as my longing can reach,

Transport me to the many-voiced road of the Goddess

That carries the one who listens through vast silence. . .”

––Parmenides

Horses, yes. And words. For Gary Whited, language proved capable of carrying him across tremendous distances: from his childhood on the prairies of Montana; off to Penn State University for the study of philosophy and a life of the mind; eventually into the composition of his own poetry which somehow seems to have a foot in the ancient world as well as one in the modern. Broadly speaking, his work is an investigation of that deep sense of connectedness he remembers first experiencing in his boyhood explorations of the natural world. In school, he focused on the works of the pre-Socratic philosophers, especially Parmenides whose writing became something of his first muse. And just last year, they were the fuel that brought him to the west coast of Italy and the ruins of Eléa – the very place where this philosopher lived in the 5^th century BCE; he was literally following in the footsteps of his ancient mentor. Gary first began translating Parmenides back in graduate school, and that work became part of his dissertation. Those translations, newly revised, will comprise a section in his forthcoming poetry collection Being,There to be published this fall by Wayfarer Books. Led by the forcefulness of these unbridled ideas, Gary ended up teaching philosophy in places like the University of Montana, University of Texas and, here in Boston, at Emerson College. His first volume of poetry, Having Listened (from Homebound Publications) was honored with the Benjamin Franklin Silver Book Award, and his work has appeared in an array of literary journals.

It came as no surprise to me to learn that Gary has also practiced as a psychotherapist for the last four decades, because deep listening is essential to all three disciplines: healing, teaching, the making of poems. In today’s selection, it feels as if our focused attention is capable of animating even the sun-chiseled stones – as if we might take our bearings in time’s vast expanse by what’s been recorded in their silent vigil. And, in the course of the poem’s unfolding, we can feel the poet excavating the very origins of language, the ways it connects us to the surrounding world and to the archeology of human thought. What philosophical (or poetic) truth can be more important than the boundless desire to know – the desire enlivening all we do, even if the knowing too often remains beyond our grasp. “O youth, linked with immortal charioteers/ And with horses carrying you to our home,/” – so wrote Parmenides in his incantatory poem – “Welcome!” I find Gary’s work to be constructed around such a welcome. In this inky temple, we can practice listening to our own longing, trusting that the horses will find their own way home.

Touched by Stones

I walk where Parmenides walked,

Among the ruins of walls fallen

Since his time, stones that remain

Because they can, because they are

Stones, and in their way speak something

We cannot know, but be touched by

If we listen in stone.

Better maybe to say they stone,

Give them the power and standing

Of a verb, one among the many

Chiseled down to a noun, spoken

Over and over, that way we turn

Verbs nouns repeating them until

They fall down, as those walls have fallen,

And now we mostly only remember,

The way a noun might remember

The verb it was when first spoken,

Spoken into being.

I feel the stones awaken,

Begin, how odd, to listen,

Or I imagine it so. Could it

Be they recall through my seeing,

My listening and my imagining

How it was they came to be the walls

That once stood here upright and sturdy,

Each one lifted by gifted hands,

Placed on top of the stone beneath,

Becoming a house, a bath, a temple,

These walls?

I see him clear as day, Parmenides

Walking among the tilted stones,

Offering his right hand in welcome,

And I don’t quite know if I imagine it,

Remember it, or if he walks here too

Right now beside this water that flows,

Flows from the spring above that gave

This place its name, Hyéle.

––Gary Whited

The Red Letters 3.0