Paul Zukofsky
WHY 4 OTHER COUNTRIES
OR
DEAR CHARLES, THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT
dear Charles
per your request:
1- in my opinion 4 O.C. is unjustly neglected, given that
it is the window into the future of LZ's poetic structure. To
my mind those endless quatrains help lead to the 5-word lines,
which is LZ’s version of the pentameter. In other words,
the quatrains (of 4 O.C.) represent my father’s resolve
to formally and fully “settle-into” (his reworked
version of) traditional poetic form (and to no longer move “16
Times”!). It is that acceptance/return which causes Bill’s
amazement when first he sees 4 O.C.. When my father fools around
with the sestina, and his (frankly bullshit conic sections) it
is what our British friends would call a one-off. Yes, it is
brilliant, but leads no place. 4 O.C. lays a foundation. Were
I to speak in musical terms, 4 O.C. stands to the late LZ works
as “Pulcinella” of Stravinsky stands to “Agon”,
which I presume you would perhaps equate with “A”-23.
If there is one other Stravinsky work I would compare to 4 O.C.,
it is the “Cantata on Early English Texts”. It ,
too, is dismissed as an overly long, not terribly interesting
work, but on the contrary, not only is it unbelievably beautiful,
but it is the opening to all of the (Stravinsky) serial music
that follows it.
Similarly to “Pulcinella”, 4 O.C. is the Zukofskian
engagement with neoclassicism, and that engagement permeates
everything thereafter i.e. if one “wanted” to be
a smart ass, one could say that “A” - 16 is a quatrain;
a somewhat exploded quatrain, but a quatrain. That nobody has
addressed this neoclassical aspect in LZ; that nobody seems to "get
that", irritates me endlessly; and I think that that aspect
of my father needs to be recognized, emphasized and addressed.
2- 4 O.C. is also the first time that WCW, vis-à-vis
my father, "gets it". If you have read that depressing,
disheartening WCW/LZ correspondence, you will find, year after
year, letter after letter, Bill's complaints about my father's
opaqueness, difficulty etc etc. When Floss reads 4 O.C. to Bill,
his reaction is stunning -- ( I think) his mouth is open when
he sees the quatrains on the page. It is the first time that
Bill acknowledges my father as a great poet. Bill STILL!! sees
4 O.C. as my father finally "getting it" (which is
why Bill "gets it" -- ahAH! my son, yes you have made
it your own BUT you have also returned to the fold, dear prodigal
prodigious son) in terms of what Bill sees/thinks poetry should
be (while clearly recognizing that 4 O.C. is a broadening of
what he (Bill) counts as great). 4 O.C. is, also, however, the
window which could allow Bill to glimpse the future which you
so beautifully describe when you discuss A-23, but that Bill
fails to see (as perhaps did LZ also, at the time???). Bill does
not grasp the subversive elements; the foundational structure
and methodology that 4 O.C. either is, or gives rise to. That
methodology is another powerful reason that makes 4 O.C. of "seminal" importance,
and that aspect as well has been quite overlooked.
3-- To truly understand my father’s work one must accept,
however unwillingly, that the vast majority of his poetic work
derives from his quotidian existence. His poetic writings are
in a most direct sense a form of diary. Yes, there are broad
themes, broad obsessions, that do mutate over time, and were
one to categorize my father's output as a function of the intellectual
themes over (t) i.e. various times, one obviously begins with
a political (of the left wing variety) obsession, leavened with
contemporary events (the Depression, World War II), seasoned
by the narcissistically offensive (“Washstand”, which
I loathe). Next is the humongous reading that proceeds and ultimately
comprises “Bottom” (thereby assuaging his Shakespeare
obsession), but that reading is of a philosophical, as opposed
to historical or cultural, nature. There is (supposedly) “the
family” aka the holy trinity, but aside from a few maudlin
references, to my mind, that point-of-view does not hold much
water. If anything the family aspect is simply an attempt to
try to force the ontogeny to recapitulate the phylogeny. Far
more important is my father’s later-in-life fascination
with history, and historical culture, especially/specifically
European culture (as opposed to Ez who goes off on a Confucian
binge). Where does that (LZ) fascination come from? From whence
does it originate? From that trip in 1956, that gave rise to
4 O.C. My father behaved like a demented vacuum-cleaning machine
on that trip. To use the British, there was nothing cultural
that he did not “hoover” (and remember that this
was only his second (and last time) in Europe (the later trip
to London does not count -- London is not Europe!), as long as
it involved things prior to the 20th-century. There was not one
fucking museum that we did not have to see (at the time I had
just begun to understand the utility of the female, and I remember
finding at the local TABAK in Paris, and admiring and desiring,
a pack of playing cards with naked women. This I was not allowed
to purchase, but as long as one could see the female nude headless
and legless in chipped marble, that was quite acceptable). We
schlepped to such an extent, that I ended up in Paris three months
later with my feet becoming black every day, until it was discovered
that the soles of my shoes had been completely worn through (
I cannot, to this day, walk past the department store Samaritaine,
without remembering the purchase of new shoes some 48 years past).
We paraded around Mont-Saint-Michel (and I got sick-drunk on
Chartreueueueuessssse) and Chartres as if we actually were carrying
copies of Henry Adams' in our paws (let alone the back-up spare
copies stuck in our ass pockets). Kowtowing in front of cathedral
door handles can only be explained by tying those door handles
to the Anglo-Saxon oar rings that we saw at the British Museum.
The visit to Verona was not to visit the graves of those two
simps. It was for LZ to see the mosaics; to absorb that method
of structure into his own poetry; and of course to visit one
of the haunts of Catullus. This is also the time when my father's
Latinate structure for/of English truly takes over. Yes, Ez did
tease him about M. Zuekowski ( or however he spelt it), but that
was the French (Apollonaire) influence -- not so much the LATIN.
Not until my father's obsession with weeds, oh dear -- accuse
me, botany, is there any period of comparable intellectual and
emotional inhalation and stimulation. And how does it start?
With 4 O.C.
4-- 4 O.C. is by far the longest “stand-alone” poem
my father wrote. I can think of only one other (PbgngTHE) that
comes anywhere close in duration and heft. That fact alone should
indicate that there is something special “going on”,
but why is it the length it is? Surely, not just because LZ wanted
to write a long poem; not just because it was his version of
home movies. He had NO CHOICE. This was not a poem that caused
his usual silent kvetching (about that aspect at least, he was,
thank God, silent). This one just poured out. This was his giving
evidence for how primal that trip was, and I have only hinted
above at what flows from that trip, and from that poem. Without
4 O.C., everything afterwards is up for grabs -- i.e. one can
envisage the remainder of LZ if he had never written (please
God??) “Washstand”. I personally can envisage almost
none of what happens from approximately 1958 to the botany period
if I posit LZ never writing 4 O.C.
And no-one remarks upon this, or gets excited about this.
5-- 4 O.C. is also poem as travelogue, as explication, as
adventure, as revelation, as mystery, which in itself hearkens
back to a more ancient style -- whether that be De Rectum Naturam,
or Whore-ass, or etc etc -- i.e. again the neoclassicism; and
that narrative aspect foreshadows the entire narrative history
of the late "A".
6-- Finally, I truly love the poem, but then, of course, it
is very close to me, as I lived it i.e. I was on that trip.
PZ August 27, 2005; lightly revised May 25, 2008
© 2008 Paul Zukofsky.