Sunday, February 7, 2021

February 7: Pile of Dirty Clothes, Super Bowl Sunday, Amanda Gorman

Merton gets blind drunk . . . 

With the money I had kept in my pocket we went into the other places we would have done well to keep out of, and saw all of the carnival, and then went into Bradford where, drinking beer in a bar, we began to feel better and started to assuage our wounds by telling a lot of fancy lies to some girls we met in the bar—they were maids who worked at the t.b. sanatorium at Rocky Crest, on the mountain about a mile and a half from the cottage. 

I remember that as the evening went on, there was a fairly large mixed audience of strangers gathered around the table where we were holding forth about the amusement ring which we managed and controlled. It was called the Panama-American Entertainment corporation, and was so magnificent that it made the present carnival in Bradford look like a sideshow. However, the effect was somewhat spoiled when a couple of Bradford strong men came up with no signs of interest in our story, and said:

 “If we see you guys around here again with those beards we are going to knock your heads off” 

So Rice stood up and said: “Yeah? Do you want to fight?” 

Everybody went out into the alley, and there was a great deal of talk back and forth, but no fight, which was a good thing. They were quite capable of making us eat those beards. 

We eventually found our way home but Rice did not dare try to drive the car into the garage for fear he would miss the door. He stopped short in the driveway and we opened the doors of the car and rolled out and lay on the grass, looking blindly up into the stars while the earth rolled and pitched beneath us like a foundering ship. The last thing I remember about that night was that Rice and I eventually got up and walked into the house, and found Lax sitting in one of the chairs in the living room, talking aloud, and uttering a lot of careful and well-thought-out statements directed to a pile of dirty clothes, bundled up and ready for the laundry, which somebody had left in another armchair on the other side of the room. 

There's nothing very deep in this passage from The Seven Storey Mountain.  It can be summed up pretty easily:  Thomas Merton and his friends lose most of their money gambling, get stinking drunk, drive home, and pass out.  If you throw football into the mix, you'd have a perfect description of today in the United States.

It's Super Bowl Sunday.  The teams playing--the Tampa Bay Buccaneers versus the Kansas City Racially Insensitive Mascots.  I just checked Google to see who won.  It appears the Buccaneers defeated the Racially Insensitive Mascots pretty soundly.  I don't know if that was a surprise or not.  What was a surprise to me:  Amanda Gorman reading a Super Bowl poem.

It appears that Gorman is the It Girl at the moment.  Presidential Inauguration.  Interviewed by Michelle Obama for Time Magazine.  Now, the preshow for the Super Bowl.  I don't think poetry has ever been in the spotlight in my country this much.  First, American poet Louise Gluck wins the Nobel Prize in Literature last October, and now Amanda Gorman dominates two of the biggest events that will happen this year.  

As a poet, this makes me quite happy.  Obviously.  That teenagers and 20-somethings have a young, African American poet as a role model.  And, at one of the largest sporting events in the world, poetry takes the same stage as the Weeknd, and gets better reviews.  If you're feeling a little cold, that's because hell is freezing over.

I didn't watch the Super Bowl tonight.  Don't really care about football.  Instead, I led a poetry workshop.  Spent a couple of hours writing with two talented poets.  It was a pretty good ending to a cold weekend.  (Or should that be Weeknd?)  If I could make my living just doing workshops and poetry readings, that would be a dream.  

From a pretty good source, I found out that Amanda Gorman is now pulling down $50,000 for a virtual appearance.  If you want Amanda to actually walk across your stage, the price tag goes up to $100,000.  Now, I am not saying that she doesn't deserve to be paid well for what she does.  I believe all artists are underpaid and underappreciated.

I've called myself a poet for the majority of my adult life.  I'm happy if I'm given a free poster and a plate of brownies for doing a reading.  The kind of money Gorman is making is unfathomable to me.  If I were her, I'd do about ten or 12 readings in January and February, and then I'd take the rest of the year off.  Maybe go to Disney World.  Or buy a condo there.

So, now I have a new goal:  reading a poem at the Super Bowl.  I think that should be worth at least a free dinner at Red Lobster.  Or a box of Oatmeal Cream Pies.

Saint Marty gives thanks for poetic miracles.

 


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