Response to Outside Poetry Reading: Fred Chappell
Nov 26th, 2007 by Whitney
Response to Outside Poetry Reading: Fred Chappell reads his work at Thursday Poems, Nov.15, 2007
The work of Fred Chappell was relatively new to me on hearing him read November fifteenth. However, I was prepared for the breadth and depth of his work-the incredible range of subject matter and form to free-verse, to other genres as well. His reading was unorthodox and incredibly endearing. Rather than hinder, his soft mountain accent lilted his poems, giving them a new cantor, stressing words I hadn’t stressed in my own private readings of them, and shedding new meaning.
He did something else which I cherish in a live poetry reading, he “jabbered” (his own word) between poems, providing insight into their creation. His own career spans so many decades and so many volumes (including a series of four novels, paralleled by four volumes of poetry, belonging to the four elements…an epic, intricate meta-work that intrigues me), that he felt called to delve into the inspiration for his variety of poems. The seemingly simple, and incredibly approachable, man revealed his detailed knowledge of botany, for his “garden poems,” the richness of his own memories, and his ability to translate German and French lyrics for the purposes of his “nesting” poems. Within all of these specific introductions to poems, Chappell began to reveal something beautiful to all present-the methodology of a poet is one of astute attention, intention, meticulousness, and a concern with the intricate, and knowledge of all kinds. I appreciated his philosophy of poetics as much as his poems.
The biggest surprise came with the theatrics of his “nesting” poems. The most canonical of these is “Narcissus and Echo.” For this poem, and the others like it, he called up his wife (whom he referred to as “Sug,” which was completely adorable), to be the voiced of the italicized poem. Each of the nesting poems was read two different ways: once in succession as separate chronological lyrics, and secondly meshed, where the end of his line would be completed by her italics, and that thread picked up again by his voice. With such a unique form, it was wonderful to have the poet on hand to offer his interpretation(s) of how to read the poem, since I had already struggled with the meanings gleaned by different ways of reading it myself. The musicality of these poems was rich, and the presence of two voices reading them, seamlessly, was captivating.
Lastly, I appreciated Mr. Chappell’s encrypted but thought-provoking answer to my question of him. Why did he jumble his “new and selected” volume so that they were arranged thematically rather than the customary chronological order. To which he answered: firstly, he wanted to be different. Secondly, if he was the reader, he would want to search topically for what he was in the mood to read. After he read, I pulled him aside and asked his opinion of the trajectory of a poet’s career, and whether he had compromised it in his decision. To which he replied: poet’s don’t have careers. Poems have careers. People just lump together all the writings of one poet and call it a career, but the inspiration is constantly new and different, and not built-apon.
Just like you I had not had much exposure to Chappell’s work before we discussed him in Emerson’s class. I think you response captures him very well. My favorite part of the reading was when he and his wife read “Narcissus and Echo”. I was curious to see how they were going to read it. Were the italicized words going to come after each line, or were they going to be their own line at the end of the poem. To my delight he read it both ways, which was an expression of his humbleness. He wrote the poem so that the proper reading of it is ambiguous, readers may debate for hours how the poem is supposed to be read and could come up with evidence for both sides. But to hear the poet himself read his own poem both ways was refreshing. I was pleased that he was not so arrogant to say that there is one way, and one way only to read his poem. We also talked in class about how hard it was to get past the beauty and the sound in that poem and dig through the meaning. I was sure that if I heard him read it, the meaning would be clear as day but the opposite happened. As I listened to him and “Sug” read the poem it was even harder to hear the meaning. Their voices were so different in tone, but they both had the gentle soothing voice that grandmas and grandpas have. This sound quality of their voices coming together was beautiful and really made an impact on the reading of the poem.