The Pushcart Prize, XVI:
Best of the Small Presses 1991-1992
Edited by Bill Henderson with
the Pushcart Prize editors
Pushcart Press, 574 pages, $28.50
The Best American Poetry 1991
Edited by Mark Strand and David Lehman
Scribners, 326 pages, $27.95; Colliers, $12.95, paper
Today`s creative writer seeking a publisher has some 5,000 outlets to choose from, according to the annual International Directory of Little Magazines and Small Presses. The Directory began as a modest paperback in the early 1960s but is now almost as thick as the Manhattan telephone book, its densely printed pages listing almost 200 journals and presses in Illinois alone.
Trying to keep up with this enormous outpouring of poetry and literary prose, the most conscientious Constant Reader would go bleary-eyed, if not bonkers and bankrupt. Fortunately, two annual anthologies offer assistance by diligently surveying the flood and skimming off the cream, and sometimes the half & half.
In the 16th installment to the series, ”The Pushcart Prize” offers a bountiful, consistently readable collection of poetry, short fiction and essays representing the current state of the genres. After scanning hundreds of publications, from Aardvark Enterprises to ZYZZYVA, editor Bill Henderson, aided by his army of literary scouts and nominators, has assembled 55 pieces by talented newcomers and nationally recognized names like Joyce Carol Oates, James Merrill and Ursula K. Le Guin.
In his Introduction, ”Holy Fools,” Edward Hoagland provides a context for the present boom in belle lettres by going back to the bad old days before government largesse and teaching positions in writing programs offered financial support and safe havens for struggling authors. Its plaintive tone aside, Hoagland`s account of the young Raymond Carver, Donald Barthelme, Marge Piercy and many others is also a helpful reminder of how important the
”little” magazines have been to the careers of once unknown writers.
Among the prose pieces-the volume`s strongest suit-stories about childhood and growing up are particular standouts.
In ”Books Oft Have Such a Charm: A Memory,” William J. Scheick recalls how his mother`s faith and his love for a children`s book about a beagle helped him conquer dyslexia when he was 12. David Jauss` touching short story, ”Glossolalia,” depicts a teenage boy`s rejection of his disgraced father and his fear, ”This is you when you`re older.” Susan Bergman`s ”Anonymity” presents an incisive three-part story of a young woman`s bitter coming to terms with her own identity as a writer and her dying father`s as a homosexual.
”Nosotros,” by Janet Perry, tells the story of Licha, a young Chicana who is ashamed of her Mexican mother`s servility to an Anglo matron, and their unspoken reconciliation after the daughter`s own subservience to the employer`s son. In ”The Box,” Susan Straight gives an unsettling picture of the ever-present violence in the ghetto through the eyes of a recklessly brave 19-year-old black woman. ”One Way,” by Jess Mowry, presents a chillingly realistic, tension-filled account of a runaway black boy`s dangerous night on the mean streets of California.
Other ethnic groups are represented as well in this p.c.
(pluralistically comprehensive) collection. Carol Roh-Spaulding portrays cultural clashes within a Korean family following World War II in ”Waiting for Mr. Kim”; while Ben Groff depicts the gradual disintegration of Eskimo traditions in ”A Call From Kotzebue,” a story about the long, contentious friendship between two tough women, a part-charlatan Inupiat shaman and a half-believing newspaper reporter.
Some of the 29 poems interspersed between the prose demonstrate a similar social awareness, as in Gwendolyn Brooks` tribute to Jane Addams and Li-Young Lee`s ”The Cleaving,” a long homage to his Chinese family, separated by events but rejoined by the poet`s images of food and feasting.
Other poems consider dislocations of different kinds. Brenda Hillman`s
”Mighty Forms” recalls a California earthquake and its aftermath; George Keithley`s ”When They Leave” commemorates endangered species: ”Droves of animals” who ”disappear when we dream/ because they are too innocent/ to survive.”
Several selections reflect on time`s passing, as in William Stafford`s
”The Gift” and Jack Marshall`s ”Sesame,” or remember those who have passed away, as in Katha Pollitt`s haunting ”Visitors,” Gwen Head`s elegiac ”Night Sweats” and Sharon Olds` ambivalent farewell to her father in
”The Dead Body Itself.”
Of the uniformly engaging essays, three merit special notice. Paul West`s ”Portable People” captures the essence of the illustrious dead (and the notorious living) in a series of clever capsule biographies. On Dame Edith Sitwell: ”She was our first mutant muse.” On ”Virginia Woolf by the River Ouse”: ”an Ophelia of the middle class. Suttee voce.”
In the equally keen ”Writers and Their Songs,” William Kennedy explains why, even in this post-literate age, the novel will survive. And in ”Three Propositions: Hooey, Dewey, and Loony,” Marvin Bell provides an eloquent apology for poetry, with an ingenious examination of its perennial appeal. Among his apercus: ”The difficulty of writing lies in turning from our reasonable, pragmatic selves long enough to idle our way into the
imagination.”
In his Introduction to ”The Best American Poetry 1991,” this year`s editor (and current Poet Laureate) Mark Strand also offers a moving
”explanation” for his art, by recounting how his skeptical parents (who preferred informational prose) initially reacted to his decision to become a poet. Reading his son`s poems after his mother`s death in 1965, Strand`s father then discovers: ”They seem to tell him what he knows but cannot say. . . . They tell him in so many words what he is feeling. They put him in touch with himself.” Many of the 75 poems Strand has selected here, with the help of series editor David Lehman, should have similar effects on most readers.
Drawn from almost three dozen magazines little and large, the anthology presents a wide cross-section of American poetic practice today. The diversity of forms-rhymed and free verse, shaped poem and sestina, haiku, sonnet, dramatic monologue, elegy, verse essay and narrative-indicates the renewed vitality of tradition, as well as the versatility particularly of a younger generation that is indifferent to the divisive aesthetic politics of previous decades. As the century nears its close, no single mode or style predominates. Still, a certain mood or attitude does prevail in this eclectic anthology. Somber and self-consciously crafted, Strand`s assemblage reflects the tastes of the editor, of course. But it also mirrors our sobering times, as well as the marvelous sophistication of our well-read, allusive authors. All strive for an individual voice (one of the few generalizations that can be safely made about them) while they engage with the troubled contemporary world and the poetic traditions, they have inherited.
Fresh as USA Today`s headlines, a number of poems address current social concerns, as in Ai`s ”Evidence: From a Reporter`s Notebook,” inspired by the Tawana Brawley fiasco, and ”Cigarettes,” by the aptly named John Ash.
In ”Desire,” Stephen Dobyns questions p.c. (politically correct)
opinions by asking: ”Why must men pretend to be indifferent as if each/ were a happy eunuch engaged in spiritual thoughts?” Richard Howard responds to the query ” `What Word Did the Greeks Have for It?` ” with a wise and witty exegesis of homosexuality and cultural history.
Elegies make up a large part of the anthology and are among its most moving poems. Amy Clampitt`s ”A Whipoorwill in the Woods” conjures a dead aunt who instilled her love for nature. Debora Gregor commemorates the poet and editor Howard Moss in a sequence called ”The Afterlife”; and Linda Gregerson remembers a murdered friend in a subtly structured, emotionally stunning work ironically titled ”Safe.” Icons of pop culture are saluted in Gerald Burns` ”Double Sonnet for Mickey” (for Spillane) and Marc Cohen`s
”Blue Lonely Dreams” (for Roy Orbison).
Among many other well-crafted, compelling pieces, one can merely mention here a few favorites: James Merrill`s poignant melding of music and memory in ”The `Ring` Cycle,” David R. Slavitt`s remarkable meditation on pain and healing in ”The Wound,” Lloyd Schwartz`s autumnal ”Leaves,” Alice Fulton`s multidimensional ”The Fractal Lines,” J. D. McClatchy`s affectionate ”An Essay on Friendship,” and Charles Wright`s imagistic ”Reading Lao Tzu Again in the New Year.”
One final recommendation-it`s hard to stop: Kenneth Koch`s ”A Time Zone,” in which the author returns to his youth and early friendships with Frank O`Hara, John Ashbery, Larry Rivers, Jane Freilicher and other then mostly obscure poets and painters in the freewheeling `50s art scene of New York City. Koch`s funny, beguiling memoir-collage vividly recreates the zany, adventurous spirit of an exciting, influential era. It also reminds us, amid the abundance of today`s professional production, how much of that earlier period`s elan we have lost.
