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A certain slant of sunlight
American Poetry Review, The, Mar/Apr 1999 by Notley, Alice
The poem, a rather tonally blasphemic invocation of the 23rd Psalm, suggests Whitman's characterization of death, in "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" as "sane and sacred." The poem does sound slightly insane, at least shaky; Berrigan believed in being overt since that was truthful, and one of his favorite lines of poetry was Roethke's "This shaking keeps me steady." (Berrigan's hands trembled when he read his poems in public.) The last two poems in-the book are December poems, Christmas poems. The second-to-- last, called "Christmas Card (for Barry & Carla)": The "right guild," if you'll remember from the beginning, from the previously censored second poem, is the Whores & Poets Guild: Berrigan never wanted to belong to a different one. "Never be born, never be died," a phrase of Buddhist sentiment (and Berrigan had both a strong Buddhist and strong Christian streak) was remembered by Berrigan for years from a tiny pamphlet by a Japanese artist/poet whose name I don't know. The final poem, called "Poem," gives the book to the general world, its meaning to the body politick: The Whores & Poets Guild is similar to the Franciscan order in that it vows poverty and a certain kind of obedience (to principle, you might say), it is itinerant and begging, its members can seem crazy, indeed what seems to be insane might turn out to be exemplar, as in some of the stories in The Little Flowers of St. Francis. The "Whores" part simply has to do with money, the poet's practice of prostitution (who doesn't?)-Berrigan was never a courtesan, he was a whore. The "Whores" part also has to do with the body and one's "use" of it simply to keep going, via speed for example, often for the sake of others. The body, like a whore's body, then breaks down relatively early. Whores and other reprobates and scum were of course the core of early Christianity; they, and soldiers for example, are the used people, used and cast off. This poem is flirty and sexy too, like a whore? The Nature of the Commonwealth is calling on Francis, at any rate, to repair Her house. Thus the book ends not with the call of death (which was coming soon) but with the call to the poet's task again.
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A Certain Slant of Sunlight is an important book because, for one thing, it's the only one like it. It faces death and observes the community through a various kind of poem which is true to the life being led. Also, it's the repository of a number of personal virtues one might care to emulate or be inspired by. And may I ask where such virtues, manifestly existing, fit into a philosophy which disallows the psychological I? The psychological I is that which by making terrible mistakes learns how to live and be generous, out of its very self, its I. But back to the specific virtues of this book. It complains but it isn't selfish or even self-centered; it's thoroughly alive; it's prophetic, low-life, and entertaining. It's very deep if you know how to find depth in poetry; it's courageous, and being that, the reader can take courage from it too. Furthermore, the language, the form (they seem to be simultaneous) of the poems is extraordinary in its ability to negotiate quick dense changes and still maintain transparency and the brevity necessitated by the postcards. These poems suggest a direction in poetry that has yet to be picked up: we've all been too obsessed with being "important." But importance isn't necessarily where you think it is; it's really generated by circumstance and is in the flesh and spirit of the poems, not in a presentation of "importance." These are important poems.
