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The Crystal Lithium
VERY GOOD FIRST E DITION softcover, clean text, solid binding, NO remainders NOT ex-library slight shelfwear / storage-wear; WE SHIP FAST. Carefully packed and quickly sent. 201601859 Freely Espousing and The Crystal Lithium are notable for their effortless movement among poetry, painting, and the arts available in such profligate array to a resident of Southampton and Manhattan and the practitioners so continually on the scene account for the natural,never forced, cross-fertilization of media and community. Schuyler's work takes place within or among the performance of the artist or the musicians, sometimes relishing it, sometimes emulating it, as the act, not the "source," of the poem. More important for Schuyler than the lyrical phrase of great beauty or the pointed thought held with conviction is the movement of the poet's sensibility through sight and sound, through the material world and the mood of a moment--the true interdisciplinary nature of his craft. The separation of sound and sense, in which the woe of an allergy is divisible from the beauty of the word, is for Schuyler an "inescapable kiss." Like the artist who deploys paint and brushstroke, he wishes to work in the pure medium of sound without the bondage of reference. Still he contents himself with a kind of mixed media, "Marriages of the atmosphere," that allow him to pass from speech to evocations of shape and "'What is that gold-green tetrahedron down the river?'" We recommend selecting Priority Mail wherever available. (No shipping to Mexico, Brazil or Italy.)
- GenresPoetry
96 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1972
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 28, 2022
The collection is broken into four parts: "Southampton and New York", "The Island", "Fall and Winter", and "Loving You". What I like most about the poet is his sense of humour. The poet has an offbeat sense of humour, and it is present in all four of the parts in this collection.
The poet's sense of humour is most prominent in the first part, "Southampton and New York". Here, the poet is at his most innocence, playful, nonsensical... Reading the poems in the first part gives the impression that the poet takes pleasure in his craft...
Got coffee and started
reading Darwin: so modest,
so innocent, so pleased at
the surprise that he
should grow up to be him. How
grand to begin a new
year with a new writer
you really love.
- Empathy and New York, II
The Tooth Fairy
knows where to look and when
to lock away the leaves
long since packed up and
left...
- Poem
an orange devours
the crusts of clouds and you,
getting up, put on
your daily life
grown somewhat shabby, worn
but comfortable, like old jeans...
- In earliest morning
A huge and sullen Buddha
of a man waits at the starting
with his sign DOWN WITH DOVES
- Scarlet Tanager
What am I to make of these references dentists?...
Now to infuse
the garage with a subjective state
and can't make it seem to
even if it is a little like
What the Dentist Saw
a dark gullet with gleams and red.
- Empathy and New York, I
Junky buildings, aligned by a child
("That's very good, dear") are dental:
carious, and the colour of weak gums ("Rinse and spit"
and blood stained sputum and big gritty bits
are swirled away)....
- An East Window on Elizabeth Street
As with the third part, the poet records the changing seasons, winter into spring...
It felt warm, warm
that is for cold
the way it does
when snow falls without
wing....
- Empathy and New York, II
It
isn't winter and it isn't spring
yes it is the sun
sets where it should and
the east
glows
rose....
- Spring
A poem, "Blue", is dedicated to the artist Yvonne Jacquette...
a white cup
(more of a mug)
falls, falls up-
ward and crack
splits into
two glazed
clay clouds.
- Blue
A prose poem, "Wonderful World", is dedicated to the beat poet Anne Waldman and dated July 23, 1969. In the edition I'm reading, a library edition, two passages of the poem are underlined...
Flames in red glass pots, unlikely flowers, a spot of light that jumped (“Don’t fret”) back and forth over a strip of moulding, the kind of moulding that spells low class dwelling—I, I mused, take no interest in the distinction between amateur and pro, and despise the latter a little less each year.
...
sang about the young man and how he ran out in front of the stock exchange and drank a bottle of household ammonia: “Ungrateful Heart.”
- Wonderful World
My favourite passages...
Nineteen-sixty-
eight: what a lovely name
to give a year.
- Empathy and New York, I
Out there
a bird is building a nest out of torn up letters
and the red cellophane off cigarette and gum packs.
- An East Window on Elizabeth Street
A couple of men jump
out of the sky
wearing flags. Someone
"described as a bystander"
gets tarred and feathered.
- Scarlet Tanager
The second part "The Island", demonstrates the same innocence, playfulness, nonsense...
The stones hurt tender feet, so we walk on hands.
It is easy: bodies are buoyant.
The water is clear.
It has thrown together some loose stones.
I lie on a water cushion and look down.
You lie on your back and look up.
The rocks have on seaweed.
We might slip on the weed and break my neck or at least sprain your ankle.
Salted nuts.
I have a red toenail.
- The Cenotaph, 2. We see seals. Boats go by.
Clean used ones, of course. Also a dresser scarf, woven with a pattern of pansies looking alternatively to right and to left...
- "Used Handkerchiefs 5c"
A poem, "The Cenotaph", three idylls dedicated to the poet Kenneth Koch, is reminiscent of Christopher Smart's "Jubilate Agno" in its long-winded and rambling style...
Walking to the edge with a cup of coffee.
Sunup.
The sky is red.
Sunrise.
That way, the water is blinding.
That way, the water is dusted with sleep.
That way, the water shines as freshly as lead curling smoothly under a
knife.
The bay has a skin.
It swells it without breaking like water brimming in a glass.
On its skin and on mine the sun is warm.
The slipping air is thin and cold and cools the cup.
The coffee is cold.
- The Cenotaph, 3. The Edge in the Morning
For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.
For he is the servant of the Living God, duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For is this done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.
For he rolls upon prank to work it in.
- Christoper Smart, "Jubilate Agno, Fragment B"
A poem, "The Trash Book", is dedicated to the writer Joe Brainard, of the New York School)...
Then I do not know what
to paste next in the
Trash Book: grass, pretending
to be a smear maybe or
that stump there that knows
now it will never grow
up to be some pencil or
a yacht even....
- The Trash Book
A poem, "Light from Canada", is dedicated to the poet Charles North, also of the New York School (whom the poet described as being “the most stimulating poet of his generation”)...
A Wonderful freshness, air
that billows like bedsheets
on a clothesline and the clouds
hang in a traffic jam: summer
heads home....
- Light from Canada
Just as the first part included descriptions of winter and spring, the third part is focused on "Fall and Winter". The months seem to countdown, rather than build up, to winter (in "September", "Evening Wind", and "A Vermont Diary")
that's it in September sun
two of its legs are like - you
know. Arms
- September
October hangs in grape
bunch lights among the leaves
of a giant tree whose leaves
are not unlike grape leaves
- Evening Wind
The hills that last year in early October I saw enflamed and raging now the browns and grays of lichen bark...
- A Vermont Diary, November 1
A poem, "The Dog Wants His Dinner", is dedicated to the poet Clark Coolidge...
What to do
with these disordered herds
of words? I said I would
eat my words and do so, now
you see. He eats them, all
up. Greedily....
- The Dog Wants His Dinner
The third part contains the longer narrative/prose poems "A Vermont Diary" and "The Crystal Lithium". Not surprisingly, "A Vermont Diary" takes the form of a diary. In fact, it is exactly what one would expect from a poet's diary. Alternating between day-to-day entries and poems (such as "Verge"). With references to the poet's friends. "Joe" is undoubtedly Joe Brainard, mentioned before. "Kenward" is undoubtedly Kenward Elmslie, another poet of the New York School...
me - "We ought to change 'Kill a cop tonight: Hallowe'en,' to 'Ball your local sheriff.'"
Joe - "Why? Is she Cute?"
- A Vermont Diary, November 4
Kenward is right behind me taking wood ashes out of the fireplace to add to the compost.
- A Vermont Diary, November 5
Dear Kenward,
What a pearl
of a letter knife. It's just
the thing I needed, something
to rest my eyes one, and always
wanted, which is to say
it's that of which I
felt the lack but
didn't know of...
- A Stone Knife
A man cuts brush
and piles it
for a fire where
fireweed will flower
maybe, one day.
- Verge (from A Vermont Diary, November 7)
"The Crystal Lithium" is poem in the more traditional sense (at least "traditional" compared to the other poems in this collection). Of course it is easier to label as "traditional" in hindsight, belonging as it does to a tradition that includes Allen Ginsberg...
Be kind to your self, it is only one
and perishable
of many on the planet,thou art that
one that wishes a soft finger tracing the
line of feeling from nipple to pubes—
one that wishes a tongue to kiss your armpit,
a lip to kiss your cheek inside your
whiteness thigh—
Be kind to yourself Harry, because unkindness
comes when the body explodes
napalm cancer and the deathbed in Vietnam
is a strange place to dream of trees
leaning over and angry American faces
grinning with sleepwalk terror over your
last eye—
Be kind to yourself, because the bliss of your own
kindness will flood the police tomorrow,
because the cow weeps in the field and the
mouse weeps in the cat hole—
Be kind to this place, which is your present
habitation, with derrick and radar tower
and flower in the ancient brook—
- Allen Ginsberg, "Who Be Kind To" (from PLANET NEWS)
In its parking lot vast as the kiss to which is made the most complete surrender
In a setting of leaves, backs of stores, a house on a rise admired for being
Somewhat older that some others (prettier, too?) a man in a white apron embraces a car
Briefly in the cold with his eyes as one might hug oneself for warmth for love
- The Crystal Lithium
The third part, "Loving You", begins with a quotation "Ever write any love poems?" (unattributed), and a poem commemorating the death of Janis Joplin. The poem, however, doesn't seem to be about Janis Joplin in any apparent way. Instead, the poem is conversational, with reference to other bands/musicians...
I'm puttin' on
Pearl (O Pearl) and
The In White Wrappers
(groovy group)
or Company. Couldn't
care
less. Not
true. Them
dig right
in and help yourself. You think
I don't mean it?...
- Janis Joplin's Dead: Long Live Pearl
The poems of the fourth part are a departure from the first three parts. Though they retain the comedic and somewhat rambling tone of Schuyler's earlier poems, in many ways they resemble the poetry of Robert Creeley, a poet of the Black Mountain College...
What I say
to people
don't mean
I don't love,
what I
do don't
do, don't don't
do enough.
- Robert Creeley, "Blues" (from LATER)
I'm glad
we are not
leaves, or even
trees whose twigs
mesh. We are -
you are you,
I am I, and
we mesh....
- We Are Leaves
There are three "Letter Poems". Unlike the letter poem of the third part (addressed to Kenward Elmslie), the three "Letter Poems" aren't addressed to anyone specific, they're aren't addressed to anyone other than the reader...
All things are real
no one a symbol...
- Letter to a Friend: Who Is Nancy Daum?
White clouds in blue above the birches
You too are like my head, filled with
And adrift in love, which is the sap
That rises, stiffening these trees
- Letter Poem #2
So many
galaxies and you my
bright star, my sun, my
other self, my bet-
ter half, my one
- Letter Poem #3
One of my favourite passages...
And in your eyes
your suddenly so
green eyes
the flash holds steadily and
you smile or
I hope so...
- Eyes
The poet's sense of humour is most prominent in the first part, "Southampton and New York". Here, the poet is at his most innocence, playful, nonsensical... Reading the poems in the first part gives the impression that the poet takes pleasure in his craft...
Got coffee and started
reading Darwin: so modest,
so innocent, so pleased at
the surprise that he
should grow up to be him. How
grand to begin a new
year with a new writer
you really love.
- Empathy and New York, II
The Tooth Fairy
knows where to look and when
to lock away the leaves
long since packed up and
left...
- Poem
an orange devours
the crusts of clouds and you,
getting up, put on
your daily life
grown somewhat shabby, worn
but comfortable, like old jeans...
- In earliest morning
A huge and sullen Buddha
of a man waits at the starting
with his sign DOWN WITH DOVES
- Scarlet Tanager
What am I to make of these references dentists?...
Now to infuse
the garage with a subjective state
and can't make it seem to
even if it is a little like
What the Dentist Saw
a dark gullet with gleams and red.
- Empathy and New York, I
Junky buildings, aligned by a child
("That's very good, dear") are dental:
carious, and the colour of weak gums ("Rinse and spit"
and blood stained sputum and big gritty bits
are swirled away)....
- An East Window on Elizabeth Street
As with the third part, the poet records the changing seasons, winter into spring...
It felt warm, warm
that is for cold
the way it does
when snow falls without
wing....
- Empathy and New York, II
It
isn't winter and it isn't spring
yes it is the sun
sets where it should and
the east
glows
rose....
- Spring
A poem, "Blue", is dedicated to the artist Yvonne Jacquette...
a white cup
(more of a mug)
falls, falls up-
ward and crack
splits into
two glazed
clay clouds.
- Blue
A prose poem, "Wonderful World", is dedicated to the beat poet Anne Waldman and dated July 23, 1969. In the edition I'm reading, a library edition, two passages of the poem are underlined...
Flames in red glass pots, unlikely flowers, a spot of light that jumped (“Don’t fret”) back and forth over a strip of moulding, the kind of moulding that spells low class dwelling—I, I mused, take no interest in the distinction between amateur and pro, and despise the latter a little less each year.
...
sang about the young man and how he ran out in front of the stock exchange and drank a bottle of household ammonia: “Ungrateful Heart.”
- Wonderful World
My favourite passages...
Nineteen-sixty-
eight: what a lovely name
to give a year.
- Empathy and New York, I
Out there
a bird is building a nest out of torn up letters
and the red cellophane off cigarette and gum packs.
- An East Window on Elizabeth Street
A couple of men jump
out of the sky
wearing flags. Someone
"described as a bystander"
gets tarred and feathered.
- Scarlet Tanager
The second part "The Island", demonstrates the same innocence, playfulness, nonsense...
The stones hurt tender feet, so we walk on hands.
It is easy: bodies are buoyant.
The water is clear.
It has thrown together some loose stones.
I lie on a water cushion and look down.
You lie on your back and look up.
The rocks have on seaweed.
We might slip on the weed and break my neck or at least sprain your ankle.
Salted nuts.
I have a red toenail.
- The Cenotaph, 2. We see seals. Boats go by.
Clean used ones, of course. Also a dresser scarf, woven with a pattern of pansies looking alternatively to right and to left...
- "Used Handkerchiefs 5c"
A poem, "The Cenotaph", three idylls dedicated to the poet Kenneth Koch, is reminiscent of Christopher Smart's "Jubilate Agno" in its long-winded and rambling style...
Walking to the edge with a cup of coffee.
Sunup.
The sky is red.
Sunrise.
That way, the water is blinding.
That way, the water is dusted with sleep.
That way, the water shines as freshly as lead curling smoothly under a
knife.
The bay has a skin.
It swells it without breaking like water brimming in a glass.
On its skin and on mine the sun is warm.
The slipping air is thin and cold and cools the cup.
The coffee is cold.
- The Cenotaph, 3. The Edge in the Morning
For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.
For he is the servant of the Living God, duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For is this done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.
For he rolls upon prank to work it in.
- Christoper Smart, "Jubilate Agno, Fragment B"
A poem, "The Trash Book", is dedicated to the writer Joe Brainard, of the New York School)...
Then I do not know what
to paste next in the
Trash Book: grass, pretending
to be a smear maybe or
that stump there that knows
now it will never grow
up to be some pencil or
a yacht even....
- The Trash Book
A poem, "Light from Canada", is dedicated to the poet Charles North, also of the New York School (whom the poet described as being “the most stimulating poet of his generation”)...
A Wonderful freshness, air
that billows like bedsheets
on a clothesline and the clouds
hang in a traffic jam: summer
heads home....
- Light from Canada
Just as the first part included descriptions of winter and spring, the third part is focused on "Fall and Winter". The months seem to countdown, rather than build up, to winter (in "September", "Evening Wind", and "A Vermont Diary")
that's it in September sun
two of its legs are like - you
know. Arms
- September
October hangs in grape
bunch lights among the leaves
of a giant tree whose leaves
are not unlike grape leaves
- Evening Wind
The hills that last year in early October I saw enflamed and raging now the browns and grays of lichen bark...
- A Vermont Diary, November 1
A poem, "The Dog Wants His Dinner", is dedicated to the poet Clark Coolidge...
What to do
with these disordered herds
of words? I said I would
eat my words and do so, now
you see. He eats them, all
up. Greedily....
- The Dog Wants His Dinner
The third part contains the longer narrative/prose poems "A Vermont Diary" and "The Crystal Lithium". Not surprisingly, "A Vermont Diary" takes the form of a diary. In fact, it is exactly what one would expect from a poet's diary. Alternating between day-to-day entries and poems (such as "Verge"). With references to the poet's friends. "Joe" is undoubtedly Joe Brainard, mentioned before. "Kenward" is undoubtedly Kenward Elmslie, another poet of the New York School...
me - "We ought to change 'Kill a cop tonight: Hallowe'en,' to 'Ball your local sheriff.'"
Joe - "Why? Is she Cute?"
- A Vermont Diary, November 4
Kenward is right behind me taking wood ashes out of the fireplace to add to the compost.
- A Vermont Diary, November 5
Dear Kenward,
What a pearl
of a letter knife. It's just
the thing I needed, something
to rest my eyes one, and always
wanted, which is to say
it's that of which I
felt the lack but
didn't know of...
- A Stone Knife
A man cuts brush
and piles it
for a fire where
fireweed will flower
maybe, one day.
- Verge (from A Vermont Diary, November 7)
"The Crystal Lithium" is poem in the more traditional sense (at least "traditional" compared to the other poems in this collection). Of course it is easier to label as "traditional" in hindsight, belonging as it does to a tradition that includes Allen Ginsberg...
Be kind to your self, it is only one
and perishable
of many on the planet,thou art that
one that wishes a soft finger tracing the
line of feeling from nipple to pubes—
one that wishes a tongue to kiss your armpit,
a lip to kiss your cheek inside your
whiteness thigh—
Be kind to yourself Harry, because unkindness
comes when the body explodes
napalm cancer and the deathbed in Vietnam
is a strange place to dream of trees
leaning over and angry American faces
grinning with sleepwalk terror over your
last eye—
Be kind to yourself, because the bliss of your own
kindness will flood the police tomorrow,
because the cow weeps in the field and the
mouse weeps in the cat hole—
Be kind to this place, which is your present
habitation, with derrick and radar tower
and flower in the ancient brook—
- Allen Ginsberg, "Who Be Kind To" (from PLANET NEWS)
In its parking lot vast as the kiss to which is made the most complete surrender
In a setting of leaves, backs of stores, a house on a rise admired for being
Somewhat older that some others (prettier, too?) a man in a white apron embraces a car
Briefly in the cold with his eyes as one might hug oneself for warmth for love
- The Crystal Lithium
The third part, "Loving You", begins with a quotation "Ever write any love poems?" (unattributed), and a poem commemorating the death of Janis Joplin. The poem, however, doesn't seem to be about Janis Joplin in any apparent way. Instead, the poem is conversational, with reference to other bands/musicians...
I'm puttin' on
Pearl (O Pearl) and
The In White Wrappers
(groovy group)
or Company. Couldn't
care
less. Not
true. Them
dig right
in and help yourself. You think
I don't mean it?...
- Janis Joplin's Dead: Long Live Pearl
The poems of the fourth part are a departure from the first three parts. Though they retain the comedic and somewhat rambling tone of Schuyler's earlier poems, in many ways they resemble the poetry of Robert Creeley, a poet of the Black Mountain College...
What I say
to people
don't mean
I don't love,
what I
do don't
do, don't don't
do enough.
- Robert Creeley, "Blues" (from LATER)
I'm glad
we are not
leaves, or even
trees whose twigs
mesh. We are -
you are you,
I am I, and
we mesh....
- We Are Leaves
There are three "Letter Poems". Unlike the letter poem of the third part (addressed to Kenward Elmslie), the three "Letter Poems" aren't addressed to anyone specific, they're aren't addressed to anyone other than the reader...
All things are real
no one a symbol...
- Letter to a Friend: Who Is Nancy Daum?
White clouds in blue above the birches
You too are like my head, filled with
And adrift in love, which is the sap
That rises, stiffening these trees
- Letter Poem #2
So many
galaxies and you my
bright star, my sun, my
other self, my bet-
ter half, my one
- Letter Poem #3
One of my favourite passages...
And in your eyes
your suddenly so
green eyes
the flash holds steadily and
you smile or
I hope so...
- Eyes
May 29, 2013
Love the title of this collection. Obviously. It's one of those I would love to mimic--how to break it down? My favorite poems in this collection are those that play with words, play with anaphora and puns and prefix and suffix. He's affable, right? Here are some moments I enjoyed.
"To look out a window is to sense
wet feet"
"The dog in its
sunspot of sleep
cries in a few fine high whimpers."
"In the dark the biggest firefly is a cigarette."
"The boat goes off to grow blue with distance."
"The sun is high enough to have its plain daily look of someone who takes in the wash."
"The clouds hang in a traffic jam."
"The night is filled with indecisions
to take a downer or an upper."
"Let the frost do it its way."
"So many galaxies, and you, my bright particular."
"To look out a window is to sense
wet feet"
"The dog in its
sunspot of sleep
cries in a few fine high whimpers."
"In the dark the biggest firefly is a cigarette."
"The boat goes off to grow blue with distance."
"The sun is high enough to have its plain daily look of someone who takes in the wash."
"The clouds hang in a traffic jam."
"The night is filled with indecisions
to take a downer or an upper."
"Let the frost do it its way."
"So many galaxies, and you, my bright particular."
November 30, 2007
This poet is completely underrated in my opinion. He's quietly funny and startling, totally ahead of his time. This is his best one, in my opinion.
September 8, 2018
The stars tonight
in pale dark space
are clover flowers
in a lawn the expanding
Universe in which
we love it is
our home.
in pale dark space
are clover flowers
in a lawn the expanding
Universe in which
we love it is
our home.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews