Sun Rock Man

by Cid Corman

Corman, Sun Rock Man. Poems about Matera, Italy

Genres: Poetry

132 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

Reviews

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

For the vast majority of Italians and others to whom the name means anything, Matera is synonymous with abject poverty and backwardness. In fact, being the capital of its province, which occupies the lower and Eastern half of the region known today as La Basilicata, in the highlands inland between the Ionian Sea and the Adriatic, it is relatively affluent in a world where degradation is the rule. It has a railway terminal, all the functionary establishments of authority, more than a dozen churches, and a growing middle-class. In the outlying areas, in the castle villages perched on remote mountains, is poverty undisguised, unmitigated, and kept quiet. I came to this community quite by accident, penniless, and stayed to teach there for a year and a half. What I saw, what I learned, what I felt, my relations to others there and that of earth and air, fire and water, to them and to myself, should be implicit, if not explicit, in the poems that follow.

So begins Sun Rock Earth, Cid Corman's book of poems about Matera, Italy. This collection differs in a few ways from Cid Corman's other (past and future) collections. Most notably, I haven't read another collection of his that is centred around a common subject. Less notably, there are more longer poems ("longer" for Corman meaning longer than half of a page)...

Where do they come from? Hr
studies them. They want to
taste his mother's red wine.

Greek sailors, perhaps, to
tell by their cleancut chins,
in from over the hills

to talk of mysteries.
Or whatever it is
strangers always talk of

that sets them apart. He
turns away a moment
to spit red at the foot

of a warped bench and scuffs
it into the stone floor.
Or are they disguised gods?

Do they know about films,
those coloured cowboy stills
pasted over the walls?

Do they swear like the men
playing tre-sette at
the long table, smacking

the cards down and cursing
their luck? Or is it the
Virgin they honour? They

nod at her in her niche
and speak more softly as
if they were in a church

They sip and leave money.
They cant stay. They are tall.
Out of some ancient age.

They cant stay. So many
places to see. They must
be much richer than kings,

just to get up and go.
 - The Visitors


Sunday
we come quietly
enough

hard by
the quarry to this
temple,

as if
empty as it is
it could

contain
us as we cannot
ourselves.

Respect
your ignorance, man,
it says

with its
small pierced windows to
peer through

back at
the hewn pillars of
tufa,

while on 
its ceiling, central,
a sun's

image
is curved smiling, low
enough

for us
to feel where others
once kneeled.
 - The Sun Cave


when one man dies
all go

the town dies a
moment

at attention
head bared

the procession
goes on

one studies not
to breathe

or breathe with the
earth's breath

sharing a plot
of grass

returning to
seeming

perhaps less than
ever
 - The Funeral

Cid Corman's best poems, as always, are his shorter poems. Corman's shorter poems and his concise style have, for me, characterized his poetry...

on the train
coming down

reaching a bag
down from the rack

on my shoulder
the hand

naturally
of a priest
 - the incident


old men old pipes
old goldfish
and children

Garibaldi
on a small
pedestal

palms ivy up
to and in
to their crowns
 - the park


for the canary
in the cage

and the ragged 
old lady

no fortune
to choose from

only fortune
to dispense
 - la fortuna


white oblongs
dished up

easily sliced
pressed

against a wad
of bread

plunged
into the mouth
 - stracchino

My favourite poem in the collection...

boys with linked arms
girls with linked arms
whole families
linked together

filling the streets
of the town flow
over into
the square and they

waver in lines 
as the centre
containing them
lets them let go

to extend and 
return to each
other greetings 
as if nothing

could be stranger
than they are them-
selves finding each
other again
 - the circle