Life Supports: New and Collected Poems

by William Bronk

Poetry. William Bronk was born in 1918 and lives now in Hudson Falls, New York. Acclaimed by The Nation as "our most significant poet," he is the author of nearly two dozen celebrated books of poetry. Winner of the American Book Award for his collected poems, LIFE SUPPORTS, he is also the author of a collection of prose works, VECTORS AND SMOOTHABLE CURVES, which is widely considered a landmark in contemporary literature.

Genres: Poetry, American

241 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

Reviews

[Thomas Baughman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bronk will still be read in 150 years.

[SARDON · Rating 4 out of 5]

(fractional rating: 3.5 stars)


Two things seem to have always haunted Bronk's literary status: the first, being the influence of Wallace Stevens; the second, being his relatively minimal development--formally, stylistically and thematically--over the course of a fairly long poetic career.

My response to the first point is that, by replacing Stevens' gaudy verbosity with a more plainspoken style, Bronk's work both clarified and simplified the North American tradition of the philosophical poem. At his best he attains an almost syllogistic level of lucidity, as in the following lines from "Metonymy as an Approach to a Real World": " Conceded, that all the clocks tell local time;\ conceded, that 'here' is anywhere we bound and fill a space;\ conceded, we make a world [....]\ is something caught there, contained there,\ something real, something which we can sense?"

And if this thought-as-verse approach seems too casual to be truly philosophical and too rigid to be truly poetic, then a poem such as "The Belief in the Self Abandoned", with its easy yet poignant use of metaphor to express phenomenological doubt, serves to show that Bronk is certainly capable of simultaneously appealing to both head and heart: "I am the stripped house, paint-peeled,\ dewindowed. The airs blow through. Whatever comes, comes.\ Snow in winter. I am here[....]\ Whatever else there is, is gone.\ I say it is. Changes could come again."

Over a decade later, the poet wrote "[w]e have the idea of homeland[....]\ But our homes are contrivances,\ covering for emptinesses. Our local landscapes\ acknowledge our unarrival, are brochures of desire\ and postcards from there. They tour an untraveled space." ("Local Landscapes", from the book's concluding section of new poems). If this seems to be stagnation, it is superficial because Bronk's "stagnation" stands for that of the entire species: our still-enduring inability to create a sustainable perspective that would reconcile the apparent incompatibilities and instabilities of body, mind, self, and world.

In a country which has produced so many celebrated representatives of confessionalism and regionalism, this type of poetry stands apart by its singular commitment to thinking about the individual's relation to himself, civilization, and the universe; by this commitment, he avoided the egotistical trappings which so defined the pervasive tendency toward "cult of personality" in nearly all forms of 20th century North American culture, from poetry to politics. Though the general reader seems to have found Bronk as a poet redundant to the point of monomania--especially regarding the question of ultimate reality-- I personally find only a man who was deeply possessed by a quietly profound sense of life's ineffability.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of the natural world, nothing is possible
but praise if we speak at all. We can be still.

The steadiest speakers are quiet after a time.

I could be quiet now and not wait for the time
when the quiet comes except that so little sound
is hardly to be heard in the loud joy of the world
and I grow impatient and practice the world's song.

…

These are grave things, gravities,
worlds holding in suspension worlds,
and nothing under them. But also, look:
some persons bridge all across the farthest space
that we can conceive, and are solid there.

I am overcome with wonder. I had never heard of this poet, stumbled across him somehow, and got an old book from the library that collects several of his poetry books, and the first ones were amazing poem after amazing poem, some bringing me to tears. The use of language as song, when read out loud, was gorgeous. The poems that made me cry weren’t even sad, just a beautiful thought or use of the word joy. There isn’t lush, flashy language, so he conveyed gorgeous things with spare, evocative language. The topics ranged from praise to nature to deep questions of who we think we are and who we are, and ultimately how unknown that is, but praise anyways, he says. These feel like they will stand the test of time and be as relevant to anyone that loves nature, light, ideas, people, and history. As I read many poems out loud, I was captivated with the words ending the lines, and they felt like another layer of lyricism, and I collected many into a found poem with some other delicious words verging on the lush and flashy, but not.

My found poem:

Possible.
Still.
Time. Time.
Sound world song.

Bare sky, leaves. If, yes, praised.
Songs, besides, more know praise.
Songs sing song.
Air-moved
Purple.
Run moved light.
Change ourselves,
Light though light.

Change, before long, suns, night, should time.
Stars things there came stone world.
Ask what’s not one false. Unimitative.
Knew, agreed, speak, know.

Dismissed sky, trees
Light
Afternoon
Place, light.

World, light seemed by real ways, in.
Shape of light. Light-moved.
Time bound world there, sense, saw
In space.

Self, be trees, grow form, changes, come, do, gone, again.
Things alone, bland, alone, true, green, one were though far field,
Curve, curve, enough, did.

Flowed scrolls, hard, true, pressed grace holds.
World hand, world abstract, stones close stone
Joined say stone, in, apart
Vastnesses. Willessness.

TO PRAISE THE MUSIC

Evening. The trees in late winter bare

against the sky. Still light, the sky.

Trees dark against it. A few leaves

on the trees. Tension in their rigid branches as if

- oh, it is all as if, but as if, yes,

as if they sang songs, as if they praised.



Oh, I envy them. I know the songs.

As if I know some other things besides.

As if; but I don't know, not more

than to say the trees know. The trees don't know

and neither do I. What is it keeps me from praise?

I praise. If only to say their songs,

say yes to them, to praise the songs they sing.

Envied music. I sing to praise their song.


THE MARK OF TIME

How shall we think of time without a change?

The mark we do not cross was reached before.

The present is very long and has been long.

Oh, it is with desire we read of suns

that some day burn themselves to darkness. At night

we search the sky for such a sign: that there should

be time, an ending. We want the mark of time.


THE TRUTH AS KNOWN

Isn't it true though, we could ask

- who? - almost anybody, what's

it all about? Yet, asking, not

wait for an answer, or getting one,

part of one, suspect it, scoff, know it was false.

It is — strangely — as though we already knew.

It is as though we agreed, all agreed,

never to say it, to lie about it, speak

anything but the truth, knowing what we know.

MIDSUMMER

A green world, a scene of green, deep

with light blues, the greens made deep

by those blues. One thinks how

in certain pictures, envied landscapes are seen

(through a window maybe) far behind the serene

sitter's face, the serene pose, as though

in some impossible mirror, face to back,

human serenity gazed at a green world

which gazed at this face.

And see now,

here is that place, those greens

are here, deep with those blues. The air

we breathe is freshly sweet, and warm, as though

with berries. We are here. We are here.

Set this down, too, as much

as if an atrocity had happened and been seen.

The earth is beautiful beyond all change.

[Daniel Klawitter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hard to know how to review this book. Yes, Bronk was influenced by Wallace Stevens. But he lacks Stevens ability to make an intellectual poem really sing, though he comes close at times. Bronk also spends a lot of time wondering in his poems if the world is real or not and it quickly becomes repetitive and tiresome. But there are good poems in here too that work despite his unwavering commitment to plain statement practically devoid of metaphor. Speaking of metaphor, here is his poem about it:

The Signification

I will not say that metaphor is the great
thing. How should I? Metaphor is a way
to handle, signify, designate;
we do not handle the great things, though we try.

All right. Still metaphor. What is it we signify?
We say lies as if they were not lies, as if
we believe. And, indeed, we do believe. No;
we know the metaphor is wrong. And yet ---

[Eric Cartier · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extraordinary reading experience. I'm grateful that Kay Ryan (whose poetry I admire, but not like this) wrote about Bronk (whose name and work I'd never heard of) in her prose collection Synthesizing Gravity. Along with Marianne Moore's Complete Poems and Wallace Stevens' The Palm at the End of the Mind, Life Supports is a book I'll keep with me and dip into again and again for the rest of my days. Among the greatest 20th century U.S. poetry I've encountered thus far.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of beautiful poetry in this collection; but I couldn't help but feel there was very little development of theme or voice.

[Mills College Library]

811.54 B8693 1981