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Day and Night: Bolinas Poems
"In late August of 1975 when my wife Gailyn and I and our one-and-a-half-year-old daughter arrived in Bolinas, I was almost 29 years old and had become known for writing minimal poetry sometimes consisting of a single word", Aram Saroyan writes in his introduction to
Day and Night
. "A young writer's ego is a delicate matter, subject as it is to routine battery and assault. When I wrote the first section of a long poem called 'Lines for My Autobiography' one afternoon on the typewriter in the poet Joanne Kyger's house. I was both exhilarated and uneasy. After all, it was two and a half pages long and I'd never before written a poem of even half its length. I ended up throwing it in the waste basket, but Gailyn fished it out, read it, and told me it was the best thing I'd ever written and to go on writing it".
That poem and many others like it -- limpid, direct, revealing, open-hearted essays toward a first-person life story -- make up Saroyan's very appealing book about "big-city boys...becoming farmers" in an eccentric, idealist, crackpot-utopian California beach town in the 1970s.
This is an unashamedly youthful book, starry-eyed in its approach to family-starting and community-founding, innocently celebrative of the simple wonders of a life lived close to nature. Glancing back at a glamorous but troubled childhood spent among the bright lights of Manhattan and the luxuriant palms of Beverly Hills, the young Saroyan experiences this new world with a freshness of vision.
That poem and many others like it -- limpid, direct, revealing, open-hearted essays toward a first-person life story -- make up Saroyan's very appealing book about "big-city boys...becoming farmers" in an eccentric, idealist, crackpot-utopian California beach town in the 1970s.
This is an unashamedly youthful book, starry-eyed in its approach to family-starting and community-founding, innocently celebrative of the simple wonders of a life lived close to nature. Glancing back at a glamorous but troubled childhood spent among the bright lights of Manhattan and the luxuriant palms of Beverly Hills, the young Saroyan experiences this new world with a freshness of vision.
- GenresPoetry
226 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1998
About the author
Aram Saroyan
60 books30 followersAram Saroyan is an American poet, novelist, biographer, memoirist and playwright. There has been a resurgence of interest in his work in the 21st century, evidenced by the publication in 2007 of several previous collections reissued together as Complete Minimal Poems. He is the son of author William Saroyan and actress Carol Grace, and the father of Strawberry Saroyan.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 25, 2022
Big city boys come out
to the country, toy with
the idea
of becoming farmers, forgetting
their nervous systems for a while,
it almost seems east (why
write poetry about dock strikes?) -
their wives cooperate with
nature so well, or seem to know
their own rhythm better
than men, creatures of crude habit
perhaps, an Orange Julius might hit
the spot
right now - they think, circling and
circling the precise matter of their own
home, and children come into this
as quickly as they find themselves
a place in it, meanwhile the planet spins
and keeps time perfectly with the Universe
like a guitar solo by Eric
Clapton (Derek & The Dominoes) it all
seems to fit, nothing impressionably wrong
or jarringly accurate, even - that too
becoming useless as we go on in this life,
soon to hit thirty, soon to hit twenty-nine,
and getting better and better all the time.
* * *
Your writing reminds me
Of a beautiful garden,
Carefully tended.
On the side
Is the gardener, you,
Beaming proudly.
* * *
I wake up in the morning
I go to sleep at night
With you beside me
* * *
Gailyn picked a bouquet,
Just now,
Out on our Sunday walk.
Little white flowers
On long thin stems . . .
Just like her, I thought.
* * *
My daughter is alive
As I am alive
As my wife is alive
All of us
In the same time
* * *
A child
Is a mind
Apart.
* * *
I let my hair down
And then I took off my head.
* * *
My mother knew Marlon Brando
And one say he came to take her
And me and Lucy all of the beach.
My mother wanted me to wash my face
Before we left, but he said no, why
Don't you let him just go, he looks
Okay; and I thought, Jesus, this guy
Is just like they say he is
In the movie magazines.
* * *
I have lived to read Pasternak,
to practice sobriety as a pleasure,
to drink deeply of the well of human time,
with its children and other secrets.
The world is revealed to me daily,
in a meticulous profusion, excluding
nothing, no one. All is infinitely large
and small, the centre ungraspable,
electric, at either extreme. My mind
contains the notes and figures of someone
I know I am, while I go on
somehow another, and another,
I can't keep up, but do keep going,
doing whatever must be done for myself,
my wife, the children we share as
miracles of our time together.
* * *
To walk with death,
Hand in hand,
Like a child
And its Raggedy Ann.
* * *
The night is so
empty, and bright,
filled with thin air
and tiny stars deep
in the distance
that is infinite,
that has no end
like no mind, and yet
here I am, within it,
here, breathing, alive
and thoughtless
as the stars themselves.
* * *
Chaplin's smile at the end
Of City Lights
Love and tragedy
Learning and yearning
The rose between his teeth
His bitten beliefs
The pale film of his intensity
His own strong corner
Of the immensity of life
And of death
In the city lights
We had dreamed
* * *
The sun is shining
The stars are in their places
On the other side of the world
It's heaven to smell the day
Even with a chain saw in the vicinity
The delt still half-asleep
Within the body, as quiet as a sponge
And as absorbent
But what made any of us fall for machines
As loud as this one is
Ah, mankind with its toehold
In the universe, yet so bold
To rule a whole planet
With governments of various degrees
Run by various leaders
So hard to get along with the even one
Among the tumultuous millions of ourselves
The time it's going to be different
If we can listen to the women
And to the children
And to the trees
The smell of the day
As unimpeachable
As our greatest leader, a daisy
* * *
Death makes life divine
Making fluid of the mind
When the mind would carve itself
Some immortal shrine
No weather could ever betray
Yet death does betray it
In the mind, letting in the fluid
That is time - in which only death
Is immortal, only death is in stone
It edges every known thing
With impermanence - indefinite
And infinite because fleeting
Touched by death in its own shining now
Eternal death makes life divine
* * *
The beauty of a tree
in spring
the first white blossoms
of the plum
aglow in the sunlight
The crisp reach
of its thin branches upward
into a heaven it creates
of its own
delicate fortitude
* * *
A father
with no father
like my father
before me -
I tread the days
with uncertain
step, amidst my small
son's revelries,
and am amazed,
and have been moved
to tears at the gentleness
of men.
* * *
as
the
kids
playing soccer
broke
out
of
the
strict
concentrations
of
their
game
coming
toward
me
haphazardly
across
the
field
in
a
kind
of
free-style
ballet
their
whole
multitude
touched
by
the
evening
sunlight
my
mind
too
broke
free
of
its
usual
densities
and
I
saw
them
dancing
dancing
dancing
to the country, toy with
the idea
of becoming farmers, forgetting
their nervous systems for a while,
it almost seems east (why
write poetry about dock strikes?) -
their wives cooperate with
nature so well, or seem to know
their own rhythm better
than men, creatures of crude habit
perhaps, an Orange Julius might hit
the spot
right now - they think, circling and
circling the precise matter of their own
home, and children come into this
as quickly as they find themselves
a place in it, meanwhile the planet spins
and keeps time perfectly with the Universe
like a guitar solo by Eric
Clapton (Derek & The Dominoes) it all
seems to fit, nothing impressionably wrong
or jarringly accurate, even - that too
becoming useless as we go on in this life,
soon to hit thirty, soon to hit twenty-nine,
and getting better and better all the time.
- For Tom Clark, pg. 22-23
* * *
Your writing reminds me
Of a beautiful garden,
Carefully tended.
On the side
Is the gardener, you,
Beaming proudly.
- For Richard Brautigan, pg. 38
* * *
I wake up in the morning
I go to sleep at night
With you beside me
- Love Poem, pg. 51
* * *
Gailyn picked a bouquet,
Just now,
Out on our Sunday walk.
Little white flowers
On long thin stems . . .
Just like her, I thought.
- Gailyn's Bouquet, pg. 53
* * *
My daughter is alive
As I am alive
As my wife is alive
All of us
In the same time
- Quick Poem, pg. 58
* * *
A child
Is a mind
Apart.
- A Child, pg. 63
* * *
I let my hair down
And then I took off my head.
- Parable, pg. 63
* * *
My mother knew Marlon Brando
And one say he came to take her
And me and Lucy all of the beach.
My mother wanted me to wash my face
Before we left, but he said no, why
Don't you let him just go, he looks
Okay; and I thought, Jesus, this guy
Is just like they say he is
In the movie magazines.
- Marlon Brando, pg. 82
* * *
I have lived to read Pasternak,
to practice sobriety as a pleasure,
to drink deeply of the well of human time,
with its children and other secrets.
The world is revealed to me daily,
in a meticulous profusion, excluding
nothing, no one. All is infinitely large
and small, the centre ungraspable,
electric, at either extreme. My mind
contains the notes and figures of someone
I know I am, while I go on
somehow another, and another,
I can't keep up, but do keep going,
doing whatever must be done for myself,
my wife, the children we share as
miracles of our time together.
- Poem, pg. 108
* * *
To walk with death,
Hand in hand,
Like a child
And its Raggedy Ann.
- Poem, pg. 108
* * *
The night is so
empty, and bright,
filled with thin air
and tiny stars deep
in the distance
that is infinite,
that has no end
like no mind, and yet
here I am, within it,
here, breathing, alive
and thoughtless
as the stars themselves.
- The Night, pg. 115
* * *
Chaplin's smile at the end
Of City Lights
Love and tragedy
Learning and yearning
The rose between his teeth
His bitten beliefs
The pale film of his intensity
His own strong corner
Of the immensity of life
And of death
In the city lights
We had dreamed
- Chaplin's Smile, pg. 124
* * *
The sun is shining
The stars are in their places
On the other side of the world
It's heaven to smell the day
Even with a chain saw in the vicinity
The delt still half-asleep
Within the body, as quiet as a sponge
And as absorbent
But what made any of us fall for machines
As loud as this one is
Ah, mankind with its toehold
In the universe, yet so bold
To rule a whole planet
With governments of various degrees
Run by various leaders
So hard to get along with the even one
Among the tumultuous millions of ourselves
The time it's going to be different
If we can listen to the women
And to the children
And to the trees
The smell of the day
As unimpeachable
As our greatest leader, a daisy
- A Daisy, for Robert Creeley, pg. 131
* * *
Death makes life divine
Making fluid of the mind
When the mind would carve itself
Some immortal shrine
No weather could ever betray
Yet death does betray it
In the mind, letting in the fluid
That is time - in which only death
Is immortal, only death is in stone
It edges every known thing
With impermanence - indefinite
And infinite because fleeting
Touched by death in its own shining now
Eternal death makes life divine
- Sonnet (In Scorpio), pg. 156
* * *
The beauty of a tree
in spring
the first white blossoms
of the plum
aglow in the sunlight
The crisp reach
of its thin branches upward
into a heaven it creates
of its own
delicate fortitude
- Spring, pg. 164
* * *
A father
with no father
like my father
before me -
I tread the days
with uncertain
step, amidst my small
son's revelries,
and am amazed,
and have been moved
to tears at the gentleness
of men.
- America, pg. 186
* * *
as
the
kids
playing soccer
broke
out
of
the
strict
concentrations
of
their
game
coming
toward
me
haphazardly
across
the
field
in
a
kind
of
free-style
ballet
their
whole
multitude
touched
by
the
evening
sunlight
my
mind
too
broke
free
of
its
usual
densities
and
I
saw
them
dancing
dancing
dancing
- In Greece, pg. 205
June 9, 2024
Opened my poetic horizon
January 22, 2026
For Richard Brautigan
Your writing reminds me
Of a beautiful garden,
Carefully tended.
On the side
Is the gardener, you,
Beaming proudly.
Your writing reminds me
Of a beautiful garden,
Carefully tended.
On the side
Is the gardener, you,
Beaming proudly.
March 12, 2013
The poet is just a few years older than I and was writing at a particular time and place, both in physical locale and in personal growth, with which I readily connect. So there's that. Then, too, there are brilliant, as in bright and shining, turns of phrase that reach out and grab the reader's very brain and send thoughts spinning through it, like this, the opening line from "Winter Midnight": "Can I let the winter go without a poem?" It's such a reach into timelessness. And projects such a need.
In "How to Be An American Poet," he writes of a particular perceived evolution in American poetry:
And the all-in-one, one-in-all Walt created
The original mountain spring of our living verse. He
Named it by naming his world, a thing at a time, in
The clear enumerations of his eye. And our poets have
Loved lists ever since
And he hews to that line often in these poems, listing all manner of thoughts, words, deeds, as in "Sawing the Wood," in which he lists some 40+ stanzas worth of reasons for doing so. In "O My Generation," likewise, the poet links himself to a particular time by listing the cultural motifs by and with which he, and his generation, are to be identified. Ah, but a poet's lists are not to be confused with mere shopping lists, they are lists of language, of perception, of a tone and perhaps rhyme or rhythm or both or neither that intercept us as we scan the lines and draw us into the poet's moment until we are participating in the list, finding ourselves in the list or recognizing how the list might grow in our own hands to include just that one more word or phrase!
In "How to Be An American Poet," he writes of a particular perceived evolution in American poetry:
And the all-in-one, one-in-all Walt created
The original mountain spring of our living verse. He
Named it by naming his world, a thing at a time, in
The clear enumerations of his eye. And our poets have
Loved lists ever since
And he hews to that line often in these poems, listing all manner of thoughts, words, deeds, as in "Sawing the Wood," in which he lists some 40+ stanzas worth of reasons for doing so. In "O My Generation," likewise, the poet links himself to a particular time by listing the cultural motifs by and with which he, and his generation, are to be identified. Ah, but a poet's lists are not to be confused with mere shopping lists, they are lists of language, of perception, of a tone and perhaps rhyme or rhythm or both or neither that intercept us as we scan the lines and draw us into the poet's moment until we are participating in the list, finding ourselves in the list or recognizing how the list might grow in our own hands to include just that one more word or phrase!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews