Worship the Pig

Gaylord Brewer

Description

Worship the Pig, Gaylord Brewer’s eleventh collection, is by the poet’s own definition his “Americas book.” The migration begins from his Tennessee home to the Inside Passage of Alaska, then detours sharply south in a return to his beloved Costa Rica, then onward finally to the qualified paradise of Brazil’s Ilhabela. Brewer’s persistent obsessions—translating the call and challenge of the feral world, negotiating some truce with private ghosts—have never been more poignantly and sharply drawn. From chiseled lyrics to more expansive narratives—by turns reserved and raucous, always heartfelt and riveting—these new poems exhilarate. “No schematic for conquest, / no reckless conclusions, // no tenuous argument for connection / beyond the simple truth / of what accrues together.” At mid-career, the author called “the most natural poet in the country” by the Asheville Poetry Review continues to astonish.

Sujets

• Themes
• Subjects
• birds
• Poetry
• Brazil
• Nature
• Tennessee
• Alaska
• Costa Rica

Informations

• Publié par: Red Hen Press
• Date de parution: 16 juin 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781597098076
• Langue: English

Extrait

WORSHIP THE PIG
Also by Gaylord Brewer
P OETRY
The Feral Condition (2018)
Country of Ghost (2015)
Give Over, Graymalkin (2011)
The Martini Diet (2008)
Let Me Explain (2006)
Exit Pursued by a Bear (2004)
Barbaric Mercies (2003)
Four Nails (2001)
Devilfish (1999)
Presently a Beast (1996)
F ICTION
Octavius the 1st (2008)
Creative Nonfiction
The Poet s Guide to Food, Drink, & Desire (2015)
L ITERARY C RITICISM
Charles Bukowski (1997)
Laughing like Hell: The Harrowing Satires of Jim Thompson (monograph, 1996)
David Mamet and Film (1993)
A Detective in Distress: Philip Marlowe s Domestic Dream (monograph, 1989)
WORSHIP THE PIG
poems
G AYLORD B REWER
R ED H EN P RESS | P ASADENA , CA
Worship the Pig
Copyright 2020 by Gaylord Brewer
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of both the publisher and the copyright owner.
Book layout by Talar LaSalle
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Brewer, Gaylord, 1965- author.
Title: Worship the pig : poems / Gaylord Brewer.
Description: First edition. | Pasadena, CA : Red Hen Press, [2020]
Identifiers: LCCN 2019049134 (print) | LCCN 2019049135 (ebook) | ISBN 9781597098526 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781597098076 (ebook)
Subjects: LCGFT: Poetry.
Classification: LCC PS3552.R4174 W67 2020 (print) | LCC PS3552.R4174 (ebook) | DDC 811/.54-dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019049134
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019049135
The National Endowment for the Arts, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, the Ahmanson Foundation, the Dwight Stuart Youth Fund, the Max Factor Family Foundation, the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Foundation, the Pasadena Arts & Culture Commission and the City of Pasadena Cultural Affairs Division, the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, the Audrey & Sydney Irmas Charitable Foundation, the Kinder Morgan Foundation, the Meta & George Rosenberg Foundation, the Allergan Foundation, the Riordan Foundation, Amazon Literary Partnership, and the Mara W. Breech Foundation partially support Red Hen Press.

First Edition
Published by Red Hen Press
www.redhen.org
Acknowledgments
Worship the Pig is, I suppose, my Americas book. Most of these pieces were composed during three residencies: a few weeks in San Ram n, to see what my old friend Royce Slape was up to with his ODYSSEYS Costa Rica; at Alderworks, near the vanished Gold Rush town of Dyea, Alaska; and most recently at Casa Na Ilha on the Brazilian Island of Ilhabela. Yes, it s a hard life. In the last two instances, thanks to Jeff Brady and Marina Louisa Caama o. Any remaining poems were written out at the house in Tennessee, with the usual interruptions.
Continuing gratitude and affection to Kate Gale and Mark Cull. Red Hen Press is the best friend my poetry s ever had. Just don t tell them I said so.
Thanks to the editors of the following journals:
20/20 Vision: Scotland : Edinburgh Ekphrastic ; Asheville Poetry Review : Black Sails, Bonete Beach, Momentary Interruption, On a Clear, Hot Morning in Brazil, Balcony Overlooking Mountain and Sea, I Think of My Parents in Kentucky ; Atlanta Review : Last Morning at the Farmers Market in San Ram n, una Oda a las Frutas ; Birmingham Poetry Review : Solution to a Morning of Little Possibility: Frying Bacon ; Briar Cliff Review : Hummingbird, Moonflower, While ; The Cape Rock : Crested Caracara ; Ekphrasis : Edinburgh Ekphrastic ; Descant : Aubade with Sunshine, Mango, and Hibiscus Following Two Days of Rain ; El Portal : Para el ltimo D a, un Peque o Poema de Perro para Decir Adi s ; Evansville Review : God s Laser Beam! ; Evening Street Review : Prayer to the Sky over Juneau Airport, Grounded for Two Days ; Front Range Review : Until the Sky Quiesces ; Kestrel : Merely, in an Unforeseen Moment, When It s Done Right ; Literary Leo (contest winner): Caminata por la Tarde (as Marcher Ruse ); Poem : Asterocampa celtis , Victory March, Wanted ; Potomac Review : Economics, Fire on the Mountain ; River Styx : Devil On a Leash ; Skylight 47 (Ireland): Footwear for Foreigners ; Slippery Elm : October Afternoon, Witness s Account ; Southern Poetry Review : Snow Day ; Southern Review : Les abricots ; Spillway : Author Photo, Monaco, 1984 ; South Carolina Review : A Little Poem to Life ; Steam Ticket : Better Than Sex ; Sugar House Review : Caretaker, Late in the Narrative, and They will mistake.
Worship the Pig won the poetry category of Literary LEO 2020 and was published in Leo s annual supplement in the March 11, 2020 edition.
Contents
When It s Done Right
I: Dark Hello
Footwear for Foreigners
Field Guide for the Disconsolate
Dark Hello
Les abricots
Blessed Is the Lover of Animals
To a Dead Shrew
Slide Cemetery
Whisper It Again
Merely, in an Unforeseen Moment
Prayer to the Sky over Juneau Airport, Grounded for Two Days
II: Oh, Lucky Man!
Caminata por la Tarde
Invitation
Fire on the Mountain
Crested Caracara
A Little Poem to Life
Economics
Late in the Narrative
Milking
Para el ltimo D a, un Peque o Poema de Perro para Decir Adi s
Last Morning at the Farmers Market in San Ram n, una Oda a las Frutas
III: Wake of Vulture, Parliament of Crow
Wanted
Until the Sky Quiesces
Solution to a Morning of Little Possibility: Frying Bacon
Apology to Constantin Br ncu i
God s Laser Beam!
Devil on a Leash
Victory March
Author Photo, Monaco, 1984
The Work
October Afternoon, Witness s Account
Asterocampa celtis,
While
Snow Day
Sunday Afternoon, Game Day
Deadheading
Better Than Sex
Edinburgh Ekphrastic
1956-2018
IV: Dark Bright Morning
Worship the Pig
They will mistake
Only Human
Caretaker
Aftermath
On a Clear, Hot Morning in Brazil, Balcony Overlooking Mountain and Sea, I Think of My Parents in Kentucky
Aubade with Sunshine, Mango, and Hibiscus Following Two Days of Storm
Note Unsent
Limoney
Feijoada
Something for Monday
Black Sails
Momentary Interruption
Patron Saint of Aloe Vera
Bonete Beach
5,000 Miles and Counting
Sometimes
Parrot
The Tiny Brown Ants of Brazil
A Last Poem Is Always for Lucy
Hummingbird, Moonflower
WORSHIP THE PIG
You have to hold out for the wine, even blood, nights that are actually dark, bears that aren t teddy, gritty women like you actually know, children who die contorted into question marks, the sun on people who never bought lotion, the human voice not reduced to prattle, animals who have never been watched, the man who cuts all the ropes so he won t hang himself.
-Jim Harrison
So passeth in the passing of a day,Of mortall life the leafe, the bud, the flowre,Ne more doth flourish after first decayThat earst was sought to decke both bed and bowre . . .
-Spenser
Man, I hit him with punches that d bring down the walls of a city.
-Frazier, on Ali
When It s Done Right
and that happiness,when it s done right,is a kind of holiness . . . - Mary Oliver
This morning you are crazy in love with the heat on your legs, sun-cure to welts on ankles-
as flies and chiggers have also been lately enraged with joy. You listen to the breeze
with a lazy rapture, to the river on its cold journey. How snow-shapes on the mountain
have changed these last weeks- lunging dragon replaced by a kitten in a necktie.
The cough of a tractor engine is acceptable, as is the rooster s mistimed reveille, even
the plaintive caw of raven. No schematic for conquest, no reckless conclusions,
no tenuous argument of connection beyond the simple truth of what accrues together.
A dull day ahead free of usefulness. Say this is doing it right, this r sum of sun,
light, breeze. Of bare legs, silted creek, birdcall unanswered. This singular moment
brimming with nothing special and having happily forgotten what you needed to say.
I
DARK HELLO

Yes I long for younot just as a leaf for weatheror vase for handsbut with a narrow human longing .