Author: Mark Edmundson
Mark Edmundson is University Professor at the University of Virginia and the author of Self and Soul: A Defense of Ideals and The Heart of the Humanities: Reading, Writing, Teaching. His book on Walt Whitman is forthcoming from Harvard in April.
Quarantine Visit
There’s an old woman on the porch. There’s an old woman in R.L. Dogg’s head.
……..Also.
She turns up—torn dress, clodhoppers, smell o’ rum, late afternoon and wants
…………………………..Money!
She’d also like a bit o’ food, being that she has none. Or says so.
I’ve never seen her, Liz either: we been cooped up, Dogg in Quarantine,
…………………………..And all that.
…………………………..R.L. Dogg, Poet.
…………………………..He’s got rants in his pants!
So we don’t really know what’s up on the outside—food lines, gas lines, social
…………………..Rebellion—death by tedium,
She wants money (Broke, the crone croaks);
…………….She wants food (Starved she squawks);
And Liz and I look over at our Buddha—rare wood, sprayed gold, sitting
…………….Serene on the kitchen counter (marble counter),
There’s a gold flame rising from his head—wisdom, wakefulness.
…………….Gautama looks on.
She’s hungry (in my head); she’s broke (in my head); and is she coming
…………….Some actual day, actual soon?
…………….For money, for food?
The Buddha, compassionate one, so beautiful,
Brought back all the way from Malaysia,
A decoration, beautiful diversion,
Looks at us now, waiting to see what comes next.
Plague Song: Chelsea Boots
Harold Bloom Up Close
Harold Bloom was a superb literary critic, a singular classroom teacher, and a great force of personality. I’m lucky to have known him.
As a critic he possessed qualities rarely seen in conjunction. He had a superb memory and could quote page upon page of poetry fluently and accurately. He also seemed to recall every consequential moment he’d experienced in life, from his humble childhood in the Bronx to his fraught life in academe. (His story of his father, a member of the Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, giving him a small pair of shears when he was a child, directing him toward his likely career, stands out in my mind.) Bloom’s superb memory is on display in his massive study Shakespeare, the Invention of the Human, which may be his best book. There he’s able to travel from one play to another, offering comparisons, making connections, as though all the dramas were alive simultaneously in his mind, composing one great work.