The Frightened Man


In fear of the rich mouth
I kissed the thin,--
Even that was a trap
To snare me in.

Even she, so long
The frail, the scentless,
Is become strong,
And proves relentless.

O, forget her praise,
And how I sought her
Through a hazardous maze
By shafted water.

Tim,
Many thanks for starting this thread. Had read only one or two of LB's anthologised poems and look forward to exploring her strong and accomplished work in detail.
Margaret.

As I say, I'm glad she's in the Norton, but it's still a wretched anthology in a hundred different ways. And those poems it includes aren't bad--they're better than most poets' work--but they are not Bogan's best stuff. I used to have four or five Nortons in various editions--when I was teaching, they'd send them to me--but I've sold them or thrown them all away, good riddance.
And Tim is right about "Women"--it's a tough poem, and seems to be hard on women, but it's hard in the right way.
She was also a terrific epigrammatist; it's too bad she didn't write more of them. For example:

Come, drunks and drug-takers; come, perverts unnerved!
Receive the laurel, given, though late, on merit; to whom
And wherever deserved.

Parochial punks, trimmers, nice people, joiners true-blue,
Get the hell out of the way of the laurel. It is deathless
And it isn't for you.

Or this:

Pasture, stone wall, and steeple,
What most perturbs the mind:
The heart-rending homely people,
Or the horrible beautiful kind?



[This message has been edited by robert mezey (edited July 05, 2004).]

Considering that this forum is four years old, I don't know how we have overlooked her so long. Bobby and Janet, those were all among the poems I considered for the first post on this thread. As I said, where to start? I imagine her inclusion in the Norton is the work of Mary Jo Salter, the only one of those editors whom I know. I think it is heartening to see the members posting eighteen of these poems. One of the most important services this forum can provide is to spread the word on neglected poets like Bogan or Mew or Daryush or Francis, all of whom wrote masterful poems.

Tim
The reason that I quite seriously think that this poem:

To Be Sung On The Water

Beautiful, my delight,
Pass, as we pass the wave.
Pass, as the mottled night
Leaves what it cannot save,
Scattering dark and bright.

Beautiful, pass and be
Less than the guiltless shade
To which our vows were said;
Less than the sound of the oar
To which our vows were made,--
Less than the sound of its blade
Dipping the stream once more.

was possibly inspired whether consciously or unconsciously by Schubert's song of the same title is that there are similarities quite apart from the theme. Although the song is in triple time (6/8) it resolves into two beats of three and glides smoothly through gentle ripples. The song was rather fashionable in concerts and on gramophone records at about the same time that Louise Bogan would have written this poem.

This is one of the few truly happy poems by Bogan that I have discovered. Of course there is Roman Fountain (thanks Bobby) and the love poems are powerful.
Janet


[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited July 05, 2004).]

I've just pulled the first eight anthologies I could find on my shelves, and Bogan is included in six of them:

--Louis Untermeyer(ed), Modern American Poetry
--Hayden Carruth(ed), The Voice that Is Great Within Us
--Oscar Williams(ed), The Pocket Anthology of American Verse
--Ellen Bass(ed), No More Masks!
--Gioia, Mason, Schoerke (eds), 20th Century American Poetry
--The Norton Anthology of Women's Literature

These two do not include any of her work:
--F O Mattheissen (ed), The Oxford Book of American Verse
--Donald Hall(ed), Contemporary American Poetry

The Mattheissen only includes ONE 20th century female poet (Millay) and the Hall does not include any poets born before 1900.


That's not a bad rate of inclusion by any means of reckoning. And the No More Masks!--one of the first expressively "feminist" anthologies of poetry printed in the US--includes "Women."



[This message has been edited by nyctom (edited July 05, 2004).]

Tom
She's not in "The Harvill Book of Twentieth-Century Poetry in English".

Those are American publications. It's so hard to cover the field.
Janet

The Williams and Untermeyer anthologies are old collections, and even Caruth's book has been around a long time. And Caruth is of an older generation that knew Bogan's verse.
I don't have time to go searching, but I'd bet she's not to be found in most of the recent anthologies. And in any case, her name doesn't come up often in contemporary discussions of the
important American poetry of the 20th century. She is, as they say, marginalized---and overshadowed by many inferiors.

She's in The Faber Book of 20C women's poetry (ed. F.Adcock, 1987) from which I cull

The Crows.

The woman who has grown old
And knows desire must die,
Yet turns to love again,
Hears the crows' cry.

She is a stem long hardened,
A weed that no scythe mows.
The heart's laughter will be to her
The crying of the crows,

Who slide in the air with the same voice
Over what yields not, and what yields,
Alike in spring, and when there is only bitter
Winter-burning in the fields.

Do like its rhythmic fluidity.

Margaret.

Margaret, you beat me to it! I think I first read her in the Faber anthology, alongside any number of other poets I wouldn't ever have heard of otherwise.

I love the anecdote Elizabeth Bishop recounts, in her memoir "Efforts of Affection," in which Marianne Moore goes to teach a workshop at the 92nd Street Y, and Miss Bogan shows up to take it, which rather unnerves Miss Moore.

Sally