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People continue to want to write, sharpening up their quills, warming up their word processors, traveling to the feet of authors in search of tips. Why do they go on, in the age of television and non-books? Because: without writing there would be no panels such as the one in Key West called, simply, "Poetry Reading." The introduction, by John Malcolm Brinnin (Sextet), a considerable poet himself, was voted the weekend's most magnificent moment. Listing the "illustrious succession of poets" who have lived in Key West, he said, "I am here to break the news that you are in the presence of the two greatest living American poets: James Merrill and Richard Wilbur. These guys, Dick and Jimmy, my dear friends for 40 years, these guys are awesome." Merrill, this year's winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for his long poem The Changing Light at Sandover, read what he called an "extractable section," a series of remarks from Clio, Terpsichore and their sister muses. Then, from his Clearing the Title, about buying a house in Key West, came words to define the territory: . . . this tropic rendezvous Where tourist, outcast and in- groupie gather Island by island, linked together, Causeways bridging the vast shallowness.
Nothing completes the loop of enlightenment as suddenly and surprisingly as a poet repeating his own words. Not all poets read well. But these guys could read, awesomely, their words designed to make the mind turn over and reconcentrate. To absolute stillness, Wilbur read The Writer, about his daughter, upstairs in her room trying to write a story. He, too easily at first, wishes her luck and then remembers that effort is part of success. His metaphor is a trapped starling that finally finds its way out of his daughter's room.
It lifted off from a chair-back, Beating a smooth course for the right window And clearing the sill of the world. It is always a matter, my darling, Of life or death, as I had forgotten. I wish What I wished you before, but harder.
There are ways to arrange words, although not very many such ways, so they will melt the heart until it reappears again as tears. That is why people continue to try to put one word after another. Because one little piece of the truth is enough. For these authors, the piece is easier to come by in Key West. —By Jane O'Reilly