The HyperTexts
Bruce Bennett
Bruce Bennett was born in Philadelphia, PA in 1940. He received
his AB, AM, and PhD from Harvard, and taught at Oberlin College from 1967-70,
where he co-founded and served as an editor of FIELD: Contemporary Poetry
and Poetics. In 1970 he moved back to Cambridge, where he co-founded and
served as an editor of Ploughshares. In 1971, he married Bonnie Apgar,
a Renaissance art historian, and for two years they lived in Florence,
Italy. In 1973 he began teaching at Wells College in Aurora, NY, where he taught
Literature and Creative Writing, directed the college’s Visiting Writers Series,
served as Chair of the English Department, and helped found the Wells College
Book Arts Center. He retired from teaching in June
2014, and is currently Professor Emeritus of English.
Bruce is the author of ten books of poetry and more than thirty poetry
chapbooks. His first New and Selected Poems, Navigating The Distances (Orchises
Press) was cited by Booklist as “One Of The
Top Ten Poetry Books Of 1999.” Just Another Day In Just Our Town, Poems: New And
Selected, 2000-2016, also from Orchises, was published in January 2017.
During the 1980’s and 90’s, he was Associate Editor at Judith Kitchen’s State
Street Press. He has reviewed contemporary poetry
in The New York Times Book Review, The Nation, Harvard Review, and elsewhere.
In July 2015 he received the first annual Writing The Rockies Lifetime
Achievement Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Creative Writing, presented
at the Writing The Rockies Conference at Western State Colorado University.
His poetry website is
https://justanotherdayinjustourtown.com
SPILLED
It’s not the liquid spreading on the floor,
A half a minute’s labor with the mop;
It’s everything you’ve ever spilled, and more.
The stupid broken spout that wouldn’t pour;
The nasty little salesman in the shop.
It’s not the liquid spreading on the floor,
A stain perhaps, a new, unwelcome chore,
But scarcely cause for sobs that will not stop.
It’s everything you’ve ever spilled, and more.
It’s the disease for which there is no cure,
The starving child, the taunting brutal cop.
It’s not the liquid spreading on the floor
But through a planet, rotten to the core,
Where things grow old, get soiled, snap off, or drop.
It’s everything you’ve ever spilled, and more:
This vision of yourself you can’t ignore,
Poor wretched extra clinging to a prop!
It’s not the liquid spreading on the floor.
It’s everything you’ve ever spilled, and more.
From Navigating The Distances Poems New & Selected (Orchises Press)
FRAMED, SMILING
We loved a person, and we loved a face.
Now both are somewhere else, not to return,
never to change. A picture takes their place.
Framed, smiling. In a kind of sacred space
it casts its benediction. Candles burn.
We loved a person, and we loved a face
Whose features fade. That kiss, that last embrace,
those parting words: all air. We can’t discern
such details now. A picture takes their place.
Hurry and loss and time have set the pace
and pipe the tune. We pause, but barely yearn.
We loved a person, and we loved a face,
Oh, loved them past all telling, knew the grace
conferred by love, beyond what love can earn;
touched Paradise. A picture takes their place,
And doesn’t. Nothing does. We dust the case,
put back mementos, gradually unlearn
we loved a person, yes, and loved a face
consigned to dust. A picture takes their place.
From Navigating The Distances Poems New & Selected (Orchises Press)
THE THING’S IMPOSSIBLE
Perhaps the single feature of the villanelle
that twentieth-century poets made their own
is the absence of narrative possibility….
the form refuses to tell a story….
— THE MAKING OF A POEM
Don’t write a villanelle to tell a tale:
they’re not the form for narrative or plot.
It’s pretty obvious why you will fail.
For instance, there’s an island; you set sail.
The wind is perfect, and the day is hot.
Don’t write a villanelle to tell a tale,
Because, well, you will have to see a whale,
a wonder, but it can’t be caught, or shot.
You see? It’s obvious why you will fail.
Say, you’re with her, and you’re both at the rail;
(I don’t think I have mentioned it’s a yacht –
don’t write a villanelle to tell a tale!)
A magic moment. You’ll embrace. The ale
your steward brought will just have hit the spot.
But wait. It should be obvious you’ll fail
Since now her husband, who’s been sprung from jail,
is in that sloop approaching, and he’s got –
Don’t write a villanelle to tell a tale.
The thing’s impossible. You’re bound to fail!
From Just Another Day In Just Our Town Poems:
New And Selected,
2000-2016 (Orchises Press);
published in Ploughshares; Pushcart Prize
“We live too long.”
“We live too long,” she said with stoic grace.
Her husband sat immobile in a chair.
They’d soon be moving to another place.
He gazed at nothing with a vacant stare.
Her husband sat immobile in a chair.
“It shouldn’t happen. We become too old.”
He gazed at nothing with a vacant stare.
She shrugged. The house and furniture were sold.
“It shouldn’t happen. We become too old.”
Silences grew. The day was getting on.
She shrugged. The house and furniture were sold.
Another week or two, and they’d be gone.
Silences grew. The day was getting on.
They’d soon be moving to another place.
Another year or two, and they’d be gone.
“We live too long,” she said with stoic grace.
From Just Another Day In Just Our Town Poems:
New And Selected,
2000-2016 (Orchises Press)
A SINGLE ROOM
She shut door after door until
she occupied a single room
she barricaded with her will.
She shut door after door until
she was alone at last, and still,
and silent, tomb within a tomb.
She shut door after door until
she occupied that single room
And cultivated Death, a bloom
that seemed to warm her with its chill.
She occupied that single room
and cultivated Death, a bloom
that filled her space with its perfume
till there was no more space to fill.
She cultivated Death, a bloom
that seemed to warm her with its chill.
And there, within that single room
she dwelt, till there was nothing more.
She dwelt in silence, with that bloom,
shut tight, within that single room
with only Death and Death’s perfume,
without a window or a door.
Yes, there within that deathly room
she dwelt, till there was nothing more.
From Just Another Day In Just Our Town Poems:
New And Selected,
2000-2016 (Orchises Press);
published in The Healing Muse
JUST ANOTHER DAY IN JUST OUR TOWN
The people who were going to die have died.
The town has mourned them in the proper way.
Their time has passed. Now time has passed them by.
The people who were going to die have died.
We think of them. Their memories abide.
There really isn’t very much to say.
The people who were going to die have died.
The town has mourned them in the proper way.
The people who have yet to die are here.
They go about their business, unperturbed.
Their duties and their consciences are clear.
The people who have yet to die are here,
and do not think they too will disappear.
They are not troubled, anxious, or disturbed.
The people who have yet to die are here.
They go about their business, unperturbed.
It’s just another day in just our town.
We mind what little business that we have.
Some children play, and some of them are grown.
It’s just another day in just our town.
We say hello, but everyone’s unknown.
We save whatever time we have to save.
It’s just another day in just our town.
We mind what little business that we have.
The people who were going to die have died.
The people who have yet to die are here.
Their time is passing. Time will pass them by.
The people who were going to die have died.
Their time has passed. Their memories abide.
The day will come when all will disappear.
The people who were going to die will die.
The people who are here will not be here.
From Just Another Day In Just Our Town Poems:
New And Selected,
2000-2016 (Orchises Press)
SWIMMING IN A WATERING CAN
Something was stuck. I thought it was some leaves,
so I poured out the water from the top.
There was this lump. I saw it was a mouse.
He must have tried to drink and lost his balance.
I stood there staring. Just a little lump
wet on the wet ground. Nothing could have saved him.
Who could have heard? Who would have heard a mouse
swimming? And it was outside, in the dark.
I don't know why the thought of that upsets me.
Maybe it's all the other stuff. It's just
that awful image: paddling in the water,
helpless and desperate, nothing to catch hold of,
feeling your strength fail, little by little by little,
paddling and paddling, sinking, all alone.
From Just Another Day In Just Our Town Poems:
New And Selected,
2000-2016 (Orchises Press);
published in The Healing Muse
DEGENERATION
“It’s ALS,” he said. “It’s getting worse.
A year or so ago she was on crutches.
Now it’s the wheelchair. It’s progressing fast.
But she’s amazing. She’s so optimistic.”
I’d asked about her. I had met the class
one time before. I wondered, but didn’t ask.
This time I had to know, she so stood out.
She was so cheerful, so enthusiastic.
She is a sophomore; they are mostly seniors,
accepted by their colleges already,
transitioning, about to start new lives,
all set to strike off into different worlds.
Everything’s changing. Everything’s exciting—
and scary too. I overheard them talking.
About their jobs, their majors, what they hope for,
those ways they must be talking every day,
while promising they will, whatever happens,
be back, stay friends. They won’t forsake each other.
Those are the things that she is bound to hear.
What must she feel? That’s what I keep on thinking.
She doesn’t even know if she’ll get through
another term. The chance that she’ll reach college
seems almost nil. And surely, she must know that.
And yet, her teacher says she’s “optimistic.”
Sometimes I think the courage we can’t see
must be enough to break a stone god’s heart!
Published in Paterson Literary Review
LAST LUNCH
— for Herbert Siegel
During our last lunch, when you only
pushed food around on your plate, you suddenly
got up because you heard
a couple speaking Greek at the next table
And walked over and introduced yourself and exchanged
pleasantries and information – all
in your best Greek, which was, apparently,
pretty good, or, at least, good enough,
Since you came back beaming. It turned out
he was a doctor, and knew your doctor, and the two of them
complimented you on your knowledge of Greek and asked
where you had acquired it, and you got to tell them
You had always loved languages and had taught
yourself, and it no longer mattered – since you were clearly
so happy – that the food in front of you
would never be eaten, because the restaurant that afternoon
was filled with noise and joy.
From Just Another Day In Just Our Town Poems:
New And Selected,
2000-2016 (Orchises Press);
published in The Healing Muse
The HyperTexts