Web Hype
Towlie, Towle & Bean Spasms
It often happens that I return to the same books I want that are like really expensive. Like the Notebooks of Paul Valéry. Anyway I want a copy of this slick little book so bad it makes me think it a stupid thing to want a book so bad, like I should be wanting things like sex drugs and money so bad, but I just want this little book so bad, with a nice simple cover by Joe Brainard. The cheapest I have seen so far is $300. It is collected in Ted Berrigan’s Collected Poems.
Tony Towle between Buckminster Fuller and printer John Lund, apparently my doppleganger
I began actively thinking about Tony Towle after reading a list of Kenneth Koch’s favorite books of poetry published in paperback in 1967, the year after Frank O’Hara died. But in fact, Justin Taylor mentioned Towle a couple of times on this very blog. I must have glazed over the name. Rule of threes for the win. You see. You see. You three. What is that? One of the lesser known poets of the New York School, Towle seems to have had sort of a rough go of the shaft with publication. I’m especially into this his “Poem.”
“Poem”
by Tony TowleAn engineer pushes a button in the mountains,
and another mountain lifts itself
and slides into the lake,
revealing a patchwork of interesting minerals.
The air follows us as we walk along.Look at all this junk. My glass is cracked suddenly.
Look at the punch leaking out onto my sleeve.
That is the way I see things,
that, or locked up in storage bins, alongside one another
and hanging from my tie as from a dangling rope,
ending up in the same intrigue of thoughts,
becoming a digestible poison,
and the nerve-endings evolved to cope with danger
do not know what to tell the brain, so they think about it.Back in the mountains. The engineer pulls a switch,
and a mountain,
making a quiet, sliding sound, lifts itself
and slides into the lake.
There is bound to be a breeze now,
we are a hundred feet in the air.
There is no shock, just a quick vibrant lift.
The air comes with us,
a warm halo of fog and icy water with no sense of motion.
A selection of Tony Towle’s work from 1965-1969 is available online.
And there’s more on his website.
Tags: buckminster fuller, my doppleganger, ron padgett, South Park, ted berrigan, Tony Towle
I hadn’t heard of Towle either, so thanks for that. It’s a lovely poem. And/but if it were published tomorrow as by [one of a dozen or more possible young poets I like/love], no one would think it odd. I wonder what that means?
‘Invisible’ is often a cheap word, an extreme adjective – in that it’s either/or – used to gain an effect the rest of its context doesn’t merit (or contradicts helplessly).
Here, “invisible” shows something rising from the poem, one x-ray among the rest, from the assemblage of which a shaping of emotion and idea happens.
This is unusually good poetry. “Tony Towle” – got it; thanks.
‘Invisible’ is often a cheap word, an extreme adjective – in that it’s either/or – used to gain an effect the rest of its context doesn’t merit (or contradicts helplessly).
Here, “invisible” shows something rising from the poem, one x-ray among the rest, from the assemblage of which a shaping of emotion and idea happens.
This is unusually good poetry. “Tony Towle” – got it; thanks.
A friend of mine pointed out your site to me a couple of days ago. Thank you for your appreciation of my “Poem” from 1965, and deadgod’s and Justin Taylor’s of “Ethos” and “New York,” respectively. If Towlie and the South Park towel indicate that you weren’t sure how my last name is pronounced, it rhymes with bowl, or goal. I wrote a poem called “On His Name” that deals with this very subject. It’s included in the grouping from the early ’70s in the Electronic Poetry Center. A(nother) minor notes, the NY Times blurb from Kenneth was in 1968; it coincided with the publication of After Dinner We Take a Drive into the Night (Tibor de Nagy), so it was two years after Frank died, to whom the book was dedicated. Thanks again. It’s an interesting blog. Tony Towle