J.D. Salinger is not generally thought of as a poet. His only attempts at publishing poetry, 15 poems he submitted to the New Yorker, were rejected and never saw the light of day. All the same, this being the one year anniversary of Salinger's death, it feels appropriate to say something about the late, great Salinger.
Like many people, I was introduced to Salinger through The Catcher in the Rye in high school, and only later in life came across his other works. Salinger is one of my all time favorite authors, and his prose knocks me out like none other. In fact, in a certain sense you could say that all of Salinger's writings are but extended works of poetry. In another more accurate sense, however, you could say that original poetry only appears two times in his books.
The first would be the haiku published as part of "Zooey" in 1957, the slim novella about Seymour's younger brother Zooey Glass. Later on in "Seymour - An Introduction" we are told by Seymour's brother that Seymour, “probably loved the classical Japanese three-line, seventeen syllable haiku as he loved no other form of poetry, and that he himself wrote—bled—haiku (almost always in English, but sometimes . . . in Japanese, German, or Italian).”
In fact, Buddy claims that the haiku published above is one he found written in Japanese on the desk blotter of the room Seymour occupied in "A Perfect Day for Banana Fish" and that it was written in “straight, classical-style haiku”.
Buddy was, he claims in the story, the one who translated the poem from Japanese to English - which raises an unusual issue. One of the essential features of classical haiku is the use of "kigo" or language that denotes the season the poem is taking place. These are often difficult for foreign language speakers to pick up on, since these terms are often only tangentially related to the season itself (for example, "frog" in a haiku connotes Spring, and "moon" connotes autumn). What we can be certain of, is that none of the words Salinger uses in his haiku are "kigo" which implies either that either Buddy isn't very familiar with classical haiku structure, or that Salinger isn't. Reading on through "Seymour - an introduction" raises further issues of Buddy's reliability as a narrator, but that is the topic for another day.
The other short burst of original poetry in Salinger's prose is much more elusive. In 1947 Salinger published a short story called "The Inverted Forest" in Cosmopolitan magazine. Salinger subsequently blocked the story from ever being reprinted and it was only available on microfilm in library archives up through the decades before some enterprising soul uploaded it to the Internet. The story regards the life of a brilliant young poet named Ray Ford. Although Ford's poetry is lauded as incredible throughout the story, we never get to see any - except for one couplet.
“Not a wasteland, but a great inverted forest
with all the foliage underground.”
Like many people, I was introduced to Salinger through The Catcher in the Rye in high school, and only later in life came across his other works. Salinger is one of my all time favorite authors, and his prose knocks me out like none other. In fact, in a certain sense you could say that all of Salinger's writings are but extended works of poetry. In another more accurate sense, however, you could say that original poetry only appears two times in his books.
The first would be the haiku published as part of "Zooey" in 1957, the slim novella about Seymour's younger brother Zooey Glass. Later on in "Seymour - An Introduction" we are told by Seymour's brother that Seymour, “probably loved the classical Japanese three-line, seventeen syllable haiku as he loved no other form of poetry, and that he himself wrote—bled—haiku (almost always in English, but sometimes . . . in Japanese, German, or Italian).”
In fact, Buddy claims that the haiku published above is one he found written in Japanese on the desk blotter of the room Seymour occupied in "A Perfect Day for Banana Fish" and that it was written in “straight, classical-style haiku”.
Buddy was, he claims in the story, the one who translated the poem from Japanese to English - which raises an unusual issue. One of the essential features of classical haiku is the use of "kigo" or language that denotes the season the poem is taking place. These are often difficult for foreign language speakers to pick up on, since these terms are often only tangentially related to the season itself (for example, "frog" in a haiku connotes Spring, and "moon" connotes autumn). What we can be certain of, is that none of the words Salinger uses in his haiku are "kigo" which implies either that either Buddy isn't very familiar with classical haiku structure, or that Salinger isn't. Reading on through "Seymour - an introduction" raises further issues of Buddy's reliability as a narrator, but that is the topic for another day.
The other short burst of original poetry in Salinger's prose is much more elusive. In 1947 Salinger published a short story called "The Inverted Forest" in Cosmopolitan magazine. Salinger subsequently blocked the story from ever being reprinted and it was only available on microfilm in library archives up through the decades before some enterprising soul uploaded it to the Internet. The story regards the life of a brilliant young poet named Ray Ford. Although Ford's poetry is lauded as incredible throughout the story, we never get to see any - except for one couplet.
“Not a wasteland, but a great inverted forest
with all the foliage underground.”
It's a beautiful line, made all the more beautiful by the context - the wasteland, or forest rather, is the main character of the piece, a young woman named Corinne.
Even though both these poems are very short, they convey in their brief lines the depth, melancholy and approachability of Salinger's prose. They are also both tantalizing parts of a suggested greater whole - the copious haiku's of Seymour Glass and Ray Ford's body of work - which the reader will never be privy to. In that way perhaps they represent J.D. Salinger's works most of all - works which, even before his death, were barred from readers by all means save through the tantalizing power of imagination.
No comments:
Post a Comment