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[ 2 poems from Hale Chatfield’s Greatest Hits ]
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So Much of Wanting is Vague
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So much of wanting is vague
we are lucky to have words.
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So much of wanting is vague,
unnameable desire. The tides
within our cells yearn outward.
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We might tell them they yearn
to sizzle against nameless stars.
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And if we are articulate,
as we are articulated matter,
we name our desire — make it
matter specifically. We focus and sharpen
our dullest pain with taxonomy.
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Without words wanting is vague.
As children we struggle to invent new languages
and we carry our vocabularies,
like banners, into nations of longing
where we are sovereign.
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For simplicity we elongate our vowels.
We want more. We want peace.
All. We want it all.
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Without words wanting is vague.
We accrue our nouns. We pin them
to our wishes like medals.
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Hale Chatfield (1936-2000)
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Etude: The Frailty of Consequence
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O yes, no
I remember the word:
I’d toyed with inconsequential,
but what he had actually said was
these poems are so trivial
I could just weep.
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I have sometimes wanted to weep
myself.
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For the same reason.
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Because everything one loves
is so trivial.
The stars are trivial.
The ocean is trivial.
Olive trees seen from the top of a mountain
are trivial, and seen close up
they are infinitely more trivial.
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If I could, I’d write something
so trivial we would all weep.
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All of us in the world.
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We’d prop our heads on our hands.
We’d shed tiny trivial tears.
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Hale Chatfield (1936-2000)
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Hale Chatfield’s comments on these poems:
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“So Much of Wanting is Vague” is kind of oetic I think: our moods become poems in our heads, attributing our joys and sorrows to persons and events (though the moods may just come and go inside us innocently and perhaps without any but metabolic causes).
“Etude: The Frailty of Consequence” is the happy outcome of a rejection slip from an editor who sent back an envelope of my poems lamenting that he’d just read over a hundred poems, and, having saved my bunch for last, was rendered nearly tearful by their disappointing triviality.”
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Hale Chatfield was my wife’s first college professor. Between her sophomore and junior years at Aurora High School, Linda took a summer semester English course at nearby Hiram College. Writing intensive. Dr. Chatfield was ruthless on grammar and style. But he was also incredibly funny. Linda ended up graduating from Hiram, a self-designed major in Medieval Studies, with two additional courses from Chatfield. They left their marks on each other. Twenty years after graduating, Linda returned to campus to use the Hiram library. As she walked across the quad a tall figure approached. When he drew near Chatfield looked up and said, “Hello, Linda.”
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Jennifer Bosveld at Pudding House was my first editor and publisher. I was a finalist in her poetry chapbook contest and she helped me put the finishing touches on Barb Quill Down in 2004. During three decades of Jennifer’s fiery leadership, Pudding House published dozens of anthologies and over 2,000 chapbooks, including the infamous Greatest Hits Series. Jennifer would invite a poet she admired to select a handful of her or his favorite poems and publish them with commentary. Hale Chatfield was #4 in the Series. Jennifer Bosveld left her mark on me: I still treasure the manifesto she included as preface in every single collection she published:
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Publisher’s Position Statement
on the Value of Poetry Arts
This chapbook is limited edition fine art from the poet
Hale Chatfield
whose work you support for a few cents per page. you are not buying paper and printer’s ink by weight. You selected language art that took as long to create as paintings or other fine art. Pudding House caters to those who understand the value of the poet’s good work. We are in business to make and enhance reputations rather that to assure profits for our press. Manuscripts are chosen on the basis of their contributions to the literary arts and to the popular culture. On behalf of a large community of contemporary poets, this poet is particular, and Pudding House Publications, thank you for your patronage.
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Hale Chatfield (1936-2000) was professor and dean at Hiram College in northeastern Ohio and founded the Hiram Poetry Review. Besides publishing sixteen books, including eight poetry collections, he created an educational television series on poetry with NBC-TV. He was an early proponent of computers in education and founded Chatfield Software, Inc. At Linda’s first encounter, he introduced the class to a spreadsheet of grammar and style he used to mark their papers, including the dreaded “D-13″ = cliché.
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. Jennifer Bosveld (1945-2014) was a powerhouse advocate for the literary arts in Columbus, Ohio and throughout the region. She founded Pudding House, at one time the nation’s largest small press for poetry. She also worked as a suicide-prevention counselor and directed Ohio State University’s Disaster Research Center and the Friends of the Homeless. Jennifer received the Pioneer Award of the National Association for Poetry Therapy, which she co-founded in 1978; a Dispatch Community Achievement Award for cultural advancement in 1986; and an Ohio Arts Council poetry fellowship in 1996.
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– Bill
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