In Defense of Nothing: Selected Poems, 1987–2011

By Peter Gizzi

A new lyricism for the twenty-first century

Runner-up for the William Carlos Williams Award (2015)

Since his celebrated first book of poetry, Peter Gizzi has been hailed as one of the most significant and distinctive voices writing today. Gathered from over five collections, and representing close to twenty-five years of work, the poems in this generous selection strike a dynamic balance of honesty, emotion, intellectual depth and otherworldly resonance—in Gizzi's work, poetry itself becomes a primary ground of human experience. Haunted, vibrant, and saturated with luminous detail, Gizzi's poetry enlists the American vernacular in a magical and complex music. In Defense of Nothing is an immensely valuable introduction to the work of this extraordinary and singular poet. Check for the online reader's companion at http://petergizzi.site.weleyan.edu.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Apr 8, 2015
• ISBN: 9780819574312

Peter Gizzi

Peter Gizzi is the author of many collections of poetry including Fierce Elegy, Now It's Dark, Threshold Songs, Archeophonics and In Defense of Nothing: Selected Poems, 1987–2011. He has also published several limited-edition chapbooks, folios, and artist books. He lives in Holyoke, MA.

Book preview

ALSO BY PETER GIZZI

* * *

PERIPLUM

ARTIFICIAL HEART

SOME VALUES OF LANDSCAPE AND WEATHER

THE OUTER NATIONALE

THRESHOLD SONGS

IN DEFENSE OF NOTHING

WESLEYAN POETRY

IN DEFENSE OF NOTHING

SELECTED POEMS, 1987 – 2011

PETER GIZZI

Wesleyan University Press

Middletown, Connecticut 06459

www.wesleyan.edu/wespress

Copyright © 2014 by Peter Gizzi

All Rights Reserved

Designed by Quemadura

Manufactured in the United States of America

Wesleyan University Press is a member of the Green Press Initiative. The paper used in this book meets their minimum requirement for recycled paper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gizzi, Peter.

[Poems. Selections]

In defense of nothing : selected poems, 1987–2011 / [Peter Gizzi].

pages cm. — (Wesleyan Poetry Series)

ISBN 978-0-8195-7430-5 (cloth : alk. paper)

I. Title.

PS3557.I94A6 2014

811′.54—dc23

2013041211

5 4 3 2 1

Cover design by Quemadura.

FOR ELIZABETH WILLIS

FROM

PERIPLUM, AND OTHER POEMS

SONG OF THE INTERIOR BEGIN / 3

PERIPLUM / 4

BLUE PETER / 6

STILL LIFE WITH AUTOMOBILE / 9

THIRTY SENTENCES FOR NO ONE / 10

POEM FOR JOHN WIENERS / 12

DESPITE YOUR NOTICES / 14

PSALM / 16

DEUS EX MACHINA / 17

SONG OF THE DEN / 21

PERIPLUM VII (A VALENTINE) / 23

HARD AS ASH / 24

FROM

ARTIFICIAL HEART

NEW PICNIC TIME / 37

TOY / 40

ANOTHER DAY ON THE PILGRIMAGE / 42

SPECK / 47

WILL CALL / 48

LEDGER DOMAIN / 49

LONELY TYLENOL / 55

REED / 56

CAPTION / 58

PIERCED / 60

FABLES OF CRITIQUE / 70

A TEXTBOOK OF CHIVALRY / 72

FROM

SOME VALUES OF LANDSCAPE AND WEATHER

OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR / 77

THE ETHICS OF DUST / 80

A HISTORY OF THE LYRIC / 82

ADD THIS TO THE HOUSE / 84

SOME VALUES OF LANDSCAPE AND WEATHER / 85

OVERTAKELESSNESS / 90

HAWTHORNE / 91

EDGAR POE / 92

REVIVAL / 93

TO BE WRITTEN IN NO OTHER COUNTRY / 99

IN DEFENSE OF NOTHING / 100

LESSONS IN DARKNESS / 101

IT WAS RAINING IN DELFT / 104

FIN AMOR / 105

BEGINNING WITH A PHRASE FROM SIMONE WEIL / 117

FROM

THE OUTER NATIONALE

A PANIC THAT CAN STILL COME UPON ME / 121

THE QUEST / 130

STUNG / 131

UNTITLED AMHERST SPECTER / 135

A TELESCOPE PROTECTS ITS VIEW / 136

THAT’S LIFE / 138

NOCTURNE / 141

VINCENT, HOMESICK FOR THE LAND OF PICTURES / 143

WINTRY MIX / 150

SATURDAY AND ITS FESTOONED POTENTIAL / 152

THE MOONLIGHT DEFENSE / 154

BOLSHEVESCENT / 155

THE OUTERNATIONALE / 156

FROM

THRESHOLD SONGS

THE GROWING EDGE / 169

LULLABY / 173

HYPOSTASIS & NEW YEAR / 175

EYE OF THE POEM / 178

SNOW GLOBE / 180

ANALEMMA / 181

THIS TRIP AROUND THE SUN IS EXPENSIVE / 184

BASEMENT SONG / 186

PINOCCHIO’S GNOSIS / 188

TINY BLAST / 194

TRADITION & THE INDIVISIBLE TALENT / 195

APOCRYPHA / 199

A NOTE ON THE TEXT / 202

OVERSONG / 204

HISTORY IS MADE AT NIGHT / 206

BARDO / 214

MODERN ADVENTURES AT SEA / 216

FRAGMENT (TO THE READER) / 221

The world contains consciousness as well as atoms—and the one must be written down as just as essential as the other …

WILLIAM JAMES

FROM

PERIPLUM, AND OTHER POEMS

SONG OF THE INTERIOR BEGIN

Some sky of hydraulic

spring Some season ever

So the tree for even

a twig O branch O earth

there is too (psalm)

Neither a pool nor

a crown And day spills

to where is O water

Begin! Begin! So sing

of lever Are eyes

shy? O iris O onyx

Into blouse of

Air go there!

PERIPLUM

Put your map right with the world

The person who knows where

has made an accurate study

of here

As to know

implies a different reading

Somewhere

faith enters

and must be pinned and sighted

A church tower is good for reference

but losing ground

Still

satellites orbiting the earth

track a true arc

but perhaps too grand

for everyday distances

And never mind about the bewilderment

I’m at sea

BLUE PETER

AFTER JASPER JOHNS

To describe a logic of sight

pull the surface onto target and

arrive at zero aperture. Then

fluctuate to a face, reproduced

in serial format, superimposed

upon marginal pedestrians,

traversing a polarity of earth.

The axis here is askew, perhaps

unsettling, the way physical

equilibrium slides into multiple

perspective. This place where

sight informs the eye as gate

to phenomenon, a bridge to

impulse the imaginary. Simply

she was feeding bread to pigeons

in the park. So begin this sentence

with rain and square the surrounding

flat with common traffic. I

move through, to get here. If you

want me, you will find me in

the garden of vestiges, next to

the sweet water cistern. Where

the old port remains, a water

mark on granite, abutted with

grass and a stone path leading

to other places that for the moment

I am not interested in, as I take

serious your claim to provoke you.

And I will follow your instructions,

however silly, however sublime, until

you have found me, indistinguishable

from what you call your self.

The way I wear you about my

mouth, as a crease, deepening

every time I smile to look at you.

Look at me. I’m serious, I must

find the way, to say, we have arrived.

For it is you who instruct me in

the laws of perspective, these many

converging lines, drawn to perception.

So that I have become only a star or

an asterisk or a compass rose. Signifying

location, this possibility of place. True.

It’s been said that the burial of the dead

is the beginning of culture, as we know,

no other. And I remain raw.

Vapor digit tapping at my wrist,

the talon, the dorsal fin and the panther

claw. The value of negative space

and the rationale of talisman does

not parse, will not parry from this

dearth. As emotions surround the edge

of the planet adjusted to actual people we meet.

What could the difference of this construction

intend in a world of moments, merely

fragments provided to express conversation

or random noise signaling gray space,

to be inserted within an imported structure?

Birds migrate over cityscape and arrive

in my backyard to a mutiny of peaceful

dawn. Then a description of equality

is scored, as a rhetorical flourish is installed

for testimony. I flag. I stammer.

A banner to the burden that all things

that are, must not be, in me. Only,

will you not smile when I wave?

STILL LIFE WITH AUTOMOBILE

He was going to take it to the next town.

Though the park was empty

the pond bristled with life. He had

not an answer within 100 sq. acres

or it was only answers that tweeted about.

Who was this lonely figure in a landscape

and once he is made known

would the narrative slack and come

to a warm bed and slippers?

It was no no and yes yes all afternoon

on the thruway. It was a big state said the signs

and so did the sky