tavie.com

I can't remember which Ezra Pound poem I was supposed to read for class Monday. I do remember that I was supposed to have read T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland, so I'm trying to read it, but it is both incomprehensible and scary. Scary. It makes me scared. I'll finish reading it in a minute. Honest.

Why does so much of the poetry I have to read have to be so incomprehensible? What am I supposed to be getting out of this? I'm going back to the social sciences. At least some of that is understandable in some sort of concrete way.

Wallace Stevens' first book was called Harmonium. I went through the compilation and discovered that it contains about 80% of the poems originally published in Harmonium. That will be enough for me. Let's call that a volume. So, there, I've done something. What's left? To actually read the poems? No, I think I'll go watch reruns of Three's Company and wait for my sister's CD of Japanese pop music to finish burning.

Thirteen Ways of Watching Three's Company

I.
Among Chrissy Snow's mountains
The only moving thing
Was the eye of Jack Tripper.

II.
I was of three minds,
Like an apartment
In which there are three roommates.

III.
John Ritter whirled in the Reagal Beagle.
His physical comedy resembled pantomime.

IV.
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and another woman
are a premise.

V.
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of Suzanne Somers
Or the beauty of Priscilla Barnes,
Or Jenilee Harrisson's ridiculous antics.
Why was she there?

VI.
Mrs Roper filled the apartment
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of her caftan
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Of Mr Roper
Was not affected.

VII.
O producers of bad 70's television
Why do you bring in Don Knotts?
Do you not see how Norman Fell
Mugs at the camera and makes us laugh?

VIII.
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms.
But I know, too,
That none of these are involved
In the opening theme.

IX.
When the program flew off of prime time,
It marked the beginning
Of a short-lived spinoff.

X.
At the sight of Ritter
Making a fool of himself
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

XI.
He rode over California
In a metal airplane.
Once, a fear pierced him
That he mistook the success of his sitcom
For talent.

XII.
The ratings are jumping.
The sitcom must be flying.

XIII.
It was evening all morning
It was early
And Family Ties was ending.
Tavie sat
On the futon watching reruns.

My apologies to Wallace Stevens.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 4:23 AM | shower me with attention