Wilderness
She laughed like a girl, and when she laughed, trouble didn't matter. She smelled like a woman who'd traveled around Turkey, India and Africa. This aura permeated wherever she was and whoever was around her, and it made you feel like you were at home too. Born in Brooklyn, orphaned early in life, her mind flew through Latin, and among epic poems. Her world was somewhere between the East Village and Upstate New York. Her epic poem is about a day in the life of 1970s New England. She let life happen, and was glad when it did. She held her emotions in check on the page, but not in the world. She spoke directly, in a voice anyone who was around would listen to, carefully.
A creek flowed from the forest, joined a big river and washed the edges of the big city. A party was held once a year on its shores, for the country and the idea of wilderness. Words and water, words like water, were something to look forward to.
Something that flows unforgettably by.
Matthew Licht
Wilderness
There’s strange wilderness, vanishing wilderness,
wilderness love, cry wilderness, camp wilderness,
out of wilderness, the last great wilderness,
the wilderness years, scenic wilderness
and the wilderness horror movies
Near Amsterdam is Oostvaardersplassen
A prehistoric park created by re-wilding
There’s a wilderness walking distance from here
but I can’t get to it now, there’s too much snow
There’s no humans there, just a mink and an aurochs
the Renssalear plateau, a geologic formation
is a wildlife corridor I live at the southern end of
my neighbor saw a mountain lion, another a moose
I hear owls, see coyotes and non-wilderness varmints
Help me find a wilderness to make love not war in
When Sophia said, “guess where I am?”
She was exploring a wilderness in
St. Louis created from an abandoned neighborhood
Out of abandonment in America, city wilderness
We’ve all seen it in movies; is digital the same
as genetically engineered? Is real life hell
heaven wilderness? Is wilderness a fantasy?
Show me the way to go home, I’m tired and I wanna
go to hell to ring the fantasy bell to dress for dinner
Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness are served
Let’s serve sweet berries in the wilderness
Let’s get lost in the wilderness of this poem
Can a poem catch the essence of wilderness? Does
it smell like the fresh dew on a summer’s day?
Oh come off it, maybe the dew’s frozen, it’s winter
It’s night: frozen stuff doesn’t smell much
We pretend the diaper’s dewy but the wilderness trees’ve
Been chain-sawed so mushroom spores can grow and
Shroom mouths to eat you as you wonderfully walk by
Whatever the frozen mushroom dewiness do you mean?
Perhaps it was written a million years ago
in the wilderness notebook or
The Idiots Guide to Wilderness
Whichever rules wanderers everywhere wonder about
I’m just saying there’s no humans here
Maybe we can (make some) cash in on fantasies
Making the wilderness right there in your head
While you wander in a field of blue daffodils
Looking for home in the heart of an ornamental
purple cauliflower from Wilderness for Dummies
Since some believe there is no wilderness left
We will dream of those friendly utopian places
Create new landscapes for imaginary animals
As if a time traveler corrected all the wrongs
That humans caused to harm
Bernadette Mayer & Philip Good (text)
Marie Warsh (image)
Bernadette Mayer è nata a Brooklyn nel 1945 e rimase orfana durante l'adolescenza; sua sorella era la scultrice Rosemary Mayer. Dopo aver frequentato scuole cattoliche nel 1967 si laureò al New School for Social Research, dove studiò lingue classiche e moderne. Dopo essere salita alla ribalta grazie alla sua mostra Memory nel 1971, Mayer si affermò come un'apprezzata poetessa e membro dei Language poets e della New York School. Nel corso della sua vita pubblicò oltre una trentina di libri, tra cui raccolte di saggi e poesie. Nel 2015 ricevette la Guggenheim Fellowship, mentre l'anno successivo ottenne una candidatura al National Book Critics Circle Award per Works and Days. È morta a New York nel 2022 all'età di 77 anni.