Out of Print, But Worth Seeking Out: North of Jamaica
Louis Simpson
New York: 1972

Simpson's autobiography, published as Air with Armed Men in England, deals with his early life too, of course, but also features a great deal of insight, often quite pointed, into adjusting back into civilian life after fighting in World War II as well as Simpson's frequently caustic observations about "literary" life in the '50s and '60s.

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When I got back New York was strange and the people I talked to seemed to have concept of reality -- that is, the sight of blood. I suffered from the condition described by Robert Graves and familiar to many an ex-infantryman: at every street corner, and when I passed an open place, I would look for a machine-gun position; at any whistling sound or bang my whole body would convulse. [p. 131]

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I lived for a year in France and published a book of poems.
At my own expense.
No book is ever as exciting as the first. I was on my way back to my hotel with the galleys, long sheets of heavy paper, when I passed a Frenchman, a bookseller I knew, standing in the door of his establishment.
"Look," I said, showing him the galleys.
"What have you got there?"
"My book."
"What sort of book?"
"Poems."
He took the heavy galleys and, thoughtfully, weighed them in his hands. "Poetry," he said, "should be light. It should fly."
This was the first review I received. The second was a remark by John Hollander. "Interesting," he said. "it reminds me of Wyatt. But minor. It's minor poetry." [pp. 152-153]

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At best, writing courses give lonely people some company. But the atmosphere is all wrong; the students are hoping to get credit for their writing toward a degree, and the instuctors are compelled to encourage them to write, even if they have no talent. How can poetry come of this? Young writers would be better off in a bar, or in love, or at sea. Universities are one thing, and life and poetry another.
I would get the Ph.D. that you had to have in order to teach literature and I would teach just that, and writing would be for my own pleasure. [pp. 188-189]

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I used to be able to begin and finish a poem. I found that the poem was directed by certain external forces toward a certain end. But one day I found that ideas were better expressed in prose. No, it was more than that. I found that I no longer wished to please.
The reader has certain stock responses to ideas, and certain responses -- not very strong, perhaps, but operative nevertheless -- to metaphor, meter, and rhyme. A poem that satisfies his stock responses is "good"; a poem that does not is "bad". I find myself wanting to write bad poems -- poems that do not depend on stock responses. I want to write poems that will not please. Recently I have been learning to write this new kind of poem. The most important change is in the content (whether one writes "in form" or "out of form" is not an essential question -- it is a matter for simpletons to worry about, and of course it is the only question that reviewers feel competent to discuss. (p. 195)

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Simpson's 1963 volume, At the End of the Open Road, is that rarity, a book that deserves, and won, a major prize, the Pulitzer. His new and collected poems, The Owner of the House, is available from BOA Editions. North of Jamaica should be available in well-stocked libraries or in the used book dealers of www.abe.com.

1996 © 2005