The Poet

The Poet Bob Shea I held in my hand an artifact of my past, long buried: The Deserted Altar and Other Poems, a coUection published in 1957. Locating it ended a search for any work by its author—an obscure poet, amateur archeologist, teacher, and scholar. I had searched the Internet with no luck. Then, downtown, with a couple of free hours, I visited the new Rochester Public Library, its polished beige stone exterior housing contemporary furniture and bookshelves that suggested Frank LloydWright. I punched the poet's name into a computer and, to my surprise, this coUection showed up in the stacks. My hand shook faintly as I wrote down die access number. I was aware ofa slight tension in my neck and shoulders as the librarian handed me the thin volume, and I walked straight to the checkout desk without looking closely at the book. Sitting alone in my car, the window open to the cool damp air of the garage, I held the book in both hands, consciously breathing slowly, as I examined my find. The author's picture is on the back cover. It is a photograph that reveals, in a medium shot from mid-torso up, a dark-haired man perhaps in his late twenties, looking at the camera. The face is fifll, with a prominent forehead, deep-set eyes, a large nose and lips that are fuU, womanish. His shirt collar is unstarched and rumpled in the way that artists and academics sometimes affect. The tie has a floral pattern, and a pair of glasses appears to be stuck in the front left pocket ofthe suit coat. I remember the suit coat as gray. Or was it tan? I toss the book on the back seat, start the car, and head for my office at Xerox. Later at home in my studio, I open the book at random and read the first entry, a poem titled "Ischia—for Inès." There is a quote from WH. Auden: "Cry in the hand the cool ofbone."Then the first few lines. 104 Bob Shea105 Heaven's no legend, say the bells, Calling to the old men and the swallows, The youngsters circling round the cliffs; Only the soul endures, in this our prison. The rest of the poem is filled with images of birds, references to wolves and lambs, a chapel, and the setting of sea and mountains with rock huts. I think it suggests Italy or Greece. I wonder who or what Ischia is, and later find out it is an island off the Italian mainland. I glance at one or two ofhis other poems, which have traditional rhyme structures. I love some poetry: the work ofWendeU Berry, Mary Oliver, Sharon Olds, some Heaney a little Yeats, and just about anything by Philip Levine or Stanley Kunitz. But the work of this poet seems old-fashioned, and mannered. I try to imagine his voice reading these aloud. Was it a soft voice? Energetic? I can't remember. Affected? Yes to that. Accented with traces not ofNewYork but ofEngland, perhaps even Paris. But I can't hear it in these words. Unusual for me, since I have a good memory, particularly for sound. I can often quickly identify old movie and TV theme songs, or songs by the first few notes. I hear echoes ofmy father's voice in the sound of my own, and the talk ofmy brothers. Maybe the poet's sound wiU come back to me. Waiting for the book to arrive from the stacks, I had sought out his Uterary biography, looked him up in Contemporary Authors, and photocopied the entries. Putting the book aside, I read the sheets. The poet was born in New York City. His mother was identified as "a dog breeder; maiden name, Nathan."What his father did was not described. The poet graduated from Kenyon College, received an M.A. in EngUsh literature from Harvard, studied at the Sorbonne, and attended Wadham CoUege, Oxford. At Oxford he received the prestigious Newdigate Prize for EnglishVerse for his twenty-page poem, "The DesertedAltar."John Ruskin, Matthew Arnold, Oscar Wilde, and Julian Huxley were Newdigate recipients as Oxford undergraduates. The...