Fragments of Perseus by Michael McClure, and: Heavy Breathing by Philip Whalen (review)

238 Western American Literature Fragments of Perseus. By Michael McClure. (New York: New Directions, 1983. 90 pages, $6.25.) Heavy Breathing. By Philip Whalen. (San Francisco: Four Seasons Founda­ tion, 1983. 207 pages, $9.95.) Michael McClure and Philip Whalen read their work at the historic Six Gallery poetry reading on October 13, 1955; it was the same evening that Allen Ginsberg read Howl for the first time, and it heralded the beginning of the San Francisco Renaissance. Since that time the work of McClure and Whalen has often been linked, both are thought of as Beat poets, and the men have been friends for almost thirty years. Whalen and McClure share many concerns, ecology being a primary one, and they are among the most prolific, as well as the most prolix, of the Beat poets. Whalen’s images often remain too personal, making it difficult for the reader to know how to respond, and McClure can be repetitious. In “Stanzas Composed in Turmoil,” he repeats the line “WE ARE DEEP INSIDE!” nine times, and it just isn’t vivid enough, even with capital letters and an exclama­ tion mark, to sustain reader interest. The lines become numbing, the way profanity does when it is used excessively. Despite their similarities — Whalen and McClure are both the products of a rural America, the first coming from Oregon and the second from Kansas —•the two have very different approaches to their art. Whalen’s poems are straightforwardly autobiographical, while McClure expresses himself through a variety of personae, ranging from Perseus in this volume to Billy the Kid and Josephine the Mouse Singer in other works. Reading a random volume by each poet, it would be much more difficult to get a picture of McClure than it would of Whalen. It would be interesting to see who stood up if one asked to see the “real” McClure. Possibly McClure isthe more elusive of the two because he finds it painful to deal with his experiences directly, rather than through metaphor. Perhaps a key to understanding him appears in “A Dream in the Terrazes Motel,” where he says: “There on the blue/ bureau — the enameled/ blue bureau — was a sign/ saying my parent’s divorce/ was an official one/ of the normal kind./ THE HURT ROSE UP/ and I could not/ bear it,” and the poem ends with McClure saying “I write this down/ for no one to read.” McClure’sparents were divorced when he was five, and he spent the next seven years in Seattle, where he was raised by his grandfather. In “Largo for the Monster,” McClure again touches on his parents’ divorce, saying: “I am the pain I always see/ and never know. It/ IS/ THE ABSENCE OF A FATHER’S SMILE,” and he then mentions his “shaking insecurity.” Such confessions are poignant. Instead of being horrified by the things he sees, Whalen tends to make fun of them. Humor allows him to cope with despair. In “America inside and Outside Bill Brown’sHouse in Bolinas,” Whalen speculates on a society where “Each person (is) isolated, carefully watching for some guy/ to make some funny move & then let him have it POW/ Right on the beezer.” The use Reviews 239 of such words as “pow” and “beezer” almost makes the poem sound like a comic strip, although there’s no doubt Whalen is serious. He says, “There’s probably Some sensible human way of living in America/ Without being rich or drunk or taking dope all the time,” and his best poems, like those that are most successful by McClure, suggest that art and laughter provide guideposts to our survival. ARTHUR WINFIELD KNIGHT California, Pennsylvania A Country For Old M en A nd Other Stories. ByE. R. Zietlow. (Hermosa, SD: Lame Johnny Press, 1977. 119 pages, $2.95.) If you have little or no depth into South Dakota literature, A Country For Old M en A nd Other Stories by E. R. Zietlow is as good an introduction as you will find into the themes of the working people who still farm and ranch the prairie lands. The title story, “A Country For Old Men,” isan authentic portrait of the calibre of...