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Citation preview
1282020 Forrest Ganderrsquos Grief Sounds | The New Yorker
httpswwwnewyorkercommagazine20180827forrest-ganders-grief-sounds 18
BOOKS AUGUST 27 2018 ISSUE
FORREST GANDERrsquoS GRIEF SOUNDS
In his new collection ldquoBe Withrdquo the poet yearns endures and tries to spin the inchoate into words
By Dan ChiassonAugust 20 2018
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1282020 Forrest Ganderrsquos Grief Sounds | The New Yorker
httpswwwnewyorkercommagazine20180827forrest-ganders-grief-sounds 28
The title of Forrest Ganderrsquos latest book of poems ldquoBe Withrdquo (New Directions) is a blurted commandwelling up from yearnings not quite expressible in language Ganderrsquos partner of more than thirty years
the poet C D Wright died unexpectedly in her sleep in 2016 Later that year a new volume by WrightldquoShallCrossrdquo was published posthumously with a dedication to Gander ldquofor Forrest line lank and long bewithrdquo Gander borrows his title from that dedication which reads like a message from beyond the grave Thiscollection of elegies for Wright conrms receipt of the message and returns it Poetry often creates asupernatural-seeming rapport with the dead but rarely has the communication between worlds felt so eerilyreciprocal
Gander who teaches at Brown is the author of eleven books of poems and two novels plus multimediacollaborations and distinguished translations In ldquoBe Withrdquo he is at once adamant about the ineffability ofgrief and committed to getting his inchoate ldquogrief-soundsrdquo somehow into words The bookrsquos sputteringinching style with its syntactical dead ends and missed connections feels like both an accommodation tothe necessity of language and proof of its inadequacy ldquoBeckonedrdquo is a poem about nding the words Theparallel structure of its sentences suggests hasty bulletins delivered in a narrowing span of consciousness It
The elegies in ldquoBe Withrdquo chart the addled chronology of loss Illustration by Tom Bachtell
Subscribe
1282020 Forrest Ganderrsquos Grief Sounds | The New Yorker
httpswwwnewyorkercommagazine20180827forrest-ganders-grief-sounds 38
begins abruptly in the middle of some story we havenrsquot read capturing the sudden repeated shock ofWrightrsquos death
At which point my grief-sounds ricocheted outside of language
Something like a drifting swarm of bees
At which point in the tetric silence that followed
I was swarmed by those bees and lost consciousness
At which point there was no way out for me either
The heavy silences between these single-line stanzas suggest a blackout or a seizure something more direthan a break for thought Grief takes us back to the same ldquopointrdquo in time again and again even as the clockmdashand the book itselfmdashmoves forward Coming to in this interstitial state Gander nds himself suspended ina ldquosemi-coma dreaming I was awakerdquo where actions and symbols share a single plane
At which point I grew old and it was like ripping open the beehive with my hands again
At which point I conceived a realm more real than life
At which point there was at least some possibility
Some possibility in which I didnrsquot believe of being with her once more
The distant future gets the past tense even the unknown trajectory of Ganderrsquos emotional life is described asxed and nished Therersquos nothing ahead for him except grieving The ldquopossibilityrdquo that he constructscontains both supreme hopefulness and self-cancelling disbelief ldquoI outlived my liferdquo he writes
The bookrsquos title gives away its most tragic insight ldquoBe withrdquo the phrase is stripped of its object the belovedhas been ripped from the world Reciprocity is suddenly broken as though one player in a game had walkedoff the court mid-volley ldquoWho was ever only themselvesrdquo Gander asks in ldquoSonrdquo a poem addressed to his andWrightrsquos ldquoone arterial childrdquo In ldquoEpitaphrdquo another jarring phrase substitutes for more melliuousexpressions
To write Youexisted mewould not be merelya deaf translation
For there is nosequel to the passage whenI sawmdashas you wouldnever againbe revealedmdashyou see meas I would neveragain be revealed
Subscribe
1282020 Forrest Ganderrsquos Grief Sounds | The New Yorker
httpswwwnewyorkercommagazine20180827forrest-ganders-grief-sounds 48
T
The line breaks scramble and reframe the memory of when the two parties by seeing the other see broughteach other into existence Because ldquothere is no sequel to the passagerdquo Gander is compelled to continuerevisiting it Birth and death are all there in that rst glance ldquonever againrdquo conveys irrevocable loss The linebreak in the second instancemdashldquonever againrdquomdashsuggests that for the living the full emotional weight ofeternity must ldquobe revealedrdquo and endured again and again
o write about profound loss you step inside a genre elegy that is full of haunting echoes Ganderrsquospoems call to mind those Thomas Hardy wrote after the sudden death of his wife Emma Hardyrsquos verse
skips over his immediate painful past to a moment ldquowhen our day was fairrdquo dwelling on the uncanny traceshis wife left behind in ldquoa room on returning thencerdquo Gander shares the intensity of Hardyrsquos griefmdashhis morosexation on moments squandered The poems in ldquoBe Withrdquo recall the happy parallel paths in life and in artthat he and Wright followedmdashalways within a holler of each other After Wrightrsquos death Ganderrsquos memoriesrevolve around objects landscapes work and routinesmdashsymbols that become nearly sentient in theirembodiment of his pain
The cabinetdoorrsquos squeakydactylic remarkHap-pi-ness
What Gander calls the ldquospectacularization of the trivialrdquo occurs when the everydaymdashan ordinary cabinet amundane memorymdashldquomeans just what it feels like it meansrdquo We teach our objects how to speak ourlanguage This poetrsquos cabinet even talks in meter
ldquoBe Withrdquo charts the addled chronology of personal loss The linear march of time is scattered with vignettesfrom Gander and Wrightrsquos life together often out of order often repeated Early on she candled eggs for apoultry farm while he played ldquofrisbee on the greenrdquo One night instead of making love Wright takes a bathher knees poking up ldquothrough the soap bubblesrdquo while Gander stargazes under the ldquoPrawn Nebulardquo Loss iswhat makes these memories visible without it what you have is just another evening of slightly divergentmarital priorities A more recent more painful memory captures the contesting imperatives of nality anddelay
ldquoIf you wantto throw insome dirtrdquo the priestaddressed the widowerand his child generallybut did not
ADVERT I SEMENT
Subscribe
1282020 Forrest Ganderrsquos Grief Sounds | The New Yorker
httpswwwnewyorkercommagazine20180827forrest-ganders-grief-sounds 58
completethe sentence
The priest doesnrsquot nish the sentence but Gander must
Meanwhile the world proposes alternative measurements of time and loss One day Gander discovers thatldquothe spider vibrating on its long legs in the ceiling corner over my desk doesnrsquot exist nowrdquo The spiderrsquoswork so deeply associated with writing poetry has been cut short In an interview Gander has said that onepoem in the collection a loose translation of the rst ballad of St John of the Cross was literally interruptedby Wrightrsquos death This breach is honored in real time the poem suddenly veers off in a personal directionThe book as a whole replicates this effect it is a self-suturing wound equal parts bridge and void
The eeting moments that Gander assembles seek an order that is not merely chronological He remembers aquestion from Wright ldquoIf itrsquos not all juxtaposition she asked what is the binding agentrdquo The most obviousanswer is language though as Gander discovers language often fails ldquoCreepyrdquo he writes ldquoalways to want topin words on lsquothe emotional experiencersquo rdquo Sometimes he gets rid of the binding agents altogether as inldquoDeadoutrdquo a two-part poem that arranges fourteen sentence fragments into intelligible couplets thenscrambles them into dreamlike illogic The result isnrsquot nonsense itrsquos a haunting near-sense made by foilingcause and effect
Gander has a degree in geology and is the author with John Kinsella of ldquoRedstartrdquo a pioneering hybridtreatise on ecopoetics a movement in contemporary poetry that according to Gander explores ldquothe economyof interrelationship between human and non-human realmsrdquo In the same way that the vocabulary of faithmight aid a religious poet in a time of crisis Ganderrsquos deep affinity for the natural world provides a kind ofsolace There phenomena ldquorarely have discreet beginnings or endingsrdquo and instead reveal ldquolayers duration andtransitionsrdquo The impulse to go very small or very big from the microscopic to the cosmic is evident in theopening poem ldquoYou lug a bacterial swarm in the crook of your kneerdquo Gander writes while ldquothrough myguts writhe helminth parasitesrdquo
The bookrsquos nal section is titled ldquoLittoral Zonerdquomdashthe part of a body of water usually near the shore whereenough light passes through for plants to grow My Google search tells me that by the time sunlight reachesthe bottom of the littoral zone it is usually one per cent or less of its surface strength Thatrsquos about as muchcomfort as arrives in this harrowing sometimes despairing book But even in near-darkness therersquos lightenough for a new strange kind of love poem
Fromafar do you see me nowbriey here in this phantasmicstandoff ridingpainrsquos whirlforms
The phrase ldquophantasmic standoff rdquo is lifted directly from ldquoRedstartrdquo where it refers not to humans but tostrange ldquonocturnal podsrdquo surging in the dark water It was Nietzsche who dened human beings as ldquohybridsof plants and ghostsrdquo The comfort of the littoral is I take it entirely gurative diams
Subscribe
1282020 Forrest Ganderrsquos Grief Sounds | The New Yorker
httpswwwnewyorkercommagazine20180827forrest-ganders-grief-sounds 68
Published in the print edition of the August 27 2018 issue with the headline ldquoLost Endsrdquo
Dan Chiasson a contributor to The New Yorker since 2007 teaches English at Wellesley College His latest book ofpoems is ldquoBicentennialrdquo
More Poets Poetry Collections Poems Grief
This Weekrsquos Issue
Never miss a big New Yorker story again Sign up for This Weekrsquos Issue and get an e-mail every week with the stories youhave to read
Enter your e-mail address
Sign up
Will be used in accordance with our Privacy Policy
Read More
BOOKS
Southern Discomfort
C D Wrightrsquos ldquoOne with Othersrdquo
By Dan Chiasson
Your e-mail address
Subscribe
1282020 Forrest Ganderrsquos Grief Sounds | The New Yorker
httpswwwnewyorkercommagazine20180827forrest-ganders-grief-sounds 78
BOOKS
The Great American Poet of Daily Chores
How A R Ammons turned the mundanemdashgarbage boredom his car not startingmdashinto art
By Dan Chiasson
VIDEO
The Dutch Gangster Betrayed by His Sister
Patrick Radden Keefe tells the story of how Astrid Holleeder exposed a notorious Dutch gangster who happened to beher brother
By The New Yorker
Subscribe
1282020 Forrest Ganderrsquos Grief Sounds | The New Yorker
httpswwwnewyorkercommagazine20180827forrest-ganders-grief-sounds 88
copy 2020 Condeacute Nast All rights reserved Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement (updated 1120) and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement (updated 1120) and YourCalifornia Privacy Rights Settings The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Ailiate Partnerships with retailers The materialon this site may not be reproduced distributed transmitted cached or otherwise used except with the prior written permission of Condeacute Nast Ad Choices
News
Books amp Culture
Fiction amp Poetry
Humor amp Cartoons
Magazine
Crossword
Video
Podcasts
Archive
Goings On
Customer Care
Buy Covers and Cartoons
Apps
Newsletters
Jigsaw Puzzle
RSS
Site Map
About
Careers
Contact
FAQ
Media Kit
Press
Accessibility Help
Sections
More
Subscribe
1282020 Forrest Ganderrsquos Grief Sounds | The New Yorker
httpswwwnewyorkercommagazine20180827forrest-ganders-grief-sounds 28
The title of Forrest Ganderrsquos latest book of poems ldquoBe Withrdquo (New Directions) is a blurted commandwelling up from yearnings not quite expressible in language Ganderrsquos partner of more than thirty years
the poet C D Wright died unexpectedly in her sleep in 2016 Later that year a new volume by WrightldquoShallCrossrdquo was published posthumously with a dedication to Gander ldquofor Forrest line lank and long bewithrdquo Gander borrows his title from that dedication which reads like a message from beyond the grave Thiscollection of elegies for Wright conrms receipt of the message and returns it Poetry often creates asupernatural-seeming rapport with the dead but rarely has the communication between worlds felt so eerilyreciprocal
Gander who teaches at Brown is the author of eleven books of poems and two novels plus multimediacollaborations and distinguished translations In ldquoBe Withrdquo he is at once adamant about the ineffability ofgrief and committed to getting his inchoate ldquogrief-soundsrdquo somehow into words The bookrsquos sputteringinching style with its syntactical dead ends and missed connections feels like both an accommodation tothe necessity of language and proof of its inadequacy ldquoBeckonedrdquo is a poem about nding the words Theparallel structure of its sentences suggests hasty bulletins delivered in a narrowing span of consciousness It
The elegies in ldquoBe Withrdquo chart the addled chronology of loss Illustration by Tom Bachtell
Subscribe
1282020 Forrest Ganderrsquos Grief Sounds | The New Yorker
httpswwwnewyorkercommagazine20180827forrest-ganders-grief-sounds 38
begins abruptly in the middle of some story we havenrsquot read capturing the sudden repeated shock ofWrightrsquos death
At which point my grief-sounds ricocheted outside of language
Something like a drifting swarm of bees
At which point in the tetric silence that followed
I was swarmed by those bees and lost consciousness
At which point there was no way out for me either
The heavy silences between these single-line stanzas suggest a blackout or a seizure something more direthan a break for thought Grief takes us back to the same ldquopointrdquo in time again and again even as the clockmdashand the book itselfmdashmoves forward Coming to in this interstitial state Gander nds himself suspended ina ldquosemi-coma dreaming I was awakerdquo where actions and symbols share a single plane
At which point I grew old and it was like ripping open the beehive with my hands again
At which point I conceived a realm more real than life
At which point there was at least some possibility
Some possibility in which I didnrsquot believe of being with her once more
The distant future gets the past tense even the unknown trajectory of Ganderrsquos emotional life is described asxed and nished Therersquos nothing ahead for him except grieving The ldquopossibilityrdquo that he constructscontains both supreme hopefulness and self-cancelling disbelief ldquoI outlived my liferdquo he writes
The bookrsquos title gives away its most tragic insight ldquoBe withrdquo the phrase is stripped of its object the belovedhas been ripped from the world Reciprocity is suddenly broken as though one player in a game had walkedoff the court mid-volley ldquoWho was ever only themselvesrdquo Gander asks in ldquoSonrdquo a poem addressed to his andWrightrsquos ldquoone arterial childrdquo In ldquoEpitaphrdquo another jarring phrase substitutes for more melliuousexpressions
To write Youexisted mewould not be merelya deaf translation
For there is nosequel to the passage whenI sawmdashas you wouldnever againbe revealedmdashyou see meas I would neveragain be revealed
Subscribe
1282020 Forrest Ganderrsquos Grief Sounds | The New Yorker
httpswwwnewyorkercommagazine20180827forrest-ganders-grief-sounds 48
T
The line breaks scramble and reframe the memory of when the two parties by seeing the other see broughteach other into existence Because ldquothere is no sequel to the passagerdquo Gander is compelled to continuerevisiting it Birth and death are all there in that rst glance ldquonever againrdquo conveys irrevocable loss The linebreak in the second instancemdashldquonever againrdquomdashsuggests that for the living the full emotional weight ofeternity must ldquobe revealedrdquo and endured again and again
o write about profound loss you step inside a genre elegy that is full of haunting echoes Ganderrsquospoems call to mind those Thomas Hardy wrote after the sudden death of his wife Emma Hardyrsquos verse
skips over his immediate painful past to a moment ldquowhen our day was fairrdquo dwelling on the uncanny traceshis wife left behind in ldquoa room on returning thencerdquo Gander shares the intensity of Hardyrsquos griefmdashhis morosexation on moments squandered The poems in ldquoBe Withrdquo recall the happy parallel paths in life and in artthat he and Wright followedmdashalways within a holler of each other After Wrightrsquos death Ganderrsquos memoriesrevolve around objects landscapes work and routinesmdashsymbols that become nearly sentient in theirembodiment of his pain
The cabinetdoorrsquos squeakydactylic remarkHap-pi-ness
What Gander calls the ldquospectacularization of the trivialrdquo occurs when the everydaymdashan ordinary cabinet amundane memorymdashldquomeans just what it feels like it meansrdquo We teach our objects how to speak ourlanguage This poetrsquos cabinet even talks in meter
ldquoBe Withrdquo charts the addled chronology of personal loss The linear march of time is scattered with vignettesfrom Gander and Wrightrsquos life together often out of order often repeated Early on she candled eggs for apoultry farm while he played ldquofrisbee on the greenrdquo One night instead of making love Wright takes a bathher knees poking up ldquothrough the soap bubblesrdquo while Gander stargazes under the ldquoPrawn Nebulardquo Loss iswhat makes these memories visible without it what you have is just another evening of slightly divergentmarital priorities A more recent more painful memory captures the contesting imperatives of nality anddelay
ldquoIf you wantto throw insome dirtrdquo the priestaddressed the widowerand his child generallybut did not
ADVERT I SEMENT
Subscribe
1282020 Forrest Ganderrsquos Grief Sounds | The New Yorker
httpswwwnewyorkercommagazine20180827forrest-ganders-grief-sounds 58
completethe sentence
The priest doesnrsquot nish the sentence but Gander must
Meanwhile the world proposes alternative measurements of time and loss One day Gander discovers thatldquothe spider vibrating on its long legs in the ceiling corner over my desk doesnrsquot exist nowrdquo The spiderrsquoswork so deeply associated with writing poetry has been cut short In an interview Gander has said that onepoem in the collection a loose translation of the rst ballad of St John of the Cross was literally interruptedby Wrightrsquos death This breach is honored in real time the poem suddenly veers off in a personal directionThe book as a whole replicates this effect it is a self-suturing wound equal parts bridge and void
The eeting moments that Gander assembles seek an order that is not merely chronological He remembers aquestion from Wright ldquoIf itrsquos not all juxtaposition she asked what is the binding agentrdquo The most obviousanswer is language though as Gander discovers language often fails ldquoCreepyrdquo he writes ldquoalways to want topin words on lsquothe emotional experiencersquo rdquo Sometimes he gets rid of the binding agents altogether as inldquoDeadoutrdquo a two-part poem that arranges fourteen sentence fragments into intelligible couplets thenscrambles them into dreamlike illogic The result isnrsquot nonsense itrsquos a haunting near-sense made by foilingcause and effect
Gander has a degree in geology and is the author with John Kinsella of ldquoRedstartrdquo a pioneering hybridtreatise on ecopoetics a movement in contemporary poetry that according to Gander explores ldquothe economyof interrelationship between human and non-human realmsrdquo In the same way that the vocabulary of faithmight aid a religious poet in a time of crisis Ganderrsquos deep affinity for the natural world provides a kind ofsolace There phenomena ldquorarely have discreet beginnings or endingsrdquo and instead reveal ldquolayers duration andtransitionsrdquo The impulse to go very small or very big from the microscopic to the cosmic is evident in theopening poem ldquoYou lug a bacterial swarm in the crook of your kneerdquo Gander writes while ldquothrough myguts writhe helminth parasitesrdquo
The bookrsquos nal section is titled ldquoLittoral Zonerdquomdashthe part of a body of water usually near the shore whereenough light passes through for plants to grow My Google search tells me that by the time sunlight reachesthe bottom of the littoral zone it is usually one per cent or less of its surface strength Thatrsquos about as muchcomfort as arrives in this harrowing sometimes despairing book But even in near-darkness therersquos lightenough for a new strange kind of love poem
Fromafar do you see me nowbriey here in this phantasmicstandoff ridingpainrsquos whirlforms
The phrase ldquophantasmic standoff rdquo is lifted directly from ldquoRedstartrdquo where it refers not to humans but tostrange ldquonocturnal podsrdquo surging in the dark water It was Nietzsche who dened human beings as ldquohybridsof plants and ghostsrdquo The comfort of the littoral is I take it entirely gurative diams
Subscribe
1282020 Forrest Ganderrsquos Grief Sounds | The New Yorker
httpswwwnewyorkercommagazine20180827forrest-ganders-grief-sounds 68
Published in the print edition of the August 27 2018 issue with the headline ldquoLost Endsrdquo
Dan Chiasson a contributor to The New Yorker since 2007 teaches English at Wellesley College His latest book ofpoems is ldquoBicentennialrdquo
More Poets Poetry Collections Poems Grief
This Weekrsquos Issue
Never miss a big New Yorker story again Sign up for This Weekrsquos Issue and get an e-mail every week with the stories youhave to read
Enter your e-mail address
Sign up
Will be used in accordance with our Privacy Policy
Read More
BOOKS
Southern Discomfort
C D Wrightrsquos ldquoOne with Othersrdquo
By Dan Chiasson
Your e-mail address
Subscribe
1282020 Forrest Ganderrsquos Grief Sounds | The New Yorker
httpswwwnewyorkercommagazine20180827forrest-ganders-grief-sounds 78
BOOKS
The Great American Poet of Daily Chores
How A R Ammons turned the mundanemdashgarbage boredom his car not startingmdashinto art
By Dan Chiasson
VIDEO
The Dutch Gangster Betrayed by His Sister
Patrick Radden Keefe tells the story of how Astrid Holleeder exposed a notorious Dutch gangster who happened to beher brother
By The New Yorker
Subscribe
1282020 Forrest Ganderrsquos Grief Sounds | The New Yorker
httpswwwnewyorkercommagazine20180827forrest-ganders-grief-sounds 88
copy 2020 Condeacute Nast All rights reserved Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement (updated 1120) and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement (updated 1120) and YourCalifornia Privacy Rights Settings The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Ailiate Partnerships with retailers The materialon this site may not be reproduced distributed transmitted cached or otherwise used except with the prior written permission of Condeacute Nast Ad Choices
News
Books amp Culture
Fiction amp Poetry
Humor amp Cartoons
Magazine
Crossword
Video
Podcasts
Archive
Goings On
Customer Care
Buy Covers and Cartoons
Apps
Newsletters
Jigsaw Puzzle
RSS
Site Map
About
Careers
Contact
FAQ
Media Kit
Press
Accessibility Help
Sections
More
Subscribe
1282020 Forrest Ganderrsquos Grief Sounds | The New Yorker
httpswwwnewyorkercommagazine20180827forrest-ganders-grief-sounds 38
begins abruptly in the middle of some story we havenrsquot read capturing the sudden repeated shock ofWrightrsquos death
At which point my grief-sounds ricocheted outside of language
Something like a drifting swarm of bees
At which point in the tetric silence that followed
I was swarmed by those bees and lost consciousness
At which point there was no way out for me either
The heavy silences between these single-line stanzas suggest a blackout or a seizure something more direthan a break for thought Grief takes us back to the same ldquopointrdquo in time again and again even as the clockmdashand the book itselfmdashmoves forward Coming to in this interstitial state Gander nds himself suspended ina ldquosemi-coma dreaming I was awakerdquo where actions and symbols share a single plane
At which point I grew old and it was like ripping open the beehive with my hands again
At which point I conceived a realm more real than life
At which point there was at least some possibility
Some possibility in which I didnrsquot believe of being with her once more
The distant future gets the past tense even the unknown trajectory of Ganderrsquos emotional life is described asxed and nished Therersquos nothing ahead for him except grieving The ldquopossibilityrdquo that he constructscontains both supreme hopefulness and self-cancelling disbelief ldquoI outlived my liferdquo he writes
The bookrsquos title gives away its most tragic insight ldquoBe withrdquo the phrase is stripped of its object the belovedhas been ripped from the world Reciprocity is suddenly broken as though one player in a game had walkedoff the court mid-volley ldquoWho was ever only themselvesrdquo Gander asks in ldquoSonrdquo a poem addressed to his andWrightrsquos ldquoone arterial childrdquo In ldquoEpitaphrdquo another jarring phrase substitutes for more melliuousexpressions
To write Youexisted mewould not be merelya deaf translation
For there is nosequel to the passage whenI sawmdashas you wouldnever againbe revealedmdashyou see meas I would neveragain be revealed
Subscribe
1282020 Forrest Ganderrsquos Grief Sounds | The New Yorker
httpswwwnewyorkercommagazine20180827forrest-ganders-grief-sounds 48
T
The line breaks scramble and reframe the memory of when the two parties by seeing the other see broughteach other into existence Because ldquothere is no sequel to the passagerdquo Gander is compelled to continuerevisiting it Birth and death are all there in that rst glance ldquonever againrdquo conveys irrevocable loss The linebreak in the second instancemdashldquonever againrdquomdashsuggests that for the living the full emotional weight ofeternity must ldquobe revealedrdquo and endured again and again
o write about profound loss you step inside a genre elegy that is full of haunting echoes Ganderrsquospoems call to mind those Thomas Hardy wrote after the sudden death of his wife Emma Hardyrsquos verse
skips over his immediate painful past to a moment ldquowhen our day was fairrdquo dwelling on the uncanny traceshis wife left behind in ldquoa room on returning thencerdquo Gander shares the intensity of Hardyrsquos griefmdashhis morosexation on moments squandered The poems in ldquoBe Withrdquo recall the happy parallel paths in life and in artthat he and Wright followedmdashalways within a holler of each other After Wrightrsquos death Ganderrsquos memoriesrevolve around objects landscapes work and routinesmdashsymbols that become nearly sentient in theirembodiment of his pain
The cabinetdoorrsquos squeakydactylic remarkHap-pi-ness
What Gander calls the ldquospectacularization of the trivialrdquo occurs when the everydaymdashan ordinary cabinet amundane memorymdashldquomeans just what it feels like it meansrdquo We teach our objects how to speak ourlanguage This poetrsquos cabinet even talks in meter
ldquoBe Withrdquo charts the addled chronology of personal loss The linear march of time is scattered with vignettesfrom Gander and Wrightrsquos life together often out of order often repeated Early on she candled eggs for apoultry farm while he played ldquofrisbee on the greenrdquo One night instead of making love Wright takes a bathher knees poking up ldquothrough the soap bubblesrdquo while Gander stargazes under the ldquoPrawn Nebulardquo Loss iswhat makes these memories visible without it what you have is just another evening of slightly divergentmarital priorities A more recent more painful memory captures the contesting imperatives of nality anddelay
ldquoIf you wantto throw insome dirtrdquo the priestaddressed the widowerand his child generallybut did not
ADVERT I SEMENT
Subscribe
1282020 Forrest Ganderrsquos Grief Sounds | The New Yorker
httpswwwnewyorkercommagazine20180827forrest-ganders-grief-sounds 58
completethe sentence
The priest doesnrsquot nish the sentence but Gander must
Meanwhile the world proposes alternative measurements of time and loss One day Gander discovers thatldquothe spider vibrating on its long legs in the ceiling corner over my desk doesnrsquot exist nowrdquo The spiderrsquoswork so deeply associated with writing poetry has been cut short In an interview Gander has said that onepoem in the collection a loose translation of the rst ballad of St John of the Cross was literally interruptedby Wrightrsquos death This breach is honored in real time the poem suddenly veers off in a personal directionThe book as a whole replicates this effect it is a self-suturing wound equal parts bridge and void
The eeting moments that Gander assembles seek an order that is not merely chronological He remembers aquestion from Wright ldquoIf itrsquos not all juxtaposition she asked what is the binding agentrdquo The most obviousanswer is language though as Gander discovers language often fails ldquoCreepyrdquo he writes ldquoalways to want topin words on lsquothe emotional experiencersquo rdquo Sometimes he gets rid of the binding agents altogether as inldquoDeadoutrdquo a two-part poem that arranges fourteen sentence fragments into intelligible couplets thenscrambles them into dreamlike illogic The result isnrsquot nonsense itrsquos a haunting near-sense made by foilingcause and effect
Gander has a degree in geology and is the author with John Kinsella of ldquoRedstartrdquo a pioneering hybridtreatise on ecopoetics a movement in contemporary poetry that according to Gander explores ldquothe economyof interrelationship between human and non-human realmsrdquo In the same way that the vocabulary of faithmight aid a religious poet in a time of crisis Ganderrsquos deep affinity for the natural world provides a kind ofsolace There phenomena ldquorarely have discreet beginnings or endingsrdquo and instead reveal ldquolayers duration andtransitionsrdquo The impulse to go very small or very big from the microscopic to the cosmic is evident in theopening poem ldquoYou lug a bacterial swarm in the crook of your kneerdquo Gander writes while ldquothrough myguts writhe helminth parasitesrdquo
The bookrsquos nal section is titled ldquoLittoral Zonerdquomdashthe part of a body of water usually near the shore whereenough light passes through for plants to grow My Google search tells me that by the time sunlight reachesthe bottom of the littoral zone it is usually one per cent or less of its surface strength Thatrsquos about as muchcomfort as arrives in this harrowing sometimes despairing book But even in near-darkness therersquos lightenough for a new strange kind of love poem
Fromafar do you see me nowbriey here in this phantasmicstandoff ridingpainrsquos whirlforms
The phrase ldquophantasmic standoff rdquo is lifted directly from ldquoRedstartrdquo where it refers not to humans but tostrange ldquonocturnal podsrdquo surging in the dark water It was Nietzsche who dened human beings as ldquohybridsof plants and ghostsrdquo The comfort of the littoral is I take it entirely gurative diams
Subscribe
1282020 Forrest Ganderrsquos Grief Sounds | The New Yorker
httpswwwnewyorkercommagazine20180827forrest-ganders-grief-sounds 68
Published in the print edition of the August 27 2018 issue with the headline ldquoLost Endsrdquo
Dan Chiasson a contributor to The New Yorker since 2007 teaches English at Wellesley College His latest book ofpoems is ldquoBicentennialrdquo
More Poets Poetry Collections Poems Grief
This Weekrsquos Issue
Never miss a big New Yorker story again Sign up for This Weekrsquos Issue and get an e-mail every week with the stories youhave to read
Enter your e-mail address
Sign up
Will be used in accordance with our Privacy Policy
Read More
BOOKS
Southern Discomfort
C D Wrightrsquos ldquoOne with Othersrdquo
By Dan Chiasson
Your e-mail address
Subscribe
1282020 Forrest Ganderrsquos Grief Sounds | The New Yorker
httpswwwnewyorkercommagazine20180827forrest-ganders-grief-sounds 78
BOOKS
The Great American Poet of Daily Chores
How A R Ammons turned the mundanemdashgarbage boredom his car not startingmdashinto art
By Dan Chiasson
VIDEO
The Dutch Gangster Betrayed by His Sister
Patrick Radden Keefe tells the story of how Astrid Holleeder exposed a notorious Dutch gangster who happened to beher brother
By The New Yorker
Subscribe
1282020 Forrest Ganderrsquos Grief Sounds | The New Yorker
httpswwwnewyorkercommagazine20180827forrest-ganders-grief-sounds 88
copy 2020 Condeacute Nast All rights reserved Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement (updated 1120) and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement (updated 1120) and YourCalifornia Privacy Rights Settings The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Ailiate Partnerships with retailers The materialon this site may not be reproduced distributed transmitted cached or otherwise used except with the prior written permission of Condeacute Nast Ad Choices
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Books amp Culture
Fiction amp Poetry
Humor amp Cartoons
Magazine
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Podcasts
Archive
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Buy Covers and Cartoons
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1282020 Forrest Ganderrsquos Grief Sounds | The New Yorker
httpswwwnewyorkercommagazine20180827forrest-ganders-grief-sounds 48
T
The line breaks scramble and reframe the memory of when the two parties by seeing the other see broughteach other into existence Because ldquothere is no sequel to the passagerdquo Gander is compelled to continuerevisiting it Birth and death are all there in that rst glance ldquonever againrdquo conveys irrevocable loss The linebreak in the second instancemdashldquonever againrdquomdashsuggests that for the living the full emotional weight ofeternity must ldquobe revealedrdquo and endured again and again
o write about profound loss you step inside a genre elegy that is full of haunting echoes Ganderrsquospoems call to mind those Thomas Hardy wrote after the sudden death of his wife Emma Hardyrsquos verse
skips over his immediate painful past to a moment ldquowhen our day was fairrdquo dwelling on the uncanny traceshis wife left behind in ldquoa room on returning thencerdquo Gander shares the intensity of Hardyrsquos griefmdashhis morosexation on moments squandered The poems in ldquoBe Withrdquo recall the happy parallel paths in life and in artthat he and Wright followedmdashalways within a holler of each other After Wrightrsquos death Ganderrsquos memoriesrevolve around objects landscapes work and routinesmdashsymbols that become nearly sentient in theirembodiment of his pain
The cabinetdoorrsquos squeakydactylic remarkHap-pi-ness
What Gander calls the ldquospectacularization of the trivialrdquo occurs when the everydaymdashan ordinary cabinet amundane memorymdashldquomeans just what it feels like it meansrdquo We teach our objects how to speak ourlanguage This poetrsquos cabinet even talks in meter
ldquoBe Withrdquo charts the addled chronology of personal loss The linear march of time is scattered with vignettesfrom Gander and Wrightrsquos life together often out of order often repeated Early on she candled eggs for apoultry farm while he played ldquofrisbee on the greenrdquo One night instead of making love Wright takes a bathher knees poking up ldquothrough the soap bubblesrdquo while Gander stargazes under the ldquoPrawn Nebulardquo Loss iswhat makes these memories visible without it what you have is just another evening of slightly divergentmarital priorities A more recent more painful memory captures the contesting imperatives of nality anddelay
ldquoIf you wantto throw insome dirtrdquo the priestaddressed the widowerand his child generallybut did not
ADVERT I SEMENT
Subscribe
1282020 Forrest Ganderrsquos Grief Sounds | The New Yorker
httpswwwnewyorkercommagazine20180827forrest-ganders-grief-sounds 58
completethe sentence
The priest doesnrsquot nish the sentence but Gander must
Meanwhile the world proposes alternative measurements of time and loss One day Gander discovers thatldquothe spider vibrating on its long legs in the ceiling corner over my desk doesnrsquot exist nowrdquo The spiderrsquoswork so deeply associated with writing poetry has been cut short In an interview Gander has said that onepoem in the collection a loose translation of the rst ballad of St John of the Cross was literally interruptedby Wrightrsquos death This breach is honored in real time the poem suddenly veers off in a personal directionThe book as a whole replicates this effect it is a self-suturing wound equal parts bridge and void
The eeting moments that Gander assembles seek an order that is not merely chronological He remembers aquestion from Wright ldquoIf itrsquos not all juxtaposition she asked what is the binding agentrdquo The most obviousanswer is language though as Gander discovers language often fails ldquoCreepyrdquo he writes ldquoalways to want topin words on lsquothe emotional experiencersquo rdquo Sometimes he gets rid of the binding agents altogether as inldquoDeadoutrdquo a two-part poem that arranges fourteen sentence fragments into intelligible couplets thenscrambles them into dreamlike illogic The result isnrsquot nonsense itrsquos a haunting near-sense made by foilingcause and effect
Gander has a degree in geology and is the author with John Kinsella of ldquoRedstartrdquo a pioneering hybridtreatise on ecopoetics a movement in contemporary poetry that according to Gander explores ldquothe economyof interrelationship between human and non-human realmsrdquo In the same way that the vocabulary of faithmight aid a religious poet in a time of crisis Ganderrsquos deep affinity for the natural world provides a kind ofsolace There phenomena ldquorarely have discreet beginnings or endingsrdquo and instead reveal ldquolayers duration andtransitionsrdquo The impulse to go very small or very big from the microscopic to the cosmic is evident in theopening poem ldquoYou lug a bacterial swarm in the crook of your kneerdquo Gander writes while ldquothrough myguts writhe helminth parasitesrdquo
The bookrsquos nal section is titled ldquoLittoral Zonerdquomdashthe part of a body of water usually near the shore whereenough light passes through for plants to grow My Google search tells me that by the time sunlight reachesthe bottom of the littoral zone it is usually one per cent or less of its surface strength Thatrsquos about as muchcomfort as arrives in this harrowing sometimes despairing book But even in near-darkness therersquos lightenough for a new strange kind of love poem
Fromafar do you see me nowbriey here in this phantasmicstandoff ridingpainrsquos whirlforms
The phrase ldquophantasmic standoff rdquo is lifted directly from ldquoRedstartrdquo where it refers not to humans but tostrange ldquonocturnal podsrdquo surging in the dark water It was Nietzsche who dened human beings as ldquohybridsof plants and ghostsrdquo The comfort of the littoral is I take it entirely gurative diams
Subscribe
1282020 Forrest Ganderrsquos Grief Sounds | The New Yorker
httpswwwnewyorkercommagazine20180827forrest-ganders-grief-sounds 68
Published in the print edition of the August 27 2018 issue with the headline ldquoLost Endsrdquo
Dan Chiasson a contributor to The New Yorker since 2007 teaches English at Wellesley College His latest book ofpoems is ldquoBicentennialrdquo
More Poets Poetry Collections Poems Grief
This Weekrsquos Issue
Never miss a big New Yorker story again Sign up for This Weekrsquos Issue and get an e-mail every week with the stories youhave to read
Enter your e-mail address
Sign up
Will be used in accordance with our Privacy Policy
Read More
BOOKS
Southern Discomfort
C D Wrightrsquos ldquoOne with Othersrdquo
By Dan Chiasson
Your e-mail address
Subscribe
1282020 Forrest Ganderrsquos Grief Sounds | The New Yorker
httpswwwnewyorkercommagazine20180827forrest-ganders-grief-sounds 78
BOOKS
The Great American Poet of Daily Chores
How A R Ammons turned the mundanemdashgarbage boredom his car not startingmdashinto art
By Dan Chiasson
VIDEO
The Dutch Gangster Betrayed by His Sister
Patrick Radden Keefe tells the story of how Astrid Holleeder exposed a notorious Dutch gangster who happened to beher brother
By The New Yorker
Subscribe
1282020 Forrest Ganderrsquos Grief Sounds | The New Yorker
httpswwwnewyorkercommagazine20180827forrest-ganders-grief-sounds 88
copy 2020 Condeacute Nast All rights reserved Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement (updated 1120) and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement (updated 1120) and YourCalifornia Privacy Rights Settings The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Ailiate Partnerships with retailers The materialon this site may not be reproduced distributed transmitted cached or otherwise used except with the prior written permission of Condeacute Nast Ad Choices
News
Books amp Culture
Fiction amp Poetry
Humor amp Cartoons
Magazine
Crossword
Video
Podcasts
Archive
Goings On
Customer Care
Buy Covers and Cartoons
Apps
Newsletters
Jigsaw Puzzle
RSS
Site Map
About
Careers
Contact
FAQ
Media Kit
Press
Accessibility Help
Sections
More
Subscribe
1282020 Forrest Ganderrsquos Grief Sounds | The New Yorker
httpswwwnewyorkercommagazine20180827forrest-ganders-grief-sounds 58
completethe sentence
The priest doesnrsquot nish the sentence but Gander must
Meanwhile the world proposes alternative measurements of time and loss One day Gander discovers thatldquothe spider vibrating on its long legs in the ceiling corner over my desk doesnrsquot exist nowrdquo The spiderrsquoswork so deeply associated with writing poetry has been cut short In an interview Gander has said that onepoem in the collection a loose translation of the rst ballad of St John of the Cross was literally interruptedby Wrightrsquos death This breach is honored in real time the poem suddenly veers off in a personal directionThe book as a whole replicates this effect it is a self-suturing wound equal parts bridge and void
The eeting moments that Gander assembles seek an order that is not merely chronological He remembers aquestion from Wright ldquoIf itrsquos not all juxtaposition she asked what is the binding agentrdquo The most obviousanswer is language though as Gander discovers language often fails ldquoCreepyrdquo he writes ldquoalways to want topin words on lsquothe emotional experiencersquo rdquo Sometimes he gets rid of the binding agents altogether as inldquoDeadoutrdquo a two-part poem that arranges fourteen sentence fragments into intelligible couplets thenscrambles them into dreamlike illogic The result isnrsquot nonsense itrsquos a haunting near-sense made by foilingcause and effect
Gander has a degree in geology and is the author with John Kinsella of ldquoRedstartrdquo a pioneering hybridtreatise on ecopoetics a movement in contemporary poetry that according to Gander explores ldquothe economyof interrelationship between human and non-human realmsrdquo In the same way that the vocabulary of faithmight aid a religious poet in a time of crisis Ganderrsquos deep affinity for the natural world provides a kind ofsolace There phenomena ldquorarely have discreet beginnings or endingsrdquo and instead reveal ldquolayers duration andtransitionsrdquo The impulse to go very small or very big from the microscopic to the cosmic is evident in theopening poem ldquoYou lug a bacterial swarm in the crook of your kneerdquo Gander writes while ldquothrough myguts writhe helminth parasitesrdquo
The bookrsquos nal section is titled ldquoLittoral Zonerdquomdashthe part of a body of water usually near the shore whereenough light passes through for plants to grow My Google search tells me that by the time sunlight reachesthe bottom of the littoral zone it is usually one per cent or less of its surface strength Thatrsquos about as muchcomfort as arrives in this harrowing sometimes despairing book But even in near-darkness therersquos lightenough for a new strange kind of love poem
Fromafar do you see me nowbriey here in this phantasmicstandoff ridingpainrsquos whirlforms
The phrase ldquophantasmic standoff rdquo is lifted directly from ldquoRedstartrdquo where it refers not to humans but tostrange ldquonocturnal podsrdquo surging in the dark water It was Nietzsche who dened human beings as ldquohybridsof plants and ghostsrdquo The comfort of the littoral is I take it entirely gurative diams
Subscribe
1282020 Forrest Ganderrsquos Grief Sounds | The New Yorker
httpswwwnewyorkercommagazine20180827forrest-ganders-grief-sounds 68
Published in the print edition of the August 27 2018 issue with the headline ldquoLost Endsrdquo
Dan Chiasson a contributor to The New Yorker since 2007 teaches English at Wellesley College His latest book ofpoems is ldquoBicentennialrdquo
More Poets Poetry Collections Poems Grief
This Weekrsquos Issue
Never miss a big New Yorker story again Sign up for This Weekrsquos Issue and get an e-mail every week with the stories youhave to read
Enter your e-mail address
Sign up
Will be used in accordance with our Privacy Policy
Read More
BOOKS
Southern Discomfort
C D Wrightrsquos ldquoOne with Othersrdquo
By Dan Chiasson
Your e-mail address
Subscribe
1282020 Forrest Ganderrsquos Grief Sounds | The New Yorker
httpswwwnewyorkercommagazine20180827forrest-ganders-grief-sounds 78
BOOKS
The Great American Poet of Daily Chores
How A R Ammons turned the mundanemdashgarbage boredom his car not startingmdashinto art
By Dan Chiasson
VIDEO
The Dutch Gangster Betrayed by His Sister
Patrick Radden Keefe tells the story of how Astrid Holleeder exposed a notorious Dutch gangster who happened to beher brother
By The New Yorker
Subscribe
1282020 Forrest Ganderrsquos Grief Sounds | The New Yorker
httpswwwnewyorkercommagazine20180827forrest-ganders-grief-sounds 88
copy 2020 Condeacute Nast All rights reserved Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement (updated 1120) and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement (updated 1120) and YourCalifornia Privacy Rights Settings The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Ailiate Partnerships with retailers The materialon this site may not be reproduced distributed transmitted cached or otherwise used except with the prior written permission of Condeacute Nast Ad Choices
News
Books amp Culture
Fiction amp Poetry
Humor amp Cartoons
Magazine
Crossword
Video
Podcasts
Archive
Goings On
Customer Care
Buy Covers and Cartoons
Apps
Newsletters
Jigsaw Puzzle
RSS
Site Map
About
Careers
Contact
FAQ
Media Kit
Press
Accessibility Help
Sections
More
Subscribe
1282020 Forrest Ganderrsquos Grief Sounds | The New Yorker
httpswwwnewyorkercommagazine20180827forrest-ganders-grief-sounds 68
Published in the print edition of the August 27 2018 issue with the headline ldquoLost Endsrdquo
Dan Chiasson a contributor to The New Yorker since 2007 teaches English at Wellesley College His latest book ofpoems is ldquoBicentennialrdquo
More Poets Poetry Collections Poems Grief
This Weekrsquos Issue
Never miss a big New Yorker story again Sign up for This Weekrsquos Issue and get an e-mail every week with the stories youhave to read
Enter your e-mail address
Sign up
Will be used in accordance with our Privacy Policy
Read More
BOOKS
Southern Discomfort
C D Wrightrsquos ldquoOne with Othersrdquo
By Dan Chiasson
Your e-mail address
Subscribe
1282020 Forrest Ganderrsquos Grief Sounds | The New Yorker
httpswwwnewyorkercommagazine20180827forrest-ganders-grief-sounds 78
BOOKS
The Great American Poet of Daily Chores
How A R Ammons turned the mundanemdashgarbage boredom his car not startingmdashinto art
By Dan Chiasson
VIDEO
The Dutch Gangster Betrayed by His Sister
Patrick Radden Keefe tells the story of how Astrid Holleeder exposed a notorious Dutch gangster who happened to beher brother
By The New Yorker
Subscribe
1282020 Forrest Ganderrsquos Grief Sounds | The New Yorker
httpswwwnewyorkercommagazine20180827forrest-ganders-grief-sounds 88
copy 2020 Condeacute Nast All rights reserved Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement (updated 1120) and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement (updated 1120) and YourCalifornia Privacy Rights Settings The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Ailiate Partnerships with retailers The materialon this site may not be reproduced distributed transmitted cached or otherwise used except with the prior written permission of Condeacute Nast Ad Choices
News
Books amp Culture
Fiction amp Poetry
Humor amp Cartoons
Magazine
Crossword
Video
Podcasts
Archive
Goings On
Customer Care
Buy Covers and Cartoons
Apps
Newsletters
Jigsaw Puzzle
RSS
Site Map
About
Careers
Contact
FAQ
Media Kit
Press
Accessibility Help
Sections
More
Subscribe
1282020 Forrest Ganderrsquos Grief Sounds | The New Yorker
httpswwwnewyorkercommagazine20180827forrest-ganders-grief-sounds 78
BOOKS
The Great American Poet of Daily Chores
How A R Ammons turned the mundanemdashgarbage boredom his car not startingmdashinto art
By Dan Chiasson
VIDEO
The Dutch Gangster Betrayed by His Sister
Patrick Radden Keefe tells the story of how Astrid Holleeder exposed a notorious Dutch gangster who happened to beher brother
By The New Yorker
Subscribe
1282020 Forrest Ganderrsquos Grief Sounds | The New Yorker
httpswwwnewyorkercommagazine20180827forrest-ganders-grief-sounds 88
copy 2020 Condeacute Nast All rights reserved Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement (updated 1120) and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement (updated 1120) and YourCalifornia Privacy Rights Settings The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Ailiate Partnerships with retailers The materialon this site may not be reproduced distributed transmitted cached or otherwise used except with the prior written permission of Condeacute Nast Ad Choices
News
Books amp Culture
Fiction amp Poetry
Humor amp Cartoons
Magazine
Crossword
Video
Podcasts
Archive
Goings On
Customer Care
Buy Covers and Cartoons
Apps
Newsletters
Jigsaw Puzzle
RSS
Site Map
About
Careers
Contact
FAQ
Media Kit
Press
Accessibility Help
Sections
More
Subscribe
1282020 Forrest Ganderrsquos Grief Sounds | The New Yorker
httpswwwnewyorkercommagazine20180827forrest-ganders-grief-sounds 88
copy 2020 Condeacute Nast All rights reserved Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement (updated 1120) and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement (updated 1120) and YourCalifornia Privacy Rights Settings The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Ailiate Partnerships with retailers The materialon this site may not be reproduced distributed transmitted cached or otherwise used except with the prior written permission of Condeacute Nast Ad Choices
News
Books amp Culture
Fiction amp Poetry
Humor amp Cartoons
Magazine
Crossword
Video
Podcasts
Archive
Goings On
Customer Care
Buy Covers and Cartoons
Apps
Newsletters
Jigsaw Puzzle
RSS
Site Map
About
Careers
Contact
FAQ
Media Kit
Press
Accessibility Help
Sections
More
Subscribe
