In the early spring of 1966 I worked at the ‘Sow on its Back,’ nickname for Northwestern University’s Deering Library in Evanston, Illinois. I was stationed at a table at the entrance to the stacks admitting those who had a proper pass, sending away those who did not.
One afternoon was particularly memorable. A young man and his girlfriend approached my post. I asked to see his ID. He yanked out his wallet inadvertently dropping a condom on the book of Pablo Neruda poems I had been reading. The girl gasped, blushed, turned away. Too much intimate information revealed to a total stranger. The young man scooped the rubber up, shoved it in his pocket, showed me his student ID and together they disappeared into the maze of stacks and carrels for edification, perhaps from scholarship and books.
I settled back into Neruda when another person appeared before me, a man in his late fifties with a full shock of hair, steady eyes, and a scarf draped loosely at the neck. A delightful English accent flowed from his throat. Although he looked like a distinguished somebody, I didn’t know who. As my job required, I asked to see his identification. He handed me a university ID card:
Stephen Spender
Visiting Lecturer
As it turned out, I knew who he was though I didn’t know him. His reputation preceded the man. Who was he: the English poet and Poet Laureate Consultant to the United States Library of Congress. Internationally known. Friend of art and artists: Henry Moore, David Hockney, Francis Bacon, Frank Auerbach, Lucien Freud. English through and through and yet continental and transatlantic. As a lover of the poetic act I was caught by surprise in a moment hero worship, the great Stephen Spender paused for a moment before me. I thought I should utter a word of admiration but as soon as the urge hit me he was gone. A ‘thank you’ for me permitting him into the treasure trove of books were the last words I heard him speak.
Back in the time warp of the lazy afternoon I thought about the preceding three minutes at my desk, the poet and the condom. Could there be a meaningful correspondence between these two seemingly random and disparate occurrences
Probably not. But then again, maybe.
Poetic action is the practice of seeing connections where connections do not seem to exist. What is the function of a poet and a condom. A poet’s work is making contact, the stripping away the protective layers of sentiment and artifice to lay bare raw emotional and mental experience. A poet uses seed words to impregnate an experience and conceive a significant language event, aka – poem. Poetry creates intensely conscious experience. The more intense the poem, the richer the experience.
A condom does the opposite. It adds a layer of protection to prevent bringing more life into the world. Notice we use the concept of conceiving to describe creating both life and art.
Words can be used as barricades to block our full access to experience.
But they can be better used to open us to the full experience of life.
That’s what poets do.
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Stephen Spender (1909-1995) English poet and visiting professor of literature at Northwestern University. In 1965 Spender was named Poet Laureate Consultant to the Library of Congress. At the 40th anniversary of the Normandy Invasion on D-Day June 6, 1984 President Ronald Reagan quoted from Spender’s poem ‘The Truly Great‘ in his tribute.