The “ghoul” (Chicago Review), “phallus-man” (Boston Review), “Laureate of the Louche” (New York Times) “a rampaging steroid-cocktail of a poet,” (Chicago Tribune) are but a few of the epithets given Frederick Seidel, the author of fifteen books of poetry, including Nice Weather, published in September by Farrar, Strauss and Giroux. Seidel’s station in contemporary poetry is a curious one; he is known yet unknown; he avoids readings, seminars, signings, educational institutions and any other outpost of literary convention. But there is nothing elusive about his poetry, which chronicles his love affairs, political views and his penchant for fast vehicles with an audacious flair:
I impersonate myself and here I am,
Prick pointing to the moon, teeth sunk into your calf.
I ought to warn the concrete that my passion dooms the dam.
The poem I’m writing looks up at me and starts to laugh.
(from “Rome”)
The poems in “Nice Weather” retain the same cocksure, pointillistic voice that Seidel has developed over the last half century. His lyrics often rhyme and he continues to capitalize the first letter in each line, but this collection feels loose, both formally and tonally. Part of this owes to the subject matter of the seventy-three year old Seidel, who writes not only of beautiful women and motorcycles, but also about the death of friends, poor health and the convolutedness of race and patriotism in a post 9-11 America. In the poem “The Yellow Cab,” Seidel goes as far as to identify with a Muslim terrorist:
Tree-lined side streets make me lonely.
Many-windowed town houses make me sad.
The nicest possible spring day, like today, only
Ignites my inner suicide-bomber jihad.
“The Yellow Cab” is not the only poem where Seidel takes on the persona of a terrorist:
Now it’s time for the plane I’m on to come down
In pieces of women and men.
The anxiety increases in Yemen when
They pat me down in case I have something under my Muslim gown.
Not only does Seidel seem to sympathize somewhat with the terrorist, the title of the poem above is “Baudelaire,” as if juxtaposing historical and cultural notions of an artist/poet on that of a terrorist: the ultimate outsiders.
Much has been said of Seidel’s treatment of the female sex in his poetry. Take the poem “Hair in a Net,” from his 1993 collection, My Tokyo. The poem begins unforgettably with the line, “Every man’s a rapist until he’s done.” While that sentiment seems to be the gist of the otherwise graceful poem (written in polished tercets), Seidel juxtaposes the “rapist” with images of Jesus Christ and suicide:
Oh, the tiny furs and the red stench of the fox
Of all those white girls taking cold showers
And then lining up to jump
Hair in a net in a hat over perfectly maintained fences.
Everything male is a rapist, certainly God,
Except for Henry James.
The writer provokes, but can’t carry through; Seidel’s lyrics are only offensive to a point, after which he often swerves away into satire (“except for Henry James.”) There is an amazing duplicity in Seidel’s writing—he is a misogynist but an elegant one; he is a nihilist but a romantic one; he is suicide case, but one that makes us laugh. It is a duplicity that stems from his ability to step outside his own persona, this cold distance where he writes from that lends his poems a type of silliness:
The second woman shines my shoes.
The other takes my order, curtseys. Thank you, sir.
Others stand there in the rain so I can mount them when I choose.
It’s how protective I
Can be that keeps them going. Look at her:
She clicks her heels together, bowing slightly. Try
To put yourself in her shoes: boots, garter belt, and veil.
She’s amused
To be a piece of tail.
(from “iPhoto”)
In Nice Weather Seidel proves that he is still the Père Provocateur of American poetry. ~TSJ
I impersonate myself and here I am,
Prick pointing to the moon, teeth sunk into your calf.
I ought to warn the concrete that my passion dooms the dam.
The poem I’m writing looks up at me and starts to laugh.
(from “Rome”)
The poems in “Nice Weather” retain the same cocksure, pointillistic voice that Seidel has developed over the last half century. His lyrics often rhyme and he continues to capitalize the first letter in each line, but this collection feels loose, both formally and tonally. Part of this owes to the subject matter of the seventy-three year old Seidel, who writes not only of beautiful women and motorcycles, but also about the death of friends, poor health and the convolutedness of race and patriotism in a post 9-11 America. In the poem “The Yellow Cab,” Seidel goes as far as to identify with a Muslim terrorist:
Tree-lined side streets make me lonely.
Many-windowed town houses make me sad.
The nicest possible spring day, like today, only
Ignites my inner suicide-bomber jihad.
“The Yellow Cab” is not the only poem where Seidel takes on the persona of a terrorist:
Now it’s time for the plane I’m on to come down
In pieces of women and men.
The anxiety increases in Yemen when
They pat me down in case I have something under my Muslim gown.
Not only does Seidel seem to sympathize somewhat with the terrorist, the title of the poem above is “Baudelaire,” as if juxtaposing historical and cultural notions of an artist/poet on that of a terrorist: the ultimate outsiders.
Much has been said of Seidel’s treatment of the female sex in his poetry. Take the poem “Hair in a Net,” from his 1993 collection, My Tokyo. The poem begins unforgettably with the line, “Every man’s a rapist until he’s done.” While that sentiment seems to be the gist of the otherwise graceful poem (written in polished tercets), Seidel juxtaposes the “rapist” with images of Jesus Christ and suicide:
Oh, the tiny furs and the red stench of the fox
Of all those white girls taking cold showers
And then lining up to jump
Hair in a net in a hat over perfectly maintained fences.
Everything male is a rapist, certainly God,
Except for Henry James.
The writer provokes, but can’t carry through; Seidel’s lyrics are only offensive to a point, after which he often swerves away into satire (“except for Henry James.”) There is an amazing duplicity in Seidel’s writing—he is a misogynist but an elegant one; he is a nihilist but a romantic one; he is suicide case, but one that makes us laugh. It is a duplicity that stems from his ability to step outside his own persona, this cold distance where he writes from that lends his poems a type of silliness:
The second woman shines my shoes.
The other takes my order, curtseys. Thank you, sir.
Others stand there in the rain so I can mount them when I choose.
It’s how protective I
Can be that keeps them going. Look at her:
She clicks her heels together, bowing slightly. Try
To put yourself in her shoes: boots, garter belt, and veil.
She’s amused
To be a piece of tail.
(from “iPhoto”)
In Nice Weather Seidel proves that he is still the Père Provocateur of American poetry. ~TSJ
