Speaking of Toynbee

The comment on Toynbee brought to mind Weldon Kees. Given where I live, my lack of sympathy for the beat poets is almost traitorous. I'm sorry - apart from Ginsberg, most of them were just not very good.

But Kees was doing great stuff in SF in the 50s. He was dead by '55 - apparently jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. (I may have mentioned this before, but one reason I keep my distance from poetry is the tendency of my favorites to kill themselves - my favorite poet is Cesare Pavese; after the immaculate Bishop, my favorite American poet is probably Randall Jarrell.)

He was also a painter and art critic for The Nation while he was in New York. A longer bio is here.

I first read Kees in Alan Berg's free verse anthology Naked Poetry. Here is one of his poems, which mentions both Toynbee and someone named Gibbons:


"Aspects of Robinson"

Robinson at cards at the Algonquin: a thin
Blue light comes down once more outside the blinds.
Gray men in overcoats are ghosts blown past the door.
The taxis streak the avenues with yellow, orange, and red.
This is Grand Central, Mr. Robinson.

Robinson on a roof above the Heights; the boats
Mourn like the lost. Water is slate, far down.
Through sounds of ice cubes dropped in glass, an osteopath,
Dressed for the links, describes an old Intourist tour.
—Here’s where old Gibbons jumped from, Robinson,

Robinson walking in the Park, admiring the elephant.
Robinson buying the Tribune, Robinson buying the Times.
Robinson
Saying, “Hello. Yes, this is Robinson. Sunday
At five? I’d love to. Pretty well. And you?”
Robinson alone at Longchamps, staring at the wall.

Robinson afraid, drunk, sobbing Robinson
In bed with a Mrs. Morse. Robinson at home;
Decisions: Toynbee or luminol? Where the sun
Shines, Robinson in flowered trunks, eyes toward
The breakers. Where the night ends, Robinson in East Side bars.

Robinson in Glen plaid jacket, Scotch-grain shoes,
Black four-in-hand and oxford button-down,
The jeweled and silent watch that winds itself, the brief-
Case, covert topcoat, clothes for spring, all covering
His sad and usual heart, dry as a winter leaf.


Rod McKuen, you ask? Still doing fine, played Carnegie Hall in 2003...