Happy Birthday to Me

My wife, in her infinite generosity, offered this year to take me to a Rams game for my birthday. I enjoy following the Rams, though I wouldn't say I'm a fan: part of the fun, for me, is reading the hysterics in the paper on Monday morning following a game, or reading up on who among the Rams' front office left threatening voicemail messages for whom. (Which reminds me: the other night I stopped by the local Borders to do a bit of schoolwork, and saw a man who I suspect is a Rams exec. He was wearing a dark blue sweater vest with a Rams logo on the breast and a gold tie, and was fat in the way that only the really rich or the really poor can be fat. I mean, he could be measured topographically. And I'm pretty sure poverty wasn't the issue: he was reading yachting magazines.)

Further evidence of my wife's generosity: not only did she buy me the tickets, she went to the game, as well. Granted, she brought a book about Marie Antoinette along, and, granted, her interest in the game peaked with a round of "spot the fatties" in the first quarter, and, granted, she dozed a little in the fourth--but still.

I had chosen this game carefully: in the fall, as I perused the schedule, this game stood out as a possible gem: the Eagles were coming to town. The Rams might well be out of it by then, but the Eagles were sure to be in contention for the playoffs. It was a chance to see Donovan McNabb (a Syracuse product), Terrell Owens, and the vaunted Eagles defense face off against the never-dull Rams offense. It was a can't-miss.

The starting quarterbacks on Sunday were Mike McMahon (dumped by the Lions) and rookie Harvard grad Ryan Fitzpatrick (who, in the fourth quarter, would be pulled in favor of journeyman Jamie Martin, who throws as though some of the bones in his arm have been surgically removed). Owens, of course, was long gone, as was Brian Westbook, the last vestige of the Eagles' offense. What remained on the field that day made the flatfoots on the Rams' defense look almost good. Neither quarterback threw for 100 yards, and the winning touchdown pass was thrown by McMahon to Mike Bartram, the Eagles' long snapper. It was that sort of game.

But I had a blast. A few rows in front of us sat a man in an Isaac Bruce jersey, wearing an Isaac Bruce hat. With every positive Rams play (there were a few), he stood and crowed and did a little dance. A nearby Eagles fan seemed unaware that the man was mocking him mercilessly, pointing and waving his Isaac Bruce hat.

From the stands, I could see the speed and precision of the game--its raw power and formidable complexity, the skill with which its choreography is executed. Football is beautiful because it speaks to our caveman and our artist. Its violence is primal, but its composition is strikingly sophisticated. Only live can this duality be fully appreciated.

The Lichtenberg Figures

This weekend I began reading Ben Lerner's The Lichtenberg Figures, winner of the 2004 Hayden Carruth Prize from Copper Canyon Press. I received the book in return for entering the contest, and it has sat on my shelf, between Denise Levertov and Li-Young Lee, since.

The book is a set of untitled sonnets. I made it through perhaps four before giving up. I'm not sure if I am pronouncing a sincere aesthetic bias here, or merely my ignorance, but I found the poems impenetrable, and, at their penetrable points, dislikable. The first poem begins this way: "The dark collects our empties, empties our ashtrays." I can see the iambic pentameter, the figures of speech (personification, polyptoton), and the juxtaposition of big, poetical language ("dark") with frat-house vernacular ("empties"). The poem continues: "Did you mean 'this could go on forever' in a good way? / Up in the fragrant rafters, moths seek out a finer dust. / Please feel free to cue or cut // the lights." Why are the rafters fragrant? What is the "finer dust" finer than?

These questions can be chalked up to the mystery of subjectivity, to the pleasures of ambiguity (is the "you" in the second line the same person who is invited to "cue or cut // the lights"?). But the last line seals the poem's fate: "The chicken is a little dry and/or you've ruined my life." Here the poem gestures toward the direct emotional utterance (reminiscent of James Wright: "I have wasted my life"), but flattens the feeling with the self-consciously banal declaration before it, along with the ultimate capitalist conjunction, "and/or." The poem is so mired in its sense of irony and its boring deconstructionist anxieties about language that it can't get to the point. Or it doesn't have a point.

Here's an equally irritating passage, from the end of the fourth poem: "O slender spadix projecting from a narrow spathe, // you are thinner than spaghetti but not as thin as vermicelli. / You are the first and last indigenous Nintendo." Here we have the language of botany (held precariously in the poem; note that Lerner studied at Brown with science-poet Forrest Gander) fused to the language of pasta, capped with a lame observation about a bit of the language of commerce. What do we get when these various elements come together? Nothing, that's what.

Or so it seems to me. As I said earlier (and despite my salty tone), I feel as though I must be missing something. I have friends whom I respect who I know would like this book, and I have long admired the work of Copper Canyon. (Former editor Sam Hammill was the judge for the HC Prize in 2004.) Am I limited in my way of reading? Am I a dope? Is Lerner offering something more subtle and sophisticated than I am willing or able to discern? Discuss.

Cheers.