Redneck Press with Fried Chicken and Coffee

It's clear James Dickey mythol­o­gized and often out­right lied about the cir­cum­stances of his life now, and what's been lost along with his crit­i­cal rep­u­ta­tion is the work, the work, my god the work. Six years of for­mal edu­ca­tion and I was never assigned a Dickey poem, which is a tragedy. A great poet (no reser­va­tions), Dickey as nov­el­ist, at least as regards Deliv­er­ance, unfor­tu­nately suf­fers from  the same excess as Dickey the racon­teur: mythic  poten­tial, slim rela­tion to truth or real­ity. But that's partly miss­ing the point, too. Peo­ple who dis­count the novel or con­flate it with the really over-the-top film (squeal like a pig boy, yes yes) are miss­ing out on one of the most inter­est­ing and mem­o­rable books of the last forty or so years. See what Dwight Gar­ner has to say in the NY Times today on the 40^th anniver­sary of Deliv­er­ance.

On the page and off, James Dickey (1923−1997) was a max­i­mal­ist. His roomy, loqua­cious poems spill down the page in a water­fall style and in a voice he called “coun­try sur­re­al­ism.” It makes sense that he called some of these poems “walls of words,” sim­i­lar to the record pro­ducer Phil Spec­tor’s echo­ing “wall of sound.” Dickey’s music, rougher and weirder than Mr. Spector’s, was sim­i­larly packed with reverb.

It’s odd, then, that Dickey is prob­a­bly best remem­bered for a spare novel, one from which he stripped most of the poetry, pulling out the finer phras­ings like weeds. That novel was his first, “Deliv­er­ance” (1970), a book that turns a youth­ful 40 this year. It’s a novel that I was happy to dis­cover upon reread­ing it by a deep lake this sum­mer — Dickey’s stuff is always best read beside a vaguely sin­is­ter body of water — has lost lit­tle of its sleek­ness or power. The book’s anniver­sary shouldn’t slip by unno­ticed. More.

You can find Dickey poems all over the inter­nets, includ­ing those much-anthologized and little-read pieces Cher­ry­log Road and The Sheep Child, but take some time and search some other poems out, like maybe Falling, or this one, with the fire in its last lines nearly embar­rass­ing in its sen­ti­ment, nearly being the key word.

Adul­tery

We have all been in rooms
We can­not die in, and they are odd places, and sad.
Often Indi­ans are stand­ing eagle-armed on hills

In the sun­rise open wide to the Great Spirit
Or glid­ing in canoes or cat­tle are brows­ing on the walls
Far away gaz­ing down with the eyes of our children

Not far away or there are men dri­ving
The last rail­spike, which has turned
Gold in their hands. Gigan­tic fore­plea­sure lives

Among such scenes, and we are alone with it
At last. There is always some weep­ing
Between us and some­one is always checking

A wrist watch by the bed to see how much
Longer we have left. Noth­ing can come
Of this noth­ing can come

Of us: of me with my grim tech­niques
Or you who have sealed your womb
With a ring of con­vul­sive rubber:

Although we come together,
Noth­ing will come of us. But we would not give
It up, for death is beaten

By pray­ing Indi­ans by dis­tant cows his­tor­i­cal
Ham­mers by haz­ardous meet­ings that bridge
A con­ti­nent. One could never die here

Never die never die
While cry­ing. My lover, my dear one
I will see you next week

When I'm in town. I will call you
If I can. Please get hold of Please don't
Oh God, Please don't any more I can't bear… Listen:

We have done it again we are
Still liv­ing. Sit up and smile,
God bless you. Guilt is magical.

How about that??