| Karl Shapiro (b. 1913-d. 2000) served as the Poetry Consultant to the Library of Congress from 1946 to 1947. He also happens to be the first of these US Library of Congress Hall of Fame poet laureates that I found on my own, at about the age of 14. I use to prowl the stacks at the Public Library in Hutchinson Kansas. and because I wanted to be a poet, I was reading everything I could find. Perhaps the most memorable poem I then was a poem called "Auto Wreck." To me, Shapiro was the first contemporary poet that I encountered and remains one of the poets I admire today.
Perhaps one of the more interesting event in his history comes from the fact that his earliest work was almost instantly recognized, admired, and achieved indisputable success. While serving in New Guinea during World War II Mr. Shapiro wrote poems and send poems home to his fiancée, who then had them printed. These poems later won a Pulitzer Prize in 1945 as a book entitled V-Letter and Other Poems. Mr. Shapiro was still serving overseas when the Pulitzer Prize was awarded.
Shapiro, born in Baltimore, graduated Johns Hopkins University in 1939.
Mr. Shapiro taught at the University of Nebraska, where he edited the Prairie Schooner from 1956-1966.
Mr. Shapiro died in New York City at the age of 86, on May 14th, 2000. More recent editions of his work have been published including: The Wild Card: Selected Poems Early and Late (1998) and Selected Poems (2003).
What fallows are two examples of Mr. Shapiro's poetry:
Manhole Covers by Karl Shapiro
The beauty of manhole covers--what of that?
Like medals struck by a great savage khan,
Like Mayan calendar stones, unliftable, indecipherable,
Not like the old electrum, chased and scored,
Mottoed and sculptured to a turn,
But notched and whelked and pocked and smashed
With the great company names
(Gentle Bethlehem, smiling United States).
This rustproof artifact of my street,
Long after roads are melted away will lie
Sidewise in the grave of the iron-old world,
Bitten at the edges,
Strong with its cryptic American,
Its dated beauty.
California Winter
It is winter in California, and outside
Is like the interior of a florist shop:
A chilled and moisture-laden crop
Of pink camellias lines the path; and what
Rare roses for a banquet or a bride,
So multitudinous that they seem a glut!
A line of snails crosses the golf-green lawn
From the rosebushes to the ivy bed;
An arsenic compound is distributed
For them. The gardener will rake up the shells
And leave in a corner of the patio
The little mound of empty shells, like skulls.
By noon the fog is burnt off by the sun
And the world's immensest sky opens a page
For the exercise of a future age;
Now jet planes draw straight lines, parabolas,
And x's, which the wind, before they're done,
Erases leisurely or pulls to fuzz.
It is winter in the valley of the vine.
The vineyards crucified on stakes suggest
War cemeteries, but the fruit is pressed,
The redwood vats are brimming in the shed,
And on the sidings stand tank cars of wine,
For which bright juice a billion grapes have bled.
And skiers from the snow line driving home
Descend through almond orchards, olive farms.
Fig tree and palm tree - everything that warms
The imagination of the wintertime.
If the walls were older one would think of Rome:
If the land were stonier one would think of Spain.
But this land grows the oldest living things,
Trees that were young when Pharoahs ruled the world,
Trees whose new leaves are only just unfurled.
Beautiful they are not; they oppress the heart
With gigantism and with immortal wings;
And yet one feels the sumptuousness of this dirt.
It is raining in California, a straight rain
Cleaning the heavy oranges on the bough,
Filling the gardens till the gardens flow,
Shining the olives, tiling the gleaming tile,
Waxing the dark camellia leaves more green,
Flooding the daylong valleys like the Nile. |
