How Long by Ron Padgett

How Long Reviews

• 
  Andrea Blythe

  There are many reasons why Ron Padgett is one of my all-time favorite poets, and at the top of the list is his playful witty approach to otherwise serious situations and events. Reading his work, I have the impression of a man in love with life and laughter, despite the occasional downs that come along. Padgett cartwheels through stanzas and parades words through lines, often skipping through a variety of potential meanings and coming to unexpected conclusions. How Long is no exception to this and is a fun, thoughtful look at growing into adulthood.
• 
  Jennifer

  Okay. Some of these poems I liked a lot, but I'm more of a fan of sound strategies and that's not what he's doing. I'm enjoying some of his older poems better. Still in the end, I prefer Frank O'Hara -- the original, not the copy.
• 
  Bookish

  I had a really hard time getting into these poems. I'm not sure what the inhibiting factor was, might need another flip through to figure it out in detail, but I was left with a sort of 'huh' feeling for most of it especially after the initial few.
• 
  M.W.P.M.

  I never thought,
  forty years ago,
  taping my poems into a notebook,
  that one day the tape
  would turn yellow, grow brittle, and fall off
  and that I'de find myself on hands and knees
  groaning as I picked the pieces up
  off the floor
  one by one
  
  Of course no one thinks ahead like that
  If I had
  I would have used archival paste
  or better yet
  not have written those poems at all
  
  But then I wouldn't have had
  the pleasure of reading them again,
  the pleasure of wincing
  and then forgiving myself,
  of catching glimpses of who I was
  and who I thought I was,
  the pleasure - is that the word? - of seeing
  that that kid really did exist.
  

  - Scotch Tape Body, pg. 1

  
  * * *
  
  There are many things to be done today
  and it's a lovely day to do them in
  
  Each thing a joy to do
  and a joy to have done
  
  I can tell because of the calm I feel
  when I think about doing them
  
  I can almost hear them say to me
  Thank you for doing us
  
  And when evening comes
  I'll remove my shoes and place them on the floor
  
  And think how good they look
  sitting? . . . standing? . . . there
  
  Not doing anything
  

  - Inaction of Shoes, pg. 15

  
  * * *
  
  God
  give me the strength
  to raise this hatchet
  over my head
  and strike
  with all my force
  the cubic foot of air
  that I imagine
  to be in front of me
  one foot off the floor
  and to strike it so
  as so cleave it right in half
  and watch the two halves fall
  to the left and to the right
  still one foot
  above the floor
  
  But God did not
  answer my prayer
  and I remain here
  with the hatchet
  
  The cube
  is not here
  It went away
  and took God
  with it
  and he doesn't have
  a hatchet
  
  What a funny life he leads!
  

  - The Hatchet Man, pg. 29-30

  
  * * *
  

  The apples are red again in Chandler's Valley
  

  - Kenneth Patchen

  
  I figured that Chandler's Valley was a real place
  but I didn't need to know where,
  it was just some place with apple trees,
  in America, of course,
  but when it went on
  "redder for what happened there"
  a chill went up my spine
  well maybe not a chill
  but a heartbeat pause:
  who dunnit?
  because blood must be involved
  to make those apples redder.
  Then ducks and a rock
  that didn't get redder . . .
  You don't know what I'm talking about
  unless you know this poem by Kenneth Patchen.
  When I looked at it again no too far back
  it didn't have the power
  it had when I first read it
  at seventeen
  or heard him read it, rather,
  on a record, but it's enough
  that once it did have power,
  and I am redder for what happened there.
  

  - The Apples in Chandler's Valley, pg. 46

  
  * * *
  
  When Jesus found himself
  nailed to the cross,
  crushed with despair,
  crying out
  "Why hast thou forsaken me?"
  he enacted the story
  of every person who suddenly realizes
  not that he or she has been forsaken
  but that there never was
  a forsaker,
  for the idea of immortality
  that is the birthright of every human being
  gradually vanishes
  until it is gone
  and we cry out.
  

  - The Joke, pg. 59

  
  * * *
  
  Could I have the strength
  to life my stone fingers to wave at you,
  cloud,
  in the dark of night
  when I know you are there
  above my roof
  as I lie in bed
  looking at the ceiling?
  Could I have the strength
  of character to salute you
  whom we think of
  almost as a person,
  though it's a wasted gesture,
  a whimsy that serves no purpose
  but its own?
  Why yes, I could,
  if I wanted, but a man
  with fingers made of stone
  can't want to do that
  or anything else,
  for the only desire he has
  is the one sent to him
  on invisible waves
  that shake his insides
  so hard he wants to laugh.
  

  - Statue Man, pg. 64

  
  * * *
  
  The waitress
  at lunch today
  could have been
  in a 1940s movie,
  an innocent,
  sheerful, and open
  young woman - ah,
  girl! - with a smile
  that brings back
  a time
  that probably
  never existed.
  Did people
  really say Drat?
  Or just characters
  in films
  and comic strips
  who now
  are as real
  as real people.
  

  - Drat, pg. 75

  
  * * *
  
  I saw my name in boldface type
  lying on the ground among the orange and yellow leaves
  I had placed there to simulate autumn,
  but someone else had placed my name there
  and set fire to its edges.
  That effect was lovely.
  This was not, but the way,
  a dream. It was also not
  something that really happened.
  I made it up, so I could
  set my name on fire
  for a moment.
  

  - Flame Name, pg. 80
• 
  Liaken

  There are some really great poems in here. There are also quite a few that felt to me like a long ramble to the point that rather than drawing me through and carrying me forward— well, they just didn't work, for me.
• 
  Cheryl

  liked a piece from him in
  Short
• 
  A.M.

  Ron Padgett's How Long is a reflective, introspective and often humorous collection of poetry from the perspective of an elderly man. Some of the poems are memories of events past and others musings on the meaning of life, the universe and everything.
  
  What I like about Padgett's poems is that I can relate to them - they are approachable, and he is conversational in his style when addressing a deeper idea, like in "Thinking About a Cloud":
  
  There's not a lot of time to think
  when one is assailed by activities and obligations
  and even less time to do it
  when one is free of them
  because then one spends one's time thinking
  about how little time there is.
  
  That's what it's like to be in America
  early in the twenty-first century:
  there are fewer spaces left
  between things, and it is in these spaces
  that thought comes forth
  and walks around and lies down
  sometimes all at the same time
  it is so elastic and like an altocumulus cloud
  with a sense of humor ...
  
  The poem continues with a humorous dialogue between the cloud and the poet, and here is a small excerpt:
  
  Hello, cloud. It's nice to see you again.
  It says, "A cloud does not reply, it is a reply."
  "But you just answered me."
  "No, that was you answering yourself."
  "But you enabled me to do so, didn't you?"
  "Yes, but only because you believed it possible."
  "Are you implying that anything I believe possible will happen?"
  "No, I never imply anything. In fact, I never say anything."
  
  And who hasn't thought of their own mortality, morbid as the idea is and reflected with an underlying sense of amusement in Padgett's "The Death Deal":
  
  Ever since that moment
  when it first occurred
  to me that I would die
  (like everyone on earth!)
  I struggled against
  this eventuality, but
  never thought of
  how I'd die, exactly,
  until around thirty
  I made a mental list:
  hit by car, shot
  in head by random ricochet,
  crushed beneath boulder,
  victim of gas explosion,
  head banged hard
  in fall from ladder,
  vaporized in plane crash,
  dwindling away with cancer,
  and so on. I tried to think
  of which I'd take
  if given the choice,
  and came up time
  and again with He died
  in his sleep.
  Now that I'm officially old,
  though deep inside not
  old officially or otherwise,
  I'm oddly almost cheered
  by the thought
  that I might find out
  in the not too distant future.
  Now for lunch.
  
  There are also just some beautiful lines, this this tiny excerpt from the collections title - and longest - poem, "How Long":
  
  "The water lilies float on the surface of the water
  unaware that they are being depicted
  by brushstrokes ..."
  
  There are so many good poems in here that I will return to again and again - simply because I enjoy reading them! I look forward to exploring his other collections, as well.
  
• 
  Louis Cabri

  "I remember the mill, a piece of currency that was used for a few years near the end of World War II and just after. A thick paper (and later a lightweight metal) coin with a round hole in the center, the mill was worth one-tenth of a cent. It was fun to press it hard enough between thumb and forefinger to create temporary bumps on those fingers. On price tags, it was written as if it were an exponent; for example, ten cents and four mills was written 10[superscript]4. I don't know if mills were used anywhere other than in my hometown, and since they went out of use I have heard references to them only once or twice. They have faded away, even more forgotten than the black pennies of the same period. But if you mention the mill to people old enough to remember them, their faces will take on a rising glow of recognition that turns into a deeper pleasure in your company." From "I Remember Lost Things," How Long p. 44
• 
  Larry

  Another AWP find -- new Padgett!
• 
  Laura

  Walking with Whitman.
• 
  Jake Cooper

  Padgett was on a list of Billy Collins' favorite poets, so I was banking on some transitive property of liking poets. Oh well.