Call Steps

by Irby, Kenneth

• ISBN13: 9780882680903
• ISBN10: 0882680900
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-01-01
• Publisher: Barrytown/Station Hill Press, Inc.

Summary

Call Steps brings together three collections of a celebrated American poet, representing the years during which Irby wrote what critics consider his most powerful visionary work.

Author Biography

Born in the Midwest in 1936, Kenneth Irby beginning writing at early age, recalling that he wrote his first poem when is was 13 after discovering a translation of Rilke’s Duino Elegies in Kansas City. In 1958 Irby attended Harvard University, from where he received his A.M. degree. While at Harvard, he heard poets such as Kenneth Rexroth, Allen Ginsberg and Charles Olson read at a local bookstore, and he began to read Olson’s poetry. Later, while serving in the Army in Albuquerque he met Edward Dorn and, through him, Robert Creeley, poets who would be influential to his own writing. His first publication was a broadside, The Oregon Trail, in 1964, followed by The Roadrunner Poem the same year. The following year Duende Press in New Mexico issues his Movements/Sequences, with an afterword by Creeley. His many other books include Relation: Poems 1965-1966 (1971), To Max Douglas (1974), Catalpa (1977), Orexis (1981), A Set (1983), and Call Steps, Plains, Camps, Stations, Consistories (1992). More recent tiles include Antiphonal and Fall to Fall (1994) and Ridge to Ridge: Poems 1990-2000 (2002). Irby also received an M.L.S. degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and was awarded a Fulbright travel grant as a visiting professor at the University of Copenhagen. He teaches at the University of Kansas. The author of many books of poetry, his most recent and comprehensive is The Intent On: Collected Poems 1962-2006 (Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 2009). Kenneth Irby died in 2015.

Table of Contents

Orexis (1977)
Heredom
lobe of opalescent glass (12 Feb)	p. 19
parsley (14 Feb)	p. 20
in the life of the laundry (15 Feb)	p. 21
[for Mary Josephine Buffington Newman] (21-26 Feb)	p. 22
even so the wavering fires (19 Mar)	p. 23
children of excitement (24 Mar)	p. 24
early summer in SE Kansas (8 Apr)	p. 25
from The Camp the cries (25 Apr)	p. 26
across the street (2 May)	p. 27
Running Lights
race of readiness before o'ertaken (8 Aug)	p. 33
hard to believe just some (14 Aug)	p. 34
and on that road (25 Aug)	p. 35
sometimes it's lying there (1 Sep)	p. 36
Frog Ben Webster (11 Sep)	p. 37
three streams in the Northern Kingdom (13 Sep)	p. 38
's (14 Sep)	p. 39
blood in the clouds means (14 Sep)	p. 40
morning (26 Sep)	p. 41
[[it never even entered my mind]] (9 Oct)	p. 42
[variation on L'homme arme] (30 Nov)	p. 43
[towards an homage to John Dunstable] (22 Nov-6 Dec)	p. 44
Erratics
[overheard] (11 Mar)	p. 49
[Heredom] (3 May)	p. 50
[[[the Heron of Oblivion]]] (3-4 Aug)	p. 51
I met the Angel Sus (24 Aug)	p. 52
slowly the old stone (26 Aug)	p. 53
[homage to Andrei Bely] (2 Nov)	p. 54
[two postcard views] (9 Dec)	p. 55
[given: three beavers in a tree] (Winter Solstice)	p. 56
Cicada Woods (1978)
The Winterground
[rocks] (29 Dec-2 Feb)	p. 65
[for Jack Howell - 1] (2 Jan)	p. 68
[for Jack Howell - 2] (4 Jan)	p. 69
hear my slow brother me (12-17 Jan)	p. 70
the distance of love (3 Feb)	p. 71
[homage to Kasimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer] (6 Feb)	p. 72
[a Valentine for Tom Meyer's birthday] (14 Feb)	p. 73
late in the winter (1 Mar)	p. 74
how useless insistence want (13 Mar)	p. 75
then pointed to the opposite hills (8 Mar-29 Apr)	p. 76
Etudes
attractions, steady (2 Jan)	p. 81
even that there (8 Jan)	p. 81
time cold or (18 Jan)	p. 82
documents enter Winter read (18 Jan)	p. 82
the candle lit to (2 Feb)	p. 83
made out of distance (7-8 Feb)	p. 83
silver vessels in the bed (28 Feb)	p. 84
steps of the camp (10 Mar)	p. 84
love left than a (26 Mar)	p. 85
call snown draw (22 Apr-5 May)	p. 85
back into the darkening foilage (21 May)	p. 86
cross to her (21 May)	p. 86
smaller than almonds (21 May)	p. 87
headed for the swimming pool (21 May)	p. 87
brood(s) the woods (23 May)	p. 88
angelical (25 May)	p. 88
make a heart out of (2 Jun)	p. 89
reach to the pell (2 Jun)	p. 89
but orexis (3 Jun)	p. 90
no one cares (5 Jun)	p. 90
gone to a quiet (6 Jun)	p. 91
[homage to Sotatsu's Bugaku] (13 Jun)	p. 91
or a man carries a pot (18 Jun)	p. 92
and so'd see into the undersun (23-24 Jun)	p. 92
sadness a wonder (1 Jul)	p. 93
dinosaur browse (15 Jul)	p. 93
one black currant seed (15 Aug)	p. 94
trees pass (27 Aug-2 Sep)	p. 94
study is the gate of justice (2 Sep)	p. 95
between what is seen (heard) (6 Sep)	p. 95
dark urchin sun (20 Sep)	p. 96
cottonwood lingerers (8 Nov)	p. 96
[requiem etudes for Louis Zukofsky] (Mar-Sep)	p. 97
Strings
[homage to Carolan] (3-4 Sep)	p. 105
[Charles Filiger's Breton Cowherd] (7 Sep-7 Nov)	p. 107
[embarras de] (8 Sep)	p. 108
[homage to Johannes Bobrowski] (12 Sep)	p. 109
dark warm day (13 Sep)	p. 110
what can trust take (17 Sep)	p. 111
restless, the rain returns (20 Sep)	p. 112
look close at who lies next to you (20-21 Sep)	p. 113
[equinox variations] (4-24 Sep)	p. 114
[homage to the Dodonaean Rilke] (4 Oct)	p. 115
fog dreams, drop dreams (11 Oct)	p. 116
might be an egg (21 Oct)	p. 117
whether at fault (24 Oct)	p. 118
well who the hell can I have here (22 Nov)	p. 119
[Winter saeta] (6 Dec)	p. 120
no animal system lately (11 Dec)	p. 121
[- and to Artemis] (24 Dec)	p. 122
Bowls (1979)
a silence in the Central Tree (2 Jan)	p. 129
I saw the Mouse King last night (4 Jan)	p. 130
[for Jonathan Williams' 50th birthday] (8 Jan)	p. 131
our makers beside us (22 Jan)	p. 132
last night I was weeping (28 Jan)	p. 133
tears, for a lodge of sorrow (10 Feb)	p. 134
something about (13 Feb)	p. 135
[two requiem etudes] (14-22 Feb)	p. 136
the Chamber of Reflection (1 Mar)	p. 137
pogo sticks a Poulenc (9 Mar)	p. 138
to accumulate rites (14 Mar)	p. 139
[reading Blok] (2 May)	p. 140
[Lilacs K. Kat] (3 May)	p. 141
blackhead-freckled Howdy Doody (4 Jun)	p. 142
[soar heart overheard] (27 Jun)	p. 143
Skodnick asks about (6 Jul)	p. 144
[SLC, Howard Johnson's] (4 Sep)	p. 145
[Reunion] (5 Nov)	p. 146
[pastorale] (12 Nov)	p. 147
[for Ken Grenier] (5 Dec)	p. 148
[homage to Nicolas Poussin] (9 Dec)	p. 149
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