From Now On

New and Selected Poems, 1970-2015

Clarence Major

• Publisher: University of Georgia Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780820347967
• eBook ISBN: 9780820348308
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Poetry
• Index: Literature

Clarence Major is a consummate artist whose work in poetry, fiction, and painting has been widely recognized. He has been part of twenty-eight group exhibitions, has had fifteen one-man shows, and has published fourteen collections of poetry and nine works of fiction. Major's works—and this collection in particular—are distinguished by his poetic sociability and his unblinking but generous and affectionate portraiture.

In From Now On, a retrospective of poems from the 1950s to the present—including selections from each of Major's previous books of poetry as well as a generous selection of new poems—Major creates a vivid gallery of nimbly drawn characters. Here he establishes a voice that is singular and musical, one that draws witty, moving, and empathetic portraits of African American urban and country dwellers. Ultimately, this collection maintains Major's intimate, conversational poetry while simultaneously becoming more eclectic, multicultural, and cosmopolitan. Major's poetry is affable, but it suggests an insistence that we can connect with history and social change through the dynamic lives of the people we encounter daily.

New Poems
(2015)

Plein Air

Ah! The erotica of ambition!

I cross the bridge across the stream

where lilac is blooming alongside it

on the embankment. Not far from the sea,

a seagull overhead circling something,

eyeing something. Almost a dream!

I pass the laurel. I remember its struggle to survive.

My senses are alive, revived

with the promise of the meadow.

Light through fluffy lettuce clouds,

bold and crisp. Name this gleam of light

shining on my gladness. In the meadow

I sit down and take out my sketchbook,

soon defeated by the power of red

and yellow, my pencil

no match for such splendor.

Inside Outside (Again)

To us our outings were famous and infamous too.

The fancy lady with a cigarette holder blew smoke rings

above our heads. They lingered like low-hanging clouds.

The barefoot man in a tux, the helmet boy on a rented scooter,

the man in a top hat and bomber jacket and spats,

and the others, all came along, but hot afternoons were best inside

for the memory of who we were out in daylight

on such trips. Compassion Guy stayed on his corner

asking passersby to define compassion. Maria’s memory

of the confessional booth kept her outside no matter what.

We always go past the campus girls practicing archery.

It’s the shortcut to the countryside.

Once a girl with a suitcase at a bus stop, seeing us,

decided not to run away from home. She joined us.

Crows in flight cawing, looking down at us, turned and followed us

to the meadow. Passing the old farmhouse half fallen in

was my favorite moment. It broke the monotony of long stretches

of astonishing loveliness. Two women held straw baskets

of tomatoes. “Ripe and delicious!” they called. But

hot afternoons are best inside, in our cool rooms.

On the Beach

Something seems to be going on down there.

Girls stop playing volleyball.

Couples stop sunbathing.

A man stops trying to inflate a plastic elephant.

A motley gathering of us starts moving in that direction:

men with big beer bellies,

old women with flabby arms,

pregnant ladies,

teenage boys carrying surfboards.

And this is what we discover:

across the lake a cluster of folk

onshore looking this way at us.

Leisure Dilemma

Are you up to a stroll through the Louvre?

Yves or trees? Ingres? Manet?

Morisot’s purple impasto?

Or we could stop at that little café

we were told is so you.

We can talk Carot over coffee,

then walk along the Seine.

Take the train out to Auvers.

Or, on a dare, stop in on Henri

to see what he’s up to;

or just do what you want to do.

What do you want to do?

Chase butterflies?

Play hide-and-seek?

Okay, okay!

We’ll spend a week in the South by the sea.

Alchemy

My senses on high alert: I see ripples in frozen water, shaded.

Evading my responsibility, I help the priest carry the cross.

I defy my boss. I see the spilling of ink and blood.

This is my untold story without glory, without the Flood.

My senses in high alert: I see veins of leaves without trees.

I hear the slapping of water as swimmers swim. Evaded,

I trim the trees. I hear the scream of a man on a flying trapeze.

I smell the splash of a cook making a washtub full of soup.

My senses in high alert: Birds and bees keep me in the loop.

I see stone blocks pitted with age and moss over rocks.

I am duped! This is my fire burning, my desire burning.

I smell cab horses, no longer restless, standing curbside,

hooked to their carriages. Without lust, I see a girl

at a window holding her cat to her bosom.

I hear the crack of rifles as men shoot ducks from the sky.

I see scraps of skin-thin paper pasted together to no good end.

No one will contact my next of kin. I am careful of what I buy.

I hear the shout of people on rooftops above shops

waving at a procession of returning soldiers.

I see in the sky a looming darkness as welded bronze.

My senses are highly alert: I hear red slabs of earth

grinding together. This is my pain, my joy on a long train ride,

my golden leaf, my relief. I am alert to all.

This is my place in the shade, my trust. My trust in all.

Holiday at the Beach

What could go wrong? This is a place of moral certitude.

A pelican on a post. Gulls circling and searching the bay.

In the distance, drifting sailboats. Children flying kites

all day across a perky sky. People in green and pink swimsuits

on yellow sand. Girl with an attitude perched on a sea rock.

She leaps for a dive but becomes airborne. The bearded lady

under her beach umbrella reading about black holes.

A Yorkie chasing a butterfly. Children filling buckets

with sandy seaweed. The mime hasn’t moved for two hours.

People sipping beer at the beach bar. Listening to the radio band.

Squinting at the lone swimmer far out in the ocean

doing backstrokes. He is moving so far out that even if he turns back

he might not make it. A dressed-up couple appear

on the boardwalk, apparently from afar.

They seem to be waiting for a formal introduction.

Yet, way, way out, in the misty and majestic distance,

beyond the lone swimmer, the ocean is turning black and blacker

against a blue-blue strip of sky. Sound of water like an earthquake.

Waiting for the Storm

Our jalousies slammi...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• A Note on the Early Poems
• Acknowledgments
• From Swallow the Lake (1970)
• From Private Line (1971)
• From Symptoms and Madness (1971)
• From The Cotton Club (1972)
• From The Syncopated Cakewalk (1974)
• From Inside Diameter: The France Poems (1985)
• From Surfaces and Masks (1988)
• From Some Observations of a Stranger at Zuni in the Latter Part of the Century (1989)
• From Parking Lots (1992)
• From Configurations: New and Selected Poems 1958–1998 (1998)
• From Waiting for Sweet Betty (2002)
• From Myself Painting (2008)
• From Down and Up (2013)
• New Poems (2015)