Quinton Duval

Take a moment to scan the above header and the QUOTIDIAN column to the right, and you will see that this blog is inspired by three governing epigrams:

Thornton Wilder's "every, every minute"
Virginia Woolf's "what is commonly thought small"
Quinton Duval's "black bread of day after day."

[Click here for further explication and explanation
of why I chose these passages: "What's the Big Idea?"]

The Quotidian Kit has been up and running for a year now, and I have yet to share with you the entire text of Duval's poem. Time to rectify that omission:

Day After Day

Each of us, alone on the way,
picks up the grip of his life
and goes.

Mama says the stars took us home,
all the porch lights up there
at night around the body of the moon.
Black stars that are invisible
are there too.

The coffee cools down. The car changes
gears in the garage and
the pen sleeps with the paper
on the white tablecloth.

When it is like this, you go
out and cut the roses back.
Clip until the thorns turn into the bush.

The car knows to stay in neutral
a little longer.
The big ideas huddle
in the jar together. You spread them
over the black bread of day after day
and swallow them.

Quinton Duval, November 6, 1948 - May 10, 2010
American poet and teacher

I have loved this poem since my first semester of college at Northeast Missouri State University (aka Truman). I discovered it in a literary magazine The Chariton Review (Volume 1, Number 1, Spring 1975) that I was assigned to read in Creative Writing. Don't ask me how I ended up in that class, the only Freshman, with a roomful of Juniors & Seniors. My guess -- some casual admissions officer put my name on the roster after seeing "Creative Writing" on my high school transcript. But of course this class was much more advanced than that, more like a writers' workshop. It was daunting but I stuck with it. I'm not so sure that I wrote anything substantial, too young really, but I do remember everything we read, many unforgettable stories and poems.

As the above dates indicate, Mr. Duval died only a few weeks ago, though I did not realize this until I googled his name just this morning to see what else of interest I might learn about the author of one of my favorite poems. You may recall that I had a similar experience last spring (2009) when I googled the name of a former professor, Jim Thomas, only to learn of his death the week before. Funny how that happens, just a little tap on your shoulder from the Universe.

There were a number of good poets at Northeast during my time there: Jim Barnes, Andrew Grossbardt, Jim Thomas. Lucky for me, I was able to take classes with each of them.

P.S.
Jim Barnes wrote the following for Andy, who died young:

Autobiography, Chapter 19: For Andrew Grossbardt, In Memoriam

Heading East Out of Rock Springs
for Andrew Grossbardt, long gone

Imbolc

Today is Groundhog Day, my brother's birthday, the 128th birthday of James Joyce, and Candlemas Day -- a good day for taking down the Christmas greens if you haven't done so already. As the old 17thC poem goes:

Down with the rosemary, and so
Down with the bays and mistletoe;
Down with the holly, ivy, all,
Wherewith ye dress'd the Christmas Hall . . .

Down with the rosemary and bays,
Down with the misletoe . . .
Thus times do shift: each thing its turn does hold;
New things succeed, as former things grow old.

from "Ceremony Upon Candlemas Eve"
and "Ceremonies For Candlemas Eve"
both by Robert Herrick
English Poet (1591–1674)
Following Herrick's advice, I removed all the pine roping from the porches yesterday and dismantled the big tree. Sad, but it had to be done. Just like the poem a few weeks ago: "an hour on the stepladder . . .
woman's work . . .
The sunlight brave and January thin"
"Untrimming the Tree"
by John N. Morris (1931 - 1997)
American author and educator
Today is not only Candlemas but also Imbolc, the Cross - Quarter Day that falls half-way between the Winter Solstice and the Vernal Equinox, a time of clear vision into other worlds and festivals of purification.

I recall a day back in college when my professor, Jim Thomas read "Ode to the West Wind" aloud to the class, concluding with his own cynical answer to the hopeful romanticism of the poem's closing question:

"If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?"

"Yes, Shelley, Yes!" he thundered. "It can be a long way behind!"

Well, whatever the Groundhog decides today, we're halfway!