{"id":13522,"date":"2015-07-30T14:09:07","date_gmt":"2015-07-30T18:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=13522"},"modified":"2015-07-30T14:09:07","modified_gmt":"2015-07-30T18:09:07","slug":"kenneth-irby-november-18-1936-july-30-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/kenneth-irby-november-18-1936-july-30-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenneth Irby (November 18, 1936 – July 30, 2015)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Irby<\/a>

Irby at home in Lawrence, KS, trying to point me toward a CD we wanted to listen to \u2014 November 2011.<\/p><\/div>\n

Profound sadness at the passing of an old friend, a major poet \u2014 whose work is way underappreciated in this, his country \u2014, a great lover of literature, landscape and music. Below\u00a0a poem from the sixties\u00a0\u2014 p. 133 in his indispensable The Intent On (Collected Poems 1962-2006)<\/a><\/em>, North Atlantic Books 2009 \u2014\u00a0one of the poems I came across early on in\u00a0his book Relation<\/em>,\u00a0and that introduced me to a part of this land I knew nothing about, and which I learned \u2014 via\u00a0Robert Duncan \u2014 to call Irbyland<\/strong>. For more on his work, check out the Irby homage on Jacket2, here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Three Geographical Variations<\/strong><\/p>\n

for Ed Dorn<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

North out of Lawrence we turned
\neast before we had to a back
\ntrack to Valley Falls and Ozawkie back
\nroads north into Hiawatha
\nOld trips of the past will not save us
\nNoon meals in or out of a calendar
\npicture quiet and readdress the east
\nturn into White Cloud and Iowa Point
\nto reach toward the river and where
\nthe river’s urge in us eased us a little
\nThat is the flow the urge toward
\neach other links hand in hand as
\nword in word driving drinking beer all Sunday afternoon
\nI have come west and at the far ocean remember
\nIt does not matter loose specifics of whose
\nthe linkage matters the flow
\nthe closeness possible the intimations of divinity
\nas intimations of the dreamed spread land
\nspread before the eyes of those White Clouds diddled sooners
\neven the willful wily promoters
\nlooking west at the land’s run
\nout from under them<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

I will not let blood and I do not know
\nif there is any turning back upon the land
\nto traverse, how much
\ntraversing now will reopen
\nwhat spaces seem nowhere
\nease us together\u2014it is not different to go past
\nthe endless misuse of landscape
\nhere in Berkeley or there in New Mexico, what space
\nis open beyond is open across the whole world
\nLooks past whatever salvations of individuals
\nrealizing salvation is only to pass
\ninto the space all people live in<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

There is no need to substitute any world for this one
\nin order to come into any wonder or more
\nenter the open imagination. Good and evil
\nseem kindness and indifference\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>at each footstep
\nAt the other edge of each tree\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>another pasture
\nthe shade fallen on each face into the sun
\nInto each lit house dark street we walk home
\nThe stories where we are all changed
\nbeyond the wardrobes back wall\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>pass through
\nThe eye is blue wonder brown opener the horizon
\nshines through upon the toss and fling the ring glints
\nhead up in the air\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>grass goes by\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>like starlings
\niridescent in the sky<\/p>\n

\u201416 Apr 1966<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Profound sadness at the passing of an old friend, a major poet \u2014 whose work is way underappreciated in this, his country \u2014, a great lover of literature, landscape and music. Below\u00a0a poem from...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76,830,91],"tags":[458],"class_list":["post-13522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-obituaries","category-poet","category-poetry","tag-kenneth-irby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13522"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13528,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13522\/revisions\/13528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}