29 March 2020. Stan and Anne's.
I'd drive by, every now and then--it seemed by accident, and then suddenly you remember--Stan and Anne's. Their apartment in the building on Berryman Street, downstairs, behind the fence. Generic. We'd see them there for the parties--crowded, talkative affairs--a room full of writers. Floyd Salas holding forth in one corner--Floyd, the boxer--and where I first encountered George Oppen, his craggy granite presence. Anne's novel was still in the drawer--the first vampire book, and her bedroom walls were covered every inch with pictures of formula racing cars...
Here Stan is holding Mouse, their daughter. An uncharacteristic pose for a Texan--the tenderness--but that was part of him, too. Along with a narrow-eyed brio. Mouse became ill, a long struggle--we all went through this with them. Experimental treatments, finally to no avail. One night in a bar near Pleasant Valley and Piedmont (not far from the clinic). Diamond shaped panes of glass...a door with an arched top...
Stan wrote us a letter at the end of his own time--I need to find it. Longhand, on a blue-lined legal pad, the sheets torn out when he'd finished. A testimony and a good-bye, so much like him. But what I remember most was one intense poem--the image involved a goose. He was reading a lot of Suzanne Langer in those days, and her basic, straight-forward intensity very much encouraged his own. We were at Cody's, upstairs, the rows of bookshelves pushed aside to make a space--how Stan planted himself, the narrow way he could lean forward on a line, the emphasis in his voice. And especially, the last two lines,
What frightened me was not the goose,
but the gooseness.
_____
We lost Stan in 2002. He was always an independent figure--erudite but country, articulate but resolved--as if fate would bring on those Texas plains wind storms no matter what. He never seemed to be a part of any group--especially in the poetry world, how many writers identify. A school of one, and he lived his life that way. Anne offering a parallel with her ever-expanding imagination. After one of those parties, at 3am, I remember a can of beer, on the edge of the side table, next to the couch, dripping onto the floor... They offered us the couch at one point, not long after--it's been in the living room here ever since...
_____
We lost Stan in 2002. He was always an independent figure--erudite but country, articulate but resolved--as if fate would bring on those Texas plains wind storms no matter what. He never seemed to be a part of any group--especially in the poetry world, how many writers identify. A school of one, and he lived his life that way. Anne offering a parallel with her ever-expanding imagination. After one of those parties, at 3am, I remember a can of beer, on the edge of the side table, next to the couch, dripping onto the floor... They offered us the couch at one point, not long after--it's been in the living room here ever since...
