A major unveiling of the life and work of an astounding poet

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	• The Force of Desire: A Life of William Bronk Lyman Gilmore Talisman House, Publishers, 2006 - 388 pages average customer review:based on 2 reviews view larger image
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Concerning WIlliam Bronk

William Bronk, poet and man, has long been known to other poets, and to a small circle of people whose care and delight have been poetry. He is slowly becomming known to wider circles, and it is well past time.

Thanks are due to Ed Foster, of Talisman House Publishers for issuing this fine biography. Ed Foster has performed many great, loving services for Bronk and his poetry.

For a long time Bronk's poetry was mostly, if not only, available in gorgeous letter-press printed limited editions, thanks to James Weil. These editions were labours of love and care, and are wonderful to see, to touch, and to read. When, in 1981, _Life Supports: New and Collected Poems_ came out in a widely available edition from the great and perspicacious editor Jack Shoemaker, from North Point Press, then independent, Bronk's work became known to a somewhat wider range of readers than had been the case earlier. (This collection also had its gorgeous Weil- inspired letterpress edition of 50 press numbered copies and a few *hors commerce* and author's reserved copies.) Since that North Point release (now reissued by Ed Foster's Talisman House), Bronk has published several other collections. But Bronk the man has remained elusive to all but a small circle. Lyman Gilmore has done a great service to poetry, and to current and potential admirers of Bronk and his work. His biography of Bronk reads well, is fascinating, and canny.

Bronk also wrote essays of uncommon poise, great interest, and elegant balance. The inspiration of such elegant baroque prose stylists as Sir Thomas Browne is evident. North Point Press issued an available edition of these entitled _Vectors and Smoothable Curves_, now reissued by Talisman House.

A note concerning availability: Kudos to Amazon.com for listing this book from the outset. I tried obtaining this book from my more usual sources, without any success whatever, to my considerable dismay. Amazon filled my order with uncommon speed, holding the book in their stocks, and I feel that any bookseller who makes such important items available, and especially when other 'important' booksellers cannot or will not service orders for these items, that bookseller is to be encouraged and rewarded with future custom.

New Directions have issued a nice anthology of some of Bronk's poems as selected by another loving advocate of Bronk's work: Henry Weinfield (New Directions Press, NDP 816, 1995).

Another reader's review of Gilmore's biography seems to make it out that Bronk's work is a homosexual oeuvre. This is extremely not apt and will mislead many, alas. Bronk's work defies such facile, and potentially narrow-- given its broader import and concerns--categorisations. Although a poetics of a homosexual poet, it transcends such categories and is, rather, more nearly universal.

A taste of William Bronk's poetry:
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I thought that you were an anchor in the drift of the world;
but no: there isn't an anchor anywhere.
There isn't an anchor in the drift of the world. Oh no.
I thought you were. Oh no. The drift of the world.

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Is it not wonderful how the poem bobs on the drift of the world, as on the ocean, on its perfect construction?

I recall reading Bronk decades ago at my cabin on the shore of Lake Superior during a time of very considerable anguish in my life.
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Be what you will; I mean to be less than I was.
Or less, at least, than what I thought to be.
It wasn't likely; yours was another mind
never complaisant with me, nor seeing what I
saw. The end we reach isn't the end of much.

Say I go back to being my own man,
the man I go back to is much less man.
I declare the loss. Let the credit from it accrue
to the common fund. As it will. I acquiesce.
What will you do? What shall you make of yours?
----------------------
These many decades later, I still vividly feel my immediate and visceral response to this incredible poem: a burst of bitter tears prior to any intellection. This is a great poetics.
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And one more:
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GO AHEAD; GOODBYE; GOOD LUCK; AND WATCH OUT

You get to Gilead, let me know. That balm,
supposed to be so good for human hurts
--all wounds, holes, hollows, hungriness--
you tell me if it's there, and how it works.

Till the time comes, I'll look for further ways
with the old lack, the void, push it along
ahead of me in the only way we have
to carry this luggage of ours of hungriness
like an empty bag. What else is there to do?
No kind of balm. You look, though. Let me know.

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A major unveiling of the life and work of an astounding poet

"The Force of Desire: A Life of William Bronk" is an intentional, calmly paced retracing of the stunning development of the creative mind of a great philosophical poet, William Bronk (1918-1999). Professor Gilmore quotes from many of the poet's letters and poems, and also includes historic photos of Bronk, as well as his family and friends. The inescapable greatness and painful clarity of Bronk's work and thoughts are uncovered and displayed for the reader's appreciation. Bronk was openly homosexual in his lifestyle and beloved of many, though his experiences of love are described as sorrowful. The following is an enlightening description of Bronk's poetics by Professor Gilmore: "At the very heart of Bronk's poetics is the requirement of 'a consonant harmony' with the listener, that given this mutual harmony, his poems are thus intimate gestures like kisses and caresses. If the listener does not reciprocate in sharing in the harmony, the poems are dead gestures, as passionate as kissing a frying pan, telephone bill, or the third stair from the bottom (page 240)." This and many other studied deductions are deftly presented within the context of Bronk's writings throughout the book. The detail serves to heighten the impact of the fragments and complete poetic works frequently quoted. A poem that demonstrates Bronk'sironic attitude towards religious belief is quoted on page 294:

The Word

The Lord speaks to some and I don't ask
for certification nor do I envy them.
I question their hearing and go on, unspoken-to,
doing whatever the ignorant find to do.

Though Bronk's poetry may be considered to be an acquired taste, being obscure, brilliant, compact, even brutal in its impact, here is a portrait that enhances the fire, tenderness, and delicate intimacy of his work. "The Force of Desire: A Life of William Bronk" is a major unveiling of the life and work of an astounding poet.

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Lyman Gilmore?s long-awaited biography of one of the most celebrated poets of our time. Based on the poet?s extensive correspondence and on interviews with members of the poet?s family, his business associates, friends, and fellow poets, Gilmore's book is a major achievement. Tracking Bronk?s childhood in rural upper New York State, his years at Dartmouth and Harvard, and his later years in the village of Hudson Falls, Gilmore discusses Bronk?s development as a poet and his conflicts and friendships with poets, editors, and publishers. ?William Bronk spoke of the act of creation as that by which ?we ascend, from the infinite pit of our perceptions, to the finite life of words.? Lyman Gilmore?s biography follows a similar flight path, precisely and movingly rendering Bronk?s life, illuminating the transmigration of incident, relationship and intellectual development into one of our major bodies of poetry.? ?Michael Heller

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