'A Line or Two Worth Keeping All Too Rare'

The superb American poet X.J. Kennedy died this morning at age ninety-six. Dana Gioia writes in an email:

“I don’t have to tell any of you how much Joe did for American poetry as a writer, editor, and mentor. I always thought of him as the godfather of New Formalism. He played a positive role for so many of us individually, and he was a constant supporter of us collectively at West Chester and the short-lived Teaching Poetry conference in Sonoma County. He also reached millions of students with his many textbooks and anthologies.”

 

I remember as a teenager reading Kennedy’s first collection, Nude Descending a Staircase (1961), and marveling that so funny a poet could be so deadly serious. How many contemporary writers can you name who have supplied pleasure and strength to endure for more than sixty years? Take “On Being Accused of Wit” from Dark Horses (1992):

 

“Not so. I’m witless. Often in despair

At long-worked botches I must throw away,

A line or two worth keeping all too rare.

Blind chance not wit entices words to stay

And recognizing luck is artifice

That comes unlearned. The rest is taking pride

In daily labor. This and only this.

On keyboards sweat alone makes fingers glide.

 

“Witless, that juggler rich in discipline

Who brought the Christchild all he had for gift,

Flat on his back with beatific grin

Keeping six slow-revolving balls aloft;

Witless, La Tour, that painter none too bright,

His draftsman’s compass waiting in the wings,

Measuring how a lantern stages light

Until a dark room overflows with rings.”

 

Kennedy’s gift was always versatile. Gravity and wit, he proves, are compatible, as they were in Herbert and Donne. I reviewed Kennedy’s last collection, That Swing: Poems, 2008–2016, for the Los Angeles Review of Books.