Concern/s: Essays & reviews, 1972-1976

Montag, Tom

Pentagram Press

Ninety notes towards partial images & lovers' prints: A love poem for Mary

<p>It is shelling corn that Montag remembers. And butchering chickens. It is the big, gaping yawn of a Sunday afternoon when time stood still. He remembers breaking his sister's collar bone, killing rats, plowing at night. Montag was raised on an Iowa farm during "the grey Republican 1950's," as he calls them. The Curlew he remembers was long ago and far away, yet Montag makes it immediate. Scene pulse with a poet's vividness. His days serve as an emblem for the lot of middle westerners who do not speak for themselves. Farmers are pretty tight-lipped. All their lives mean something, Montag wants to say. Memory alone is not enough, though, so he journeys to see what remains. Will he recognize anyone? Will the land rise to meet him? What will he find that he has left behind? He goes back as an empty cup waiting to be filled, he goes back expecting the world to speak to him. And it does. Memory and the journey stand side by side. Curlew:Home is a tribute to a place most Americans only fly over, a tribute to people who work the earth and bring crops to harvest, a tribute to Montag's parents and his brothers and sisters, and to all the middle western farm families who endure.</p>

Curlew: Home

Literature & Fiction

Essays & Correspondence

Midday Moon Books

ABOUT BEN ZEN: AN INTERVIEW WITH THE POET Q. Who is this Ben Zen? A. You know as much as I do, I'm afraid. The evidence of the poems is all we have. Q. He is a teacher? A. We are all teachers, Ben would say, and we are all students. Q. Is he a wandering monk? A. He is a wanderer, yes. He is a wonderer, too. He may be a monk. Q. Are you as religious or philosophical as these poems make you sound? A. No. I am not the holy man; Ben is. I am the poet reporting what I hear. Some say poets are radios picking up whatever rides the ether. The gift of these poems was offered; the sin would be refusing them. Q. You are not Buddhist, then? A. No. I should be, I suppose, if I'm going to publish a book with "Zen" in the title. However, I do not know enough to say I am a Buddhist. I am a seeker. I listen, I try to learn. I do think the middle western farmer and the Buddhist monk would find much to talk of; and I think each would understand the other's silences. Q. Why do you call these things poems? A. I don't know what else you'd call them. I am, after all, a poet; you'd expect that what I produce would be called poems, yes? Q. Will there be more of them in the future? A. I don't know. I don't think so. Ben has wandered off to another place, it seems. It's possible he'll come back, but I don't expect it. It is the nature of gift to be given, it cannot be ordered like an appetizer. Q. If you had to identify one of them as closest to what these poems attempt, which might it be? A. It might be: You can't always go To the cave of a thousand Buddhas, Ben says, and you can never Come back the same.

The Big Book of Ben Zen

MWPH Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Montag, Tom. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Montag, Tom