Frost Medal An Occasion For Warmth

The Poetry Society of America conferred the Frost Medal on Marie Ponsot at its 95th annual awards ceremony Thursday at the New School.Ms. Ponsot is a native New Yorker whose works include “Springing,” “The Bird Catcher,” “The Green Dark,” and “Admit Impediment,” all published by Alfred A. Knopf. She has worked as an archivist in Paris and a translator and adapter of children’s works. For more than 30 years, she taught at Queens College, and she currently teaches in the graduate writing program at Columbia University.In introducing the poet, Barnard College professor of English Mary Gordon said the work of Ms. Ponsot is marked by attention to both the world’s gravity and its grace. “For me,” Ms. Gordon said, “Marie Ponsot’s poetry is a species of wisdom literature in that it is about the essential things, not about itself. Although the language is incandescent, it is the companion of, and in the service of, the truth: It is not alone on its own solipsistic march. The nature of this truth proffered us by Marie Ponsot is its insistence that the truth is never simple, and never the only one.”Ms. Gordon described Ms. Ponsot’s wisdom as “a wisdom that does not suggest raging against the dying of the light, like the urgent young Dylan Thomas or the betrayed old man Yeats, or Picasso furious at the fate of the dying animal. Like Matisse, as she ages she grows lighter, simpler, her wisdom more striking, more profound.”Ms. Ponsot said poetry is the “the primitive dialect of our human race. That’s what make the difference in words at work in poems.” Exploring this different use of language, Ms. Ponsot said, “We begin making poems as babbling infants,” offering examples of babies’ first utterances, a subject known to her personally, as the mother of seven children. Passion and action are rooted in the universal tuneful human voice of babble, she said.The evening’s other awardees included Lyn Hejinian, G.C. Waldrep, Lee Upton, Karen An-Hwei Lee, Wayne Miller, Mary Jo Bang, Paul Hendricks, Julie Sheehan, and Anne Winters.At the reception the director of the 92nd Street Y’s Unterberg Poetry Center, David Yezzi, concurred with Ms. Gordon’s description of Ms. Ponsot’s poetry as a branch of wisdom-writing: “Marie Ponsot is not only one of the most breathtaking musicians in language today, but her poetry reflects a deep wisdom as a writer and human being.” Her editor, Deborah Garrison, called “inspiring” Ms. Ponsot’s “exemplary life out of which her poetry comes.”Seen were Molly Peacock, who participated last month in an event at Poets House for “Open Field: An Anthology of Contemporary Canadian Poets” (Persea), edited by Sina Queyras; David Lehman; Fiona McCrae, director of Graywolf Press; Dennis Nurkse, whose book “Burnt Island” (Alfred A. Knopf) was feted at an event at Poets House earlier this season; poet and publisher of the Sheep Meadow Press, Stanley Moss; New School writing program director Robert Polito, who last month moderated a panel on “International Noir” for the PEN Voices festival; and poet Dorothy Friedman August.As usual at the Poetry Society of America award celebration, cake and libations were served by young poets, among whom was Amy Kelly. Ms. Ponsot wore a pin that read “Still Against War.” Later, asked about the pin, she said that the word “still” makes it a poem. During the reception, graphic designer Eric Mueller presented Ms. Ponsot with what at first appeared to be an unusual item for her to autograph: a bottle of Sauternes. The term makes an appearance in her poem called “Pourriture Noble.”***OLD MR. MITCHELLShaffer City Oyster Bar was the appositely selected site for celebrating the work New Yorker writer Joseph Mitchell’s did before he supposedly “clammed up.” A crowd came Thursday to celebrate the publication of Mitchell’s book “Old Mr. Flood” (MacAdam/Cage).Close friends and family present included Mitchell’s companion Sheila McGrath; Mitchell’s nephew, Jack Mitchell from North Carolina; daughters Nora Mitchell Sanborn, aprobation officer and art gallery owner from Keyport, N.J.; and Elizabeth Mitchell of Atlanta, who said, “As good as he was as a writer, he was a better father.”Harold Lathrop – whose first cousin, Therese, married Mitchell – said he and Mitchell shared an interest in botany and would discuss Southern plants, magnolias, Native American trees, and pokeweed. Ashley Frazier recalled accompanying Mitchell to the farmer’s market in Union Square and noted how long he would stay there talking to everyone. She said few knew of Mitchell’s love for the Conservatory Garden in Central Park.Virginia Dajani, who served with Mitchell on a committee that helped writers who had fallen on hard times, recalled Mitchell’s expression, “It’s always darkest before it gets pitch black.” Nearby were author James T. Maher; Mary McCarthy biographer Fran Kiernan, who is writing about Brooke Astor; and Gotham Book Mart proprietor Andreas Brown.Following Eli Wallach’s reading from “Old Mr. Flood,” Charles McGrath said it was the most Mitchellian of the author’s oeuvre, combining his great love of the fish market with an abiding affection for oddballs. “The American writer Mitchell most reminds me of is Mark Twain,” said Mr. McGrath, speaking after Mr. Wallach read.But Mr. McGrath went on to describe another American master. He described having recently been in Camden, N.J., visiting the house of Walt Whitman. “These two guys would have gotten along,” he said. Both loved the waterfront; Whitman used to board the ferry and travel back and forth from Camden to Philadelphia.Speaking next, Adam Gopnik too stressed that Joseph Mitchell was a keen listener. He recalled once asking Mitchell what Liebling, Thurber, and that generation at the New Yorker had in common: “None of them could spell, really,” Mitchell replied, adding that their work entailed a “wild exactitude.”Mr. Gopnik said Mitchell’s prose, almost bare compared to the baroque writing of colleague Joseph Liebling, called to mind great Russians like Turgenev, Gogol, and Chekhov. Combining mystery and simplicity, Mitchell’s seemingly simple recitation of fact was able to suggest the world beyond.

Frost Medal An Occasion For Warmth

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