Tell The Beads Of The Chromosomes Like A Rosary: The Poems Of George Oppen (1908-1984) , Read Them If You Have The Courage, If You Dare … Poem by Dennis Ryan

Tuesday morning, May 7,2024 at 8: 20 a.m. and 9: 30 a.m.

'Tell the beads of the chromosomes like a rosary,
Love in the genes, if it fails …'
—George Oppen, 'Route', from Of Being Numerous (1968)

I come back to my comments of yesterday,
to see if I have been too harsh, too critical of you,
your poems—the two are inextricable—but no.
I have been spot on. Your poems are precious
and sentimental—ho hum, ho hum—have the smell
of a 19th Century drawing room. Enter at your own peril.
You write—my Irish friend—as if William Butler Yeats had
never been born nor written a poem or play, The Player
Queen, for example, and there's the rub—it appears that
you've never rubbed shoulders with any Modern poets.
Dare. Dare yourself, your ego to read what's unfamiliar,
let it rub off on you, expand, than dare yourself to write
poems in which there is something at stake, at risk—
your own life perhaps—and dare to voice, to write what
most frightens you—you may well have composed a poem
that's memorable, created a trace in readers' minds. They
are what matter—your readers, the trace, their recall. (It
proves sustenance for hard times, experience hard-earned.)
Dare to read George Oppen, my suggestion gone unheeded
until now. Poems like 'Route', 'Philai Te Kou Philai', 'Psalm'
will change you, your life, the way you think and feel—such
is the power of Oppen's rhetoric, his thought. (Populations adrift, moving from place to place, sitting on city doorsteps:
you enter into the beds of the defeated.) . Allow your heart,
your imagination, your empathy, not your ego to take over. Change. Make changes. Change? I have changed so
much, in so many ways these last twenty-five (25) years
because my family, friends and I have been under constant
police surveillance, police threat, had hate crimes committed against our persons, been violently assaulted by the police
and their surrogates, only then for the police, yellow cowards
that they are, to slink away, disappear back into darkness—
they are fearful, afraid, and, in the end, will do me in, make
my death look like an accident, or slip something lethal into
my drink, my coffee perhaps—they will surely find a way
to avoid being held accountable for their crimes, to avoid
public shaming. But back to you, my Irish poet friend—
you won't, no you won't read George Oppen, for you
approve only of your own self-approving ways, your lone
ego, approve only a friendly locale you've gotten used to
where people praise you, you and your sentimental marvels.
Prove me wrong, go ahead, prove me wrong—I can take it.