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 Baron Wormser is the author of
six collections of poetry: The White Words (Houghton Mifflin, 1983), Good Trembling (Houghton Mifflin, 1985),
Atoms, Soul Music, and Other Poems (Paris Review Editions, 1989),
When
(Sarabande Books, 1997). Mulroney
and Others (Sarabande Books, 2000) and Subject Matter (Sarabande Books,
2004) His poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in a wide variety of journals, including The Paris Review, Sewanee Review, The New Republic, Harper’s, and Poetry.
He has also recently published Teaching the Art of Poetry: the Moves
By Baron Wormser and David Cappella. (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
2000) www.erlbaum.com/Books/searchintro/BookDetailscvr.cfm?ISBN=0-8058-3337-4
. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and was appointed Poet Laureate of Maine in 2000. He teaches at the Frost Place in Franconia, New Hampshire, where he
co-directs the Frost Place Conference on Poetry and Teaching and the Frost Place Seminar, and in the Stonecoast MFA program. He lives with his wife in Hallowell, Maine.
e-mail Baron Wormser
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these books.
Baron was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, and has lived since 1971 in Maine, where he has worked as a
high school librarian. He has also taught at the University of Maine at Farmington and at the Robert Frost Place.
TEACHING THE ART OF POETRY: THE MOVES
www.teachpoetry.com
This website is a fantastic source of information about the
authors and their teaching program.
By Baron Wormser and David Cappella
Concise and accessible, this guide to teaching the art of poetry
from Shakespeare to contemporary poets enables anyone to
learn about how poets approach their art. Teachers can use this
book to explore any facet or era of poetry. Any reader can use
it as an entryway into the art of poetry. Teaching the Art of
Poetry shows poetry as a multi-faceted artistic process rather
than a mystery on a pedestal. It demystifies the art of poetry by
providing specific historical, social, and aesthetic contexts for
each element of the art. It is a nuts-and-bolts approach that
encourages teachers and students to work with poetry as a
studio art--something to be explored, challenged, assembled
and reassembled, imagined, and studied--all the things that an
artist does to present poetry as a search for meaning. This
book advocates poetry as an essential tool for aesthetic,
cultural, and linguistic literacy. The aim of Teaching the Art of
Poetry is to produce life-long readers of poetry who are
confident about the motives and purposes of the art of
language. It grows from the authors' belief that poetry is the
best path to literacy. Many teachers are not instructed in the art
of poetry and thus are intimidated by it. Schools in our society
are not producing readers of poetry. This book portrays poetry
as an art rather than a knowledge base, and integrates the art of
poetry into the school curriculum. The authors' intention is not
to fill gaps; it is to change how poetry is presented in the
classroom, to change how it is taught and how students think
about it. This pioneering book should be on the desk of every
English teacher in this country. Teaching the Art of Poetry: *
Emphasizes hands-on experiences. Over 160 exercises focus
attention on the dynamics of the art of poetry. Activities include
group work, peer editing, critical thinking skills, revising drafts,
focused reading, oral communication, listening skills, and
vocabulary, as well as mechanics and usage. * Features a
week-long lesson plan in each chapter to aid the teacher. These
relate the main aspects of each chapter to classroom activities
and, in addition, include a "Beyond the Week" section to
promote further investigation of the topic. * Promotes an
integrated approach to poetry. The examples used in each
chapter show poetry as a living tradition. * Makes extensive
use of complete poems along with extracts from many others. *
Does not talk down to teachers--is teacher oriented and jargon
free.
"In endorsing books in the past, I have
resolutely avoided the word 'invaluable'; but in
the case of Teaching the Art of Poetry such
resistance is impossible, for there exists no
more valuable guide to poetry for the
classroom teacher (nor,
"Unique....The first comprehensive
presentation of how to use poetic practices
and the language of poetry in teaching
students about poetry. This process will not
only help students understand poetry, but also
to enjoy it. The authors' writing has a lyrical
quality that makes it a pleasant read. The
quality and clarity are very appropriate for an
audience of high school English or prospective
English teachers....A wonderful resource."
-- Terrell Young
Washington State University
Subject Matters
Each poem in Baron Wormser's sixth collection, Subject Matter, is fourteen-lines. In the tradition of works such as Robert Lowell's Notebook , Wormser uses this form to concisely pursue a wide range of topics. The sixty-one poems range in tone from fierce to wry, from tender to brisk, from quizzical to evocative, just as the topics range from tattoos to Buddhism, from truck driving to Israel, from global warming to orgasms. What all the poems share is a willingness to pursue uneasy truths, a willingness to encounter how deeply the public realm touches the private realm.
Wormser is known as a narrative/dramatic poet. In Subject Matter he uses that impulse to generate "sonnets" that have great energy as they enact the argued compression for which the sonnet is justly famous. Faced with the welter of subjects the contemporary world offers, Wormser has chosen, at once, to directly engage those subjects and to celebrate the syntactic and rhythmic variations the venerable form offers.
Louis Simpson observed that Wormser has written poetry that "is an answer to those who say that contemporary poetry doesn't speak of important matters or that it is obscure." Subject Matter offers poems that are utterly accessible and deeply intelligent. They can be read again and again as they celebrate the means of poetry, what Wormser calls in his poem, "Anecdotes," "the beneficence of a minor spell."
When
Atoms,
Soul Music and Others
" Baron Wormser is a master craftsman of traditional forms,
yet his work addresses strikingly contemporary subjects. His poems about an Otis Redding-Aretha Franklin concert
or the recollection of a group who outgrew their rural commune possess an easy grace and a surface of deceptive simplicity.
Wormser aims to be a public person, capable of speaking to a wide audience. What sets his work apart from his contemporaries
is its ability to embody conspicuously sane observations on the problems and follies of our time. In the long poem which concludes this volume,
Wormser explores the spiritual and philosophical consequences of seeking salvation in the Atom-the foundation of the physical world
and at the same time an invisible destructive force. The poems many characters-a concerned defense official with a "talent for necessity,"
and Air Force aviator who has begun to doubt his duty, and John Lennon in his role of peace activist-offer no easy answers.
Good
Trembling
The White Words
"What I like about the poems of Baron Wormser is the powerful
independence... Thoreau would have liked work so
indifferent to the pace of usual drummers... always
exuberant, tolerant, subtle, intelligent, knowing that in this
world the human and universe are never far apart." John
Frederick Nims "Wormser's technical skill is remarkable,
but no more remarkable than the range of his sympathies...it is
heartening, and astonishing, to find a first book so
good" Poetry
BARON WORMSER NAMED AS MAINE’S NEW POET LAUREATE
AUGUSTA – Gov. Angus King today announced the selection of Baron Wormser of Hallowell as the
state’s new poet laureate.
Wormser, who for over twenty-five years taught in Madison has published six collections of poems and
been featured by numerous literary journals. He recently published a new work aimed at assisting high school
teachers called, Teaching the Art of Poetry.
“Baron Wormser is tremendously qualified for this position,” King said. “He combines the great
attributes of being nationally recognized for his work, and also has given a great deal to Maine and its students
through his over twenty-five years of teaching in Madison and at the University of Maine at Farmington. I have
no doubt that he will further the great tradition that Kate Barnes has created as poet laureate.”
Alden Wilson, Director of the Maine Arts Commission commented, "We are delighted with the choice of
Mr. Wormser as Maine's second poet laureate. He has accomplished so much on behalf of the state of Maine as
a librarian and educator, often at the sacrifice of other, more lucrative aspirations. Yet, more importantly, we
applaud the selection committee for recognizing him for his outstanding ability as a poet with the highest artistic
quality. The state will be well represented throughout his term."
Building a House in the Woods, Maine, 1971
A good uphill mile and a half from a not very good
dirt road,
That distance on foot meaning a sort of mincing strut
over frost heaves
And washouts across what had been a poor road at best
fifty years previously,
Through tangles of witch hazel, alder and birch saplings
and -- at this time
Of year in the low spots -- sucking gurgling mud:
that expedition
Taking the better part of an hour to a ridge side where
a few gaunt, disheartened
Apple trees and dead elms from the nineteenth century
stood like blank-eyed
Sentinels and where you intended to build a house
that would stare
Without curtains at a prospect of more ridges and then
real mountains that
Receded to the serene distance of pale green eternity.
And why shouldn’t love be made here, meals cooked and
consumed, fires stoked,
Children born who would have the boundless woods to learn from,
who would feel freedom
In their footsteps and taste the calm joy of dawn.
Weren’t all of us
Young and able to split, hammer, haul, plant, saw, push,
carry, lift, and
At the end of the physical day simply and sublimely sit?
We breathed the dank clean air, the thin sharp smells of
pine woods and dead
Leaves and melting snow, and we started to whoop and jig
for the vision of it,
The earth strength that we had lived too long without.
Time of Year
It is a morning
But you must tell the time of year
It is a morning in late March
There is much yearning for spring
The chickadees are whistling, the buds on the lilacs feel hard
But not quite as hard as in January
That is
Probably not true but wanting affects our perceptions
It should affect them
Particularly on a gray chill morning
When snow stands in random
No not random
But according to the exactions of sun and shade
Stands then in clots in the open area
Around the house and the brown grass is weak,
Discouraged, plaintive, wan
When a moose
Patchy clots of fur, that devout,
Deep look of animal indifference,
A cow, not stilts for legs but long legs nevertheless
So that walking seems to be assaying the ground
Step by step
Ambles into the yard
The largest animate presence we have laid eyes on
Since we visited the zoo in Baltimore two summers ago
Gray to deep brown hide mottled with black
Not a uniform color
We stare out the window at the beleaguered beauty
Of ungainliness
She’s an old hairy woman, you say
What I am going to be, you say
The moose moves on toward the fir thickets out back
The snow fleas are lovely too, you say
Later as we tramp down the road in search of pussy willows
They form almost solid black masses
Upon puddles of melted snow
It is all too much, you say and stop in the road
And fling your arms in a gesture of welcome,
Thanksgiving, passion, bereavement,
The evergreen dance of feeling
Buddy Holly
We’re driving to town to buy groceries (rice,
Baking powder, raisins, canola oil), flashlight
Batteries, sunflower seeds so the blue jays can continue
Lording it over the smaller birds that also want to eat,
And we start talking about how the U.S., which started
Out as the bravest promise the human spirit
Had made so far, the light of William Blake’s
And many another’s enraptured eye, became a homage
To vehicular motion: commoners having been freed
From the yokes that princes placed upon them
To transpire the vapors of octane desire.
Invention overrules intention, my wife mutters
While fiddling with the car radio.
I begin to sputter my own homily
When suddenly Buddy Holly starts singing,
His voice twenty-one-years-old and staying there
As long as there are machines to play recordings.
"Ooh, ooh, ooh, Peggy Sue," he warbles
And so, simultaneously, do we, plus some finger popping
And rhythmic squirming within our seat-belted confinement.
He sings for another minute, then he’s gone.
We keep tingling as we savor the pure thrall
Of his foreshortened American joy.
He’s the incalculable voice of poetry.
Our beautifully engineered beast rolls on.
Chuck Berry
Chuck Berry
The white man’s voice on the loudspeaker
Tried hard to be cheery, “Remember, kids,
If you’re out of Chuck, you’re out of luck.”
We grimaced to one another and waited for
The cheesy curtain to reveal our duckwalking hero
Who, in a shimmering lame jacket, smiled a coy
Show-biz smile and proceeded to unroll
His worldly odes to pubescent joy.
Each night he paid the wages of delight.
We kissed once but our passion was the music.
We weren’t in love; we were happy. Over coffee
In a hamburger joint, you allowed that Chuck was
A womanizing jerk but you adored him anyhow.
Years later at a party toward the end of the sixties
Your name came up and the woman I was talking with
Stepped back and said I must not know,
That you’d died after an abortion a year ago.
My stomach seized; I nodded woodenly.
I felt myself hating myself for being able to leave;
What physical witness had I ever borne?
My strutting elations were easy lies.
Chuck’s guitar notes were sure as
A guy’s wink to another guy about what’s going
To happen later in the evening. Anger purges nothing;
It only smears the dirt on the window so the window
Gets dirtier. I remembered your sway, your light blue eyes.
We sang the songs but they were air; they had no bodies.
(In memoriam, A.D.)
Mulroney
Where the hell do these people come from?
Mulroney asked me.
We were crumpling up a Sunday New York Times
That had found its way into the pile of papers
We used as packing filler for glass jars of honey.
We were wadding up the wedding notices—
Young lawyers in love with account executives.
Their fathers were surgeons and vice-presidents;
Their mothers were psychologists and counselors.
We were working as prep cooks at a ski resort
And packing boxes at a place down in the valley
To make a couple extra bucks.
Mulroney didn’t know anything except
Eat, fuck, sleep, ski. A regular physical guy,
He barely knew what Vietnam was
And it was 1975.
He could have lived any time, any place,
And for all ostensible purposes he was.
He’d wake up in the morning in the cabin
We shared and it was cold and he’d curse
And try to coax whatever woman he was sleeping
With to start the fire in the woodstove.
I could hear him cooing in his gravelly
Flattened brogue of a voice.
A few mornings the woman would get up, most
Mornings not. Defeats and victories and
Sunlight licking the frosted windows
And Mulroney full of the dumb sap of time
And scratching his balls.
Where the hell do these people come from?
He asked me.
Mulroney, you dim honky ass, I said.
They are groomed to run the show
And he looked down at the crumpled vivacity
Of the young brides in newsprint
And he broke into an almost lovely smile
And he said in a voice that could have
Passed for thoughtful, How sad.
Travel
The train swayed past cropped fields,
Barking collies, abandoned gas works, cows,
Brown bungalows with little gardens
And potting sheds, kids kicking a soccer ball
Down a deserted street. Behind me two teenage girls
Dressed in identical vests and white blouses talked.
"I hate people who are good," one of them said.
"They want you to be good, too." "I know," the other one said.
"My Aunt Mary is like that. She makes me retch."
I got up and walked down the wobbling aisle toward
The space between cars. Two guys were sharing a pint
In that conspiratorial way guys like to do.
I stretched my short legs and smelt their whiskey.
Night coming over the western hills, the lights of
The villages along ridges. I wanted to walk into
A house and be welcomed like some long-lost uncle.
I wanted to see everyone rise excitedly.
I wanted to smell the cooking, the wash, the closets,
The cats, the peculiar odors of various skins.
The girls were still talking but in lower and tenser voices.
Two more stops and we’d all be getting off.
I was taking the ferry across a sea I’d never crossed.
The windows inside the coach were beaded with the vapor
Of human warmth. I ran my fingers along the jeweled moment
Before it died in the taunting arms of speech.
Listening to a Baseball Game
The smothering heat of a July night
Squats in a second-floor bedroom
And doesn’t move despite the desk fan’s
Peaceful whir and simulate breeze.
A boy lies on the sheets and reads
A Life magazine which holds
The proper shadow of attention
While he listens to the ballgame
Being played in Kansas City.
He sees it happen and imagines it—
The same things really. A car swings
Down Maple Street, a hinge complains.
Moths move toward a decipherable light
But are stopped by screens. The boy’s done
Reading and lies there beside the lamp,
His hands folded beneath his head.
He knows that comfort is rarely pure.
He listens and lets his feelings glide
With each intent description.
He follows a probable dream
As the night sways with outcomes
In houses and rooms and far away.
(for Charles Baxter)
Anecdotes
A moment from a life—a husband holding up
A tee-shirt for cursory inspection;
A child trudging home from a dull school day;
A tree in heavy wind—when placed within
The careful rails of verse acquires the dear,
Facile pout of meaning. It's a feeling
Rather than a faith since faith knows
Its way beforehand, while this telling us
A seeking. We read under the beneficence
Of a minor spell. Even the pain comforts:
Any life does; any avenue counts.
The man recalls a Sunday softball game;
The child stops at a puddle and peers into
Gorgeous nothingness; the tree falls or doesn't.
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