This Sunday night’s poet is Tom Disch, also known as Thomas M. Disch in his separate incarnations as SF author (Camp Concentration, On Wings of Song), writer of horror stories and Gothic romances, author of children’s books (including The Brave Little Toaster), early pioneer of interactive fiction, opera and theater critic, and more. The very opposite of a confessional poet, his poems (and his writing in general) are marked by an urbane sophistication, an elegant dry wit, and a hint of menace behind both—in a way a literary version of John Malkovich, whom he somewhat resembled. Here’s one of my favorite examples, “How to Behave when Dead”:
A notorious tease, he may pretend
not to be aware of you.
Just wait.
He must speak first. Then
You may begin to praise him.
Remember:
sincerity and naturalness
count for more than wit.
His jokes may strike you as
abstruse.
Only laugh if he does.
Gifts?
They say he's mad for art,
but whether in the melting
elegiac mode of, say, this
Vase of Poppies
or, turning the mirror
to his own face, a bronze skull
goring on a snake–
that is a matter of taste.
In any case, the expense
is what he notices.
What to wear.
Some authorities
still insist on black.
But really, in this modern age,
your best is all that is required.
If you’d like to read more
- Poetry Foundation: A biography of and selected poems by Disch.
- Internet Archive:
- Yes, Let’s: New and Selected Poems, by Tom Disch. Disch’s first “selected poems” collection, from 1989.
- About the Size of It, by Tom Disch. This 2006 collection contains selected poems from the latter part of Disch’s career.
- The Castle of Indolence: On Poetry, Poets, and Poetasters, by Thomas M. Disch. Disch was also an acerbic and often insightful critic; this 1995 collection provides a sample of his writing. Worth noting is the final essay, “Reviewing Poetry: A Retrospect,“ in which Disch complains that poetry is held to a lower critical standard than other forms of literature and (by the by) disses Adrienne Rich for her perceived “sense of entitlement” regarding (the lack of) public funding of poets.
- The Castle of Perseverance: Job Opportunities in Contemporary Poetry, by Thomas M. Disch. A follow-up to The Castle of Indolence that (among other things) contains Disch’s 1998 speculations on the future of literature in the age of the Internet.
- Bookshop.org: I regret to say that this site doesn’t appear to offer any of Disch’s books of poetry (although it does have recent editions of his best-known SF novels). You can find used copies of Yes, Let’s and About the Size of It on other online bookstores.
- Other:
- Many of Disch’s late poems can be found on his LiveJournal blog Endzone, which he continued almost up to the day of his death by suicide on July 4, 2008. It can be tough reading though, as the cumulative effects of 9/11, his partner Charles Naylor’s death, chronic health problems, his self-perceived lack of true literary success, and the impending loss of his rent-controlled apartment caused Disch to descend into bitterness, xenophobia, and a deep depression.1
- Disch was greatly interested in the possibilities inherent in interactive fiction and wrote the script for the 1986 text-based adventure game Amnesia. It was originally released by Electronic Arts for the Apple II, Commodore 64, and IBM PC; you can now play it online.
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Sam Miller’s article “Who Killed Thomas Disch?” tells the sad tale.