I.

I was first introduced to Galway Kinnell in graduate school nearly 30 years ago, and for some time, he was my favorite poet. I recall coming home for spring break and I was asked to say a blessing before dinner. I recited Kinnell's "Prayer":

Whatever happens. Whatever
what is is is what
I want. Only that. But that.

My stepmother's wide-eyed gaze was my answer to that prayer.

II.

I had not read Body Rags for some time; it has been collecting dust along with all of the rest of my Kinnell collection. I found my way back to Body Rags while reading Delia Owens' Where the Crawdads Sing. On page 116, Owens cites snippets of "this one by Galway Kinnell"--a poem that is otherwise untitled.

I did care...
I did say everything I thought
In het mildest words I knew. And now,...
I have to say I am relieved I tis over:
At the end I could feel only pity
For that urge toward more life.
...Goodbye.

I recognized this poem as part of "The Correspondence School Instructor Says Goodbye To His Poetry Students," and I could not recall the volume from which it came. I ultimately found it in Body Rags. (As an aside, this snippet was in a chapter in Crawdads titled "Crossing the Threshold: 1960." That date seemed early to me for this poem; I confirmed that Body Rags was first published in 1965. But I digress.)

So I dusted off the cover and began to read, again. I'd always liked "Instructor" for both its humor and commentary on the poet's work and craftsmanship. Ironically, it is this same poem that clarifies my own apostatizing from Kinnell, the poet laureate, Pulitzer Prize, and National Book Award Winner. From the second stanza:

...And now,
in this poem, or chopped prose, not any better,
I realize, than those troubled lines...

III.

"The Porcupine" has long been one of my favorite Kinnell poems. I repeat its first stanza here:

Fatted
on herbs, swollen on crabapples,
puffed up on bast and phloem, ballooned
on willow flowers, poplar catkins, first
leafs of aspen and larch,
the porcupine
drags and bounces his last meal through ice,
mud, roses and goldenrod, not the stubbly high fields.

The language ("bast", "phloem", "catkins", "larch") is as unique as the title, and flows with mellifluous "l"s ("swollen", "phloem", "ballooned", "willow flowers", "larch") whose playfulness with alliterative bouncy "b"s ("herbs", "crabapples", "bast", "ballooned", "bounces") creates an image of a porcupine waddling along. No doubt it is "poetic" language. But is it poetry? How is this stanza different from Kinnell's own "chopped prose" reassembled below?

Fatted on herbs, swollen on crabapples, puffed up on bast and phloem, ballooned on willow flowers, poplar catkins, first leafs of aspen and larch, the porcupine drags and bounces his last meal through ice, mud, roses and goldenrod, not the stubbly high fields.

IV.

Poetry requires structure and meter. Free verse is art; it can be beautiful language; but it is not poetry. It is, as Kinnell himself allows, "chopped prose". On that basis, Body Rags is a strong collection of chopped prose. ( )