A sharpshooter (in the French army) .
One of the first people I ever talked to via online communication was a woman who called herself Annie Oakley.
I knew the name but was unfamiliar with who Annie Oakley was, and thus our conversation began. "Who WAS Annie Oakley?" I typed to her.
She quickly replied that Oakley was a famous sharpshooter from Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, and from there our conversations traveled to far and varied places.
I never knew her real name, but "Annie" first turned me on to New Orleans music and Zydeco while I encouraged her to read poetry of Carol Muske.
I doubt if Annie remembers me but I think of her when I see my Dr. John CDs, and when I spot my Carol Muske books I like to imagine that the connection endures between her and my poetry recommendation.
The Muske book I was reading at the time was Skylight, and during the course of frequent conversations with Annie I got a copy of the then-current Red Trousseau (published in 1993 and marked down from $18.00 to $2.50 by August of that year -- oof!).
I bought Skylight used, probably at The Strand bookstore. The title page is signed by the previous owner, though the name is hard to make out. R. Haven, maybe? Richie Havens? Hey, why not.
Under Richie Havens' autograph is written "1982," presumably the year he obtained the book.
I have never followed that custom of signing and dating books when I purchase them. My mother did. Almost all the books on her shelves contain some hand-written note recording when and where the book was purchased.
Most of the Chopin piano music scores in my collection came from my mother, who bought the scores in Poland during the 1960s. Her Paderewski edition of the Chopin Concertos is signed "Warsaw, Poland 1966" on the top right corner of the cover.
Having, as a child, seen this custom of signing and dating purchased books I can not explain why I never do this myself.
It may be connected to the piano-playing portion of my life. In that corner of my experience I found it unacceptable to write on scores, to defile their pages with my insipid residue.
I was guided toward this attitude when a teacher told me that Rudolf Serkin, the great pedagogue, forbade his students to write fingerings or other indications onto their scores. "If you want to learn it you will learn it," was the paraphrased wisdom that traveled from Serkin's vaunted studio to mine.
I must have been predisposed toward this hands-off attitude already, for I only had to hear it once before never writing on a score again, not even to make corrections to misprints. Similarly I never write on other published books, including poetry or literature.
My copy of Skylight has a few scribblings on its pages, with some notes in the margins and large brackets calling out passages that the book's previous owner found remarkable. The word "UGH" is bracketed to a few lines from the title poem of the book, while my favorite poems from this volume escape unscathed.
For Annie Oakley one night I typed out the complete poem "Chivalry," one line at a time, into our shared chat window. I like sharing or experiencing poetry that way, with one line at a time ascending up the screen, drifting out of the chat window to who-knows-where. It is similarly spare as when it is on the printed page, but more alive. It beats the heck out of hearing a poet read their own poetry, a celebrity ritual that makes little sense to we who think words live on the page or, as a convenience, the screen.
In Benares
the holiest city on earth
I saw an old man
toiling up the stone steps
to the ghat
his dead wife in his arms
shrunken to the size
of a child-
lashed to a stretcher.
The sky filled with crows.
He held her up for a moment
the placed her
in the flames.
In my time on earth
I have seen few acts of true chivalry
or reverence
of man for woman.
But the memory of him
with her
in the cradle of his arms
placing her just so in the fire
so she would burn faster
so the kindling of the stretcher
would catch-
is enough for me now,
will suffice
for what remains on this earth
a gesture of bereavement
in the familiar carnage of love.
As I read that poem now I remember having it memorized, and I almost re-memorize it again. Annie and I agreed that "carnage of love" from the last line sounded like the title of a heavy metal song, but we liked the poem anyway.
I never told Annie then but I would not lie about it now: I picked up the book in the first place because of the author's photo on the back. She was beautiful. Carol's eyes are haunted and still, but I would not have bought the book only on those grounds. I opened the book right to "Chivalry," then read some other pages, and made the purchase. The book was $1, which at the time was not an amount of money I spent frivolously.
I don't know how much time passed between that purchase and
Red Trousseau, but I looked for her picture on the latter book. She seemed different. Still beautiful, but happier seeming, she is comfortably set under the words "a master poet at the peak of her craft."
Annie and I never met, as became typical of women I chat with for weeks and months on end -- most women I meet online would rather keep me online, playing games inside a little chat window. Annie might be alarmed out to know I remember her at all, but I would hope otherwise.
Carol Muske is now Carol Muske-Dukes, and was recently named the poet laureate of California.
