HAROLD BRODKEY
521
being an embattled and newsworthy poet- mostly in peripheral
publications however- except as those methods presented it: the
techniques of the art he admired tugged and shaped his face but ob–
scured him, the person . The methods of presentation of the poet's
face became Johnno's face. The movement of his thought in the
backyard part of consciousness, the dimmer area, in which sacred–
ness erupts, grew limited and then was hidden from view. His mind
was pressed forward toward the world- in the manner of
the retort.
Tonight, though, he is approximately in the chronological cen–
ter of his most fecund period.
He is already citified- he is semi-famous- he is bony and tree–
less. The animal peculiarity of intelligence in him is a nervous com–
mandingness and courage-the courage is as it was in school: to
speak, to be bullied for it, to persist and
dare.
Much of his style was taken from his reading and from-well,
it was stolen- but thefts of things devised by others are relationships
to others, so that his manner was a scrapbook of affections . That
part of his intelligence once devoted to the sacred is an evolving self–
conscious devotion to art now. Around him spreads the horizontal
biography of his work, his managing to live and work as he does, his
publicizing himself and others (painters, never writers) combined
with his particular aspirations, sexual and social- to be notable at
the party-to impress me.
J
ohnno moves on the floor of the loft to the table which is the
bar, above the mocking skuhh and squeak of his sneakers on the
poorly finished wooden floor . The hard-willed and densely armored
and pained
elegance
his eyes have- their pursuit of sustenance sug–
gest the natural state ofthe predator. Then the defenseless squeak of
his sneakers suggests he is an ecological niche himself, alone.
I hear the words, "Macaw, Madam,"- but it is Johnno's pro–
nunciation of
macadam
in the noise of the party and the flutter of his
lips- the faintly interpolated extra syllable, a pressure of the lips ,
helps in reading his poetry sometimes.
His preternatural posture causes his sweater to hang so
neatly
from his shoulders- it doesn't touch him until the ribbed waist
circles the top of his pants- that it makes an extraordinary physical
eloquence for that period- him and that linearity .
The schooleyness of that- the secular version of a sacerdotal
alb quality- is parochial school papal; he consciously felt his youth as
a formal moment- subject to being pillaged, violated, sinned
against- because he was
beautiful and good:
therefore, to be de-
