NM Poetry: Larry Goodell

We here at Things in Light love poetry. And New Mexico's literary landscape is steeped in the stuff. In celebration of National Poetry Month, TiL will present poetry by members of the exciting and diverse contemporary New Mexico poetry community. The fourth TiL NM Poetry entry provides a three-poem introduction to the work of poet, playwright, and performer of "gringo-loco poetics" Larry Goodell. Active in the New Mexico poetry community for 55 years, Goodell is the founder of Duende Press and the Duende Poetry Series in Placitas.

Xipe Totec

It comes in the form of a prayer but not a prayer to,
a prayer from, those Aztec gods so far south again
are offering up prayers for all the victims of their sacrifices
or is that wishful thinking and the imagination rises
to fill in the empty spaces, and oxygen fills the lungs
and going out through the voice box words are formed
so the real and the unreal are married at last
and you have to have flowers, lots of flowers,
when Aztecs are around
thank you coyotl, thank you tomatl, thank you peyotl
thank you tecolote, thank you Nahuatl -- Quetzalcoatl
Huitzilopochtli, Chalchiuhtlicue, Tlaloc and Coatlicue
and Xipe Totec, what do you have to say as you
parade around in the skin of the sacrificed, are you sorry?
"What? I'm long dead are you sorry why don't you
open up your heart for once?"

Love For Love

as my love for love explodes, and sentimentality dies
“he is drowning in the word” Frank O'Hara says
and I am coming alive in the edges of the word
as I make my way through, like swimming for dear life
through letters which say the most common statement of all
adding an I and a you, proving I’m not alone on this earth
as I breathe water and cough up air and a feeling like no other
begins to save me from myself, it is not all lost but gained
found again, resurgence, an in-love feeling in love of again
that word beaten up worn out abused resurrects itself
and throws itself full frame through my body again
and lifts me like the youngest of lovers into the paradise of hope
as the years bang and trash away and the youth spirit of the present
has been there all the time and I didn’t know it till now.

Easter Sunday 2012

someday I’ll be dead in the circle of love
but will they be singing as I sink into oblivion
or feeding like vultures
on the literary remains.

———

Active as a poet in Albuquerque area from 1957 on, Larry Goodell was born in Roswell, New Mexico, learned from University of Southern California in Los Angeles, studied with Robert Creeley in New Mexico, went to the Vancouver Poetry Conference of 1963 to study with Charles Olson, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Duncan, Philip Whalen and Mr Creeley, went to the Berkeley Poetry Conference in 1965, and married photographer/artist Lenore Goodell in 1968.

Goodell founded Duende Press in 1964 and published one poet per issue followed by poetry and art magazines Fervent Valley and Oriental Blue Streak. At the Thunderbird Bar in Placitas, he staged his poetry and fabricated his first event poems. In 1972, he toured the country doing poetry performances with Stephen Rodefer. He organized readings for Downtown Saturday Night, the Rio Grande Writers Association, the Central Torta Series, Albuquerque United Artists, and for many years the Living Batch Bookstore and, more recently, at Silva's Saloon in Bernalillo and the notable Duende Poetry Series in Placitas.