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Crossing Brooklyn Ferry … me and Walt …

800px-69stpier5bbtjehSundays, summer ferry rides,
crossing the rough wide Hudson
from Brooklyn to Staten Island,
from one brave shore to another,
stalked by a colony of seagulls,
the boat frothing white waves in
its habitual and deliberate path.

I’d collect the cold green spray in
my warm hands, framing the tidbit
of raw river in the cup of my palms,
a child-self awed by the pleasures,
by whimsy and an affinity, organic
and ecstatic, like spindrift whorling
as if a dervish from boisterous waves

“And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence, are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose.” Walt Whitman (1819-1892), Crossing Brooklyn Ferry

© 2013, poem, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved; Photo credit ~ the 69th Street Pier: before the Verranzano Narrows Bridge was built, a ferry service ran between this Bay Ridge pier and the St. George Ferry Terminal in Staten Island.The photograph was released into the public domain.

In honor of Derek Walcott who died a few days ago, the recommended read for this week is The Poetry of Derek Walcott 1948-2013.  Walcott first poem was published when he was fourteen and this book was published in his 84th year. Never more than now has the world needed the grace, wisdom and universality of his poetry. This is a must add to your poetry book collection.  It doesn’t include the epic Omeros, also recommended, but it does include some of his earlier work that I have not seen included elsewhere.

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RETURNING TO DREAMLAND

This video was created and posted on YouTube by BooUrns28. It’s a tour of Coney Island and includes some of his thoughts and memories delivered in sterling Brooklynese.  If you are viewing this post from an email subscription, you’ll have to link to The Poet by Day to see it.

The lagoon and tower at Dreamland Park, Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York, 1907.
The lagoon and tower at Dreamland Park, Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York, 1907.

One belongs to Coney Island instantly . . . “

I’m playing with writing a poem about the Coney Island of my childhood and youth. I know “the good old days” weren’t what they’re cracked up to be and nostalgia is an unhealthy indulgence. Occasionally, however, it provides momentary relief from the questions and tensions of the present.

The materialistic 50s and rebellious 60s: Lugging bags with bathing suits, the requisite portable radio, beach blanket and towels, hopping on the BMT, enduring summer’s outrageous heat and humidity, and heading for Stillwell Avenue and Coney Island, a place of delicously unhealthy food and all that is weird but engaging.

nathans_coney_island_july_2007

The raucous Coney Island rides were never to my taste, but some of the strange shows, the boardwalk, the people-watching, the beach, riding the waves, the carnival games, Nathan’s Famous hot dogs and french fries, and holding out for Surf Avenue and Shatzkin’s potato knishes . . . . . . these were fascinations. 

The old Coney Island was once so much a part of American iconography and honky-tonk subculture that it’s probably on your radar even if you’ve never been there. It’s the stuff of artists rendering in everything creative: photography, movies, music, fine arts, books, and poems. Link here to a short film, In Memoriam, Coney Island 1952, which was an International Venice Film Festival prizewinner. The narrator is Henry Morgan. This movie catches the flavor of the place as I and my contemporaries knew it with its incredible crowds and all that is odd, funny, vulgar, dubious, kitschy …  and yet, somehow perfectly wonderful.

© 2016, words, Jamie Dedes; photo credits ~ Dreamland Tower, public domain photograph courtesy of the U.S. Library of Congress, Nathan’s Famous photograph courtesy of Willyumdelirious under CC BY 2.0 license.