Nirvana: The Magic of Shine
I disliked Nirvana and their music when it was first out because of 2 reasons: 1) the trendy people liked it and I avoid trendy people 2) the group wore flannel shirts, something I did before Nirvana while I was learning how a human heart can get broken in the Rockies. Still, there was something about Kurt Cobain, besides my interest as a gay man looking at an intriguing man, and his band mates that never went away. After the tragic suicide, after everyone was satisfied in making a legend, I was free to explore the music—not the man (someone I’d never meet this side of the veil).
With The Lights Out is their box set that contains 71 songs, from established hits to silly demos. Nirvana wasn’t a lazy band. What fascinates me about this collection, in comparison to other box sets by other bands, are the pure rawness, energy and hunger on display. I love “Rape Me” (both acoustic and demo versions), “Milk It,” “Where Did You Sleep Last Night,” –well, all of it. I love the band not mind being wrong or acting young and stoned, that each band member converged towards a sound and wasn’t merely cast as “now you are a rock star.” This collection is an honest portrait in a way that a Greatest Hits could never be.
I’ve been thinking about Nirvana because of the event of me publishing The Buried Sea: New & Selected Poems (University of Arizona Press/
http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/BOOKS/bid1976.htm). I had to choose poems from my previous books which meant some of my personal favorites didn’t always make it to the gathering. Still, I tried to avoid just including my most popular poems, the big poems, and the important poems. I wanted to include smaller works, crazy works. One of my favorite opening lines is from the New Poems section, Ghost Island. The poem’s title suggests my own version of punk in the literary world, “Salsa Capitalism”:
Friends say, write a poem for J-Lo
and it’s career suicide, kamikaze
loco. So—this one is for her, my J-Lo.
We’re both here by sheer will, our unstill
spirits distilled into steppingstones.
Permission from who? And for what?
Even a little success can get you cornered, summarized, and a commodity to hawk in terms of genre and tag. Nirvana’s angst strikes me still as young, but in a powerful way. I envy the energy displayed on all these songs. I’ve been very young, once earning rent money by putting on an ape costume and dancing at a Mormon disco. The humiliation made me stronger; that first night, I hitchhiked home as myself and got into lovely trouble.
With the Lights Out isn’t a stroll down memory lane; it’s a best friend who calls you up out of concern and saying, “don’t forget who you are.” This CD, which I loop often,” does exactly what the song title suggests, “Drain You.” I’m not a groupie of either the living or dead; I’m also determined to never forget that nostalgia is one of my real enemies. I live for today. Today, as Kurt Cobain and company suggest, I’m “Very Ape.” In my poem, “Guardian Spirit,” my drag queen Uncle Rachel tells me:
Write of your cowboy conquests,
gravity’s athletes without souls,
sailors in love with scarecrows.
Those are the postcards I want.
Songs, poems, postcards, emails and all of our other ways of talking to each other keep us in touch with the world outside of ourselves. Nirvana’s personal tragedy doesn’t take away or add to the music; listen to With The Lights Out if you want to see the magic of shine. A large collection of songs or poems can only be a tantalizing gaze at part of the larger picture and why we listen to artists or read them again and again and again.
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