The Writer byRichard Wilbur, 1921 - 2017
My God, It’s Full of Starsby Tracy K. Smith
Disobedience- AA Milne
pi by Wisława Szymborska
The Republic of Poetry by Martin Espada
The opening poem develops both an insight into the writing process as well as a tender father-daughter sentiment many of us as parents have felt, observing our children... knowing they are the ones who need to navigate their boat; What do we wish for them? Wilbur, with his balance of elegant craft and authentic emotion, wishes her "lucky passage" -- as he develops the metaphor of the ship, on a journey. He, the writer, knows the path of a writer, and brings up the story of a trapped starling-- akin to what it is a writer wants to free into writing, put into the world. Watching her, this wish for her "lucky passage" is also a celebration of writing as a process... Wishing this "harder" is not the same of wishing this "even more" -- but has an idiomatic ring along with the sense of "hard" -- which is the nature of finding the road, surviving the voyage... The door that separates the Father from the daughter is akin to the starling trying to to find an open window...
There is so much to admire about this poem-- how he pauses, then the daughter pauses, the parallel
of the seasoned writer with one just starting out... the sounds, and the lovely build-up of rhythms:
4 adjectives in a row... 3 one-syllable ones with the 4th one, with 4 syllables separated by line break:
We watched the sleek, wild, dark
And iridescent creature
The Republic of Poetry by Martin Espada
The opening poem develops both an insight into the writing process as well as a tender father-daughter sentiment many of us as parents have felt, observing our children... knowing they are the ones who need to navigate their boat; What do we wish for them? Wilbur, with his balance of elegant craft and authentic emotion, wishes her "lucky passage" -- as he develops the metaphor of the ship, on a journey. He, the writer, knows the path of a writer, and brings up the story of a trapped starling-- akin to what it is a writer wants to free into writing, put into the world. Watching her, this wish for her "lucky passage" is also a celebration of writing as a process... Wishing this "harder" is not the same of wishing this "even more" -- but has an idiomatic ring along with the sense of "hard" -- which is the nature of finding the road, surviving the voyage... The door that separates the Father from the daughter is akin to the starling trying to to find an open window...
There is so much to admire about this poem-- how he pauses, then the daughter pauses, the parallel
of the seasoned writer with one just starting out... the sounds, and the lovely build-up of rhythms:
4 adjectives in a row... 3 one-syllable ones with the 4th one, with 4 syllables separated by line break:
We watched the sleek, wild, dark
And iridescent creature
-- Interesting that a starling, whose feathers are indeed iridescent, is not native to America... but introduced because of the remarkable plumage, and now, like violets in a garden, is overpopulated.
The next two poems were taken from "Brain Pickings" -- a weekly, generous helping of ideas-- see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Popova
Habits of Light... and some thought of nuns and their black and white uniform... others shared information about the woman astronomer... Henrietta Leavitt, astronomer : how she measured the distance from Earth to stars; discovered 2400 of them, yet was not recognized.
Who are we? What does it matter that we are recognized or not? Her poem is dense and addresses
relationship -- the old school relevance of poet and astronomer who consider vastness, and try to
pin it down. Back to Nemerov and "The Makers": masters of interval relationship and scale.There is a completeness… yet one can't isolate details.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Popova
Habits of Light... and some thought of nuns and their black and white uniform... others shared information about the woman astronomer... Henrietta Leavitt, astronomer : how she measured the distance from Earth to stars; discovered 2400 of them, yet was not recognized.
Who are we? What does it matter that we are recognized or not? Her poem is dense and addresses
relationship -- the old school relevance of poet and astronomer who consider vastness, and try to
pin it down. Back to Nemerov and "The Makers": masters of interval relationship and scale.There is a completeness… yet one can't isolate details.
Here, an obscure astromer not noticed until finally through time her discoveries seem to matter.
A sort of stealth poem about the physics of life. how things are not noticed…
We loved the Tracey K. Smith poem, learning about her father, and discussed the glitches and mistakes of the hubble... the oversights and overconfidence, the hubris of launching it without
testing... the cost of the repair. Smith gives us a portrait of her father... and also a portrait of the times...The last line points to our need to understand what comprehension is all about...
So brutal and alive it seemed to comprehend us back.
The A.A. Milne was a breath of levity... with its underpinnings of menace. Fun to read and hear.
Pi... another brilliant poem by Szymborska-- her imagination is so great -- weaving numbers
with story... as one person put it, like reading a double helix...
The "plot line" becomes clear when you skip the numbers--
finally what is interrupted or connected as these two languages, one of decimal system and the other for calculating spatial geometries... Can they communicate? be translated?
…
We read the Republic of Poetry -- apparently not quite the right version. Jan will bring it next session.
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