Post Impressions (VI) by E.E. Cummings
Dislocations— Seven Scenarios by Adrienne Rich
The Solitary Reaper by William Wordsworth
Pinned in Place by Thomas Reiter
The first poem is an ekphrastic poem responding to a Stuart Davis painting, Report From Rockport. We have at the MAG another lively work of his— eye-popping color, a sense of humor as he plays with what seems to be familiar, but painted in as improbable unless having
a surrealist dream.
Landscape with Garage Lights by Stuart Davis (1894 – 1964)
Gretchen Schultz provides us with eye poetry. Her adjectives are lively, sensual and unusual. Like the art.
The Cummings poem also had a playful tone… but addressing the “strenuous briefness” of life before the final “solongs and ashes” — where the word “dashes” is unmistakable…enthusiastic statement about the varied nature life. or challenge conventions? and how ? His use of colors also a painting. like entering an impressionist painting.
Is he mocking convention? weddings and the “I do” world…? How about the many different meanings of the title? Post Impressions (VI) — A fence, telephone post, after the fact impressions (is he writing this after he has died?), part of the post-impressionist movement?
The wit is rich and the reward is the constant revelation of surprises… but not without some work.
interpolated dichotomies. Cheerful + darkness. painting strenuous briefness of life; speaking back to life after he’s dead. truly Post. even though anti-semitic , married 3 times including Scofield Thayer’s wife (a complicated and complicit arrangement of his good friend, and editor of the Dial Magazine w/ James Sibley Watson. which is why Cummings, E. E. may my heart always be open to little (p. 2-3)is on Poets’ Walk.)
Adrienne Rich: Dislocations in 7 scenarios
Philosophy in Aden by Paul Nizan
SOURCE: Nizan, Paul. Aden, Arabie; translated from the French by Joan Pinkham (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), pp. 126-131. (French original published 1960, English translation published 1968).
“A thought wants something. It desires a concrete end
So life is reduced to the shallowness of the past and the dust of a future made up of habits and systems, the madness that combines the elements of poverty and excludes melons in bottles, seasons in hell, and free women. A chess match in which the living lose to the dead.
The demands of man are simple
An allusion to a popular French anecdote that tells how Columbus used an egg to confound envious critics who said it had taken no great wit to discover the new world. It had been a simple matter, they declared, the only trick was to think of looking for it in the first place. Columbus is supposed to have replied by taking an egg and asking which of the company could make it stand on end. When everyone objected that the feat was impossible, Columbus crushed one end of the egg just enough to flatten it and stood it on the table, rebuking his enemies with the words, “That too was simple—one had only to think of it.”
Rich ends up there in the 7thscenario… Simple…
Many ideas of this seem to be in Adrienne Rich’s poem,
Dislocations: Seven Scenarios
I. What is this word, “Home”: What it is like to be an immigrant, homeless…
II. a sense of “law of the jungle”. tiny mandibles of rumoropen and close
III. city as “infection” like an alcoholic drinking what it can… then wanting stronger stuff //sucks at the marrow of selves
IV. the shrinking lines… For recalcitrancy of attitude/ the surgeon is transferred
to the V.A. hospital
to the V.A. hospital
V. look at the scars
reality’s autographs
reality’s autographs
VI. you can turn a blind eye… but can you afford it?
VII. and home no simple matter
of hearth or harbor
bleeding from internal wounds
of hearth or harbor
bleeding from internal wounds
From a poem rife with details of the world and it’s messy undersides of injustice, crooked solipsists and corrupt governments… a lovely lyric moment with Wordsworth:
Solitary : a favorite word. Alone is not bad… the reaper sings… and the idea of a song, produced by working that speaks of universal sorrow, welcome, although the details are not known… He only hears the voice, but does know the subject…
voice reminds him of what it is like to be human.
Invitation to do that… empathy for another person’s sorrow…
snapshot of an experience? or just showing how he brings attention to his day.
Making up a story from diary from Thomas Wilkinson.
Delight of “Pinned in Place” — days of yore… playing games..
“Could anyone make it through those days
untouched?
untouched?
Haunting last lines.
running with bed sheets in their arms,
running like firemen rescuing children.
All night those sheets lay draped
over furniture, as though we were leaving
and would not return for a long time.
running like firemen rescuing children.
All night those sheets lay draped
over furniture, as though we were leaving
and would not return for a long time.
Kathy brought in a beautiful book, Lost Words: a spell book From bestselling Landmarks author Robert Macfarlane and acclaimed artist and author Jackie Morris, a beautiful collection of poems and illustrations to help readers rediscover the magic of the natural world. To find a word, like bluebell… first you find the letters, in blue, that spell it.. then turn the page to see an illustration
of a field of bluebells… To think that 23 words were taken out of a dictionary because they weren’t pertinent in reflecting the way language is used…
Bramble, acorn, kingfisher, otter, raven, willow, wren… not necessary????
A fun picture from the Washington Post
speaking of Laundry…(for the last poem, “Pinned in Place”
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