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Wednesday, December 16, 2020

Poems for December 16

1. A Poem by Naomi Long Madgett

2. The Dipper   by Kathleen Jamie

3. Mercy Beach  by Kamilah Aisha Moon 

4. Red Brocade by Naomi Shihab Nye 

5. Translation  by Susanna Brougham

6. For Tom Shaw S.S.J.E(1945-2014) by Mary Oliver

7. Their Lonely Betters by W.H. Auden 

8. To be of use by Marge Piercy

9.  Flowers  by Mary Hood


Nutshell:

It was fun to see how the poems connected to each other... The first, with the idea that we need to learn to let things speak and be for themselves, uses the verb "coax", first line, repeated in the second poem in the final stanza.  How is it that we think we need to be involved, applying our "eager tenderness"?  The echo in the first poem's last line has a bit of the last line of Robert Frost, Hyla Brook ("We love the things we love for what they are.") But it's more.  As in the second poem, watching this amazing bird, hearing its song, "It isn't mine to give."  Indeed, we have to learn to leave alone the things we love.  This need to assume we are in charge repeats in the creative process perhaps referred to in the Auden poem, that as humans, given language, we "assume responsibility for time".   Is it because we are compelled to "be of use", as Marge Piercy explains?

Or perhaps, it is that we need to feel our prayers and supplications will help those "babes in hewn rock cradles"?  The 3rd poem states as a matter of fact that they "learn to bear the hardness coming".  And yet, it is hard to refrain from prayers that start with "may this serve & bless them well.

Two poems deal with grief, and the final poem an affirmation of understanding how flowers are designed for themselves, not us.  They do not need to know they draw us in as they do their pollinators!


Notes on individual poems:

A Poem:  I love the title!  Those of us with children could immediately relate the over-prodding of plants to our over-concern seen as "over-fathering" and "over-mothering".  Give them a chance to seek what they need, by and for themselves.  It could also be what happens in the artistic process-- when is 

a painting, poem, choreography, finished?  Why keep rehearsing the play, the symphony, even after performance.  June gave the example of her husband's painting.  How it looked "finished" to her, but not to him.  Dave brought up Joseph Campbell and the perennial story in myths about children growing into heroes.  David brought up William Faulkner and an alternate self available through his novels, very different from his actual one. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/11/30/william-faulkners-demons.  (As an aside, interesting that Campbell, idealized for his writing, was an anti-semite; and Faulkner who wrote quotable and convincing lines such as  “every man is the arbiter of his own virtues but let no man prescribe for another mans well-being." (Quentin, in the Saddest of Words).

was blatantly racist. 


The Dipper: Do admire this bird and its song here: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/American_Dipper/overview#

Jim shared this exact experience of the bird materializing out of nowhere. That verb "issue" for the sudden exit (like a birth) out of a waterfall is uncannily perfect for the tone.  We discussed "stupidly"... and the "yet" without any conclusion.  Undammable song makes a contrast to "swept stupidly"--

the one, mindless water, the other a bird programmed to fish and sing as it does-- caught in a moment.

The yet feels out of place, as does the assumption that the song sings of the depths of the river the bird plumbs.  We remarked a psychic feel to the idea of depth...   but that too could be human transposition.

I brought up the German word, "unerfüllte Sehnsucht" -- unfulfilled longing... The poet understands the experience of this bird "is not hers to give".


Mercy Beach:  We marveled that a 13 year old would pick such a poem, which then was shared with Emily's 10 year old grandson for their home-schooling of poetry.  Emily mentioned it could be just a lucky pick--  the first one he stumbled on in Poem a Day.   The "about this poem" says: “This poem was inspired by the shoreline in Madison, Connecticut. In Annie Finch’s workshop with other poets at the Poetry By The Sea conference, we explored meter's relationships to nature. As I entered this meditation, I couldn’t help but relate the physical landscape to the ongoing struggles of human nature embroiling our country and world. The poem is a call to transform adversity into greatness; a wish for relief, also known as mercy.

Our discussion  included an association with "Old Man River" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh9WayN7R-s

and Kintsugi (金継ぎ, "golden joinery"), also known as kintsukuroi (金繕い, "golden repair"),[1] is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum, a method similar to the maki-e technique.[2][3][4] As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.  The beauty of broken

adds to the sense that whatever happens, as in the first poem, "the leaf's inclined to find its own direction...) We tried out ideas of the ocean being a mother, the beach a line of gold... the water being the unconscious, the land conscious... we all appreciated the images and sounds.**


Red Brocade:  an old favorite.  Elaine noticed the past tense in the opening line... and there is also past tense in the 3rd stanza.  All proverbs come out of a simpler time,  may explain in part.  The poem certainly evokes a time when such cultural traditions in Palestine were intact.  It also asks us, no matter what nationality, religion, culture, to examine in the here and now, how we are behaving towards each other -- if we can be true to honorable legacy, and not be claimed by pretending we have a purpose in the world, especially if alien to who we are and represent. 

I want to be sure to have fresh mint for you, to snip in your tea-- it confirms that I will make no excuses, but offer the sacred rules of hospitality.


Translation: As Ted Kooser says, this is a fine poem about "the staff of life" -- and yes, perhaps there is a pun in the Finnish in the last line.  David shared his son's love of baking bread, and how bread is indeed translation -- transforming one medium to another.  The tradition of making and sharing food as symbolic sharing love is also here, but here, in a eulogy.  The mono-line and rounded vowels of "slow" and "hours" suspended between the discovery of a last word (one loaf of dark rye) and the idea that it was left to be consumed.  The thaw of bread and heart... the healing of the firm, fragrant, forgiving bread... all those f's which work the teeth against the lips, the knife, and that Finnish and final silence.


For Tom Shaw: He was a Bishop and indeed, Mary Oliver must have had many conversations with him.  Whether she actually had this conversation with him, or imagined or dreamed asking him, and his reply is in quotes doesn't matter.  It is the perfect poem to honor a friend and console the one who has lost one.  It is Rumi-esque -- the idea of joy and sorrow in the same cave, and the more sorrow carves it out, the more room is made for joy.  This poem confirms Mary's humble reverence, reverent humility towards life.


The Lonely Betters:  We do have a better understanding of Nature now than when this poem was written... we understand that animals and plants have a language of their own... and perhaps we also are able to redefine ourselves, not as superior at all.  As Maura said, we could be called "lowly betters" with emphasis on the lowly.  And lonely we are.  Auden pays tribute to Frost, a poet of ordinary language in the last line -- and winds a complex skein of thought about language and how humans use it.  He is not without irony addressing the struggle we have, burdened as we are by being able to lie,

our complexity in facing death, our audacity to think we are in charge of time, and cursed by being aware we are caught in it. 

Indeed, when humans laugh and weep unrestrainedly, we resemble animals.

Yes, words... to remind us of promises... I love the loaded ironic undertone in "words for those with promises to keep" --  no guarantee they will be kept.  And of those incapable of making them... 

shall we call what is said "noises"?


To be of Use:  Good discussion about how hard it is to feel of use... and what is meant by being "productive".  It is hard to be an ancient Greek Amphora, once active pouring oil, shut in a case in a museum, or worse, in storage.   Dave shared a great observation: "I've been productive all my life.  It's not all it's cracked up to be."  Bernie mentioned this is a favorite poem to share, as it is a bracing thought to feel of use.  The sentence, "the work of the world is common as mud" redeems the poem from the Protestant work ethic.

Carolyn suggested this film:  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_of_Santa_Vittoria

We discussed common rhythms,.. how we submerge ourselves in larger packs... how society pays attention to those we judge as important... how to honor the "invisible" essential workers... farmers producing food we eat, and those who get it to us, meat-packers... 

Bernie reminded us of the LeGuin poem (discussed July 19, 2019) The Small Indian Pestle at the Applegate House - UKLG

 

Dense, heavy, fine-grained, dark basalt

worn river-smooth all round, a cylinder

with blunt round ends, a tool: you know it when

you feel the subtle central turn or curve 

that shapes it to the hand, was shaped by hands,

year after year after year, by women’s hands

that held it here, just where it must be held 

to fall of its own weight into the shallow bowl

and crush the seeds and rise and fall again

setting the rhythm of the soft, dull song 

that worked itself at length into the stone,

so when I picked it up it told me how

to hold and heft it, put my fingers where

those fingers were that softly wore it down

to this fine shape that fits and fills my hand,

this weight that wants to fall and, falling, sing.


Flowers:  We ended on this lovely poem by Mary Hood.  A delicate sketch that takes a look at how we use flowers... (do we coax them too?  Are they ours to give? May they brandish wounds of gold! Perhaps put them on the red brocade pillow as you slice the rye bread as last word.

Where has this cold come from?  The flowers know, words are for those with promises to keep, and that the work of the world is common as mud.)


**

** More links: Thank you Bernie


 https://mymodernmet.com/kintsugi-kintsukuroi/


AND KINSTUGI IN THE STREETS:  https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2017/02/street-kintsugi-rachel-sussman/

 Also associated is the Japanese aestheic called wabi-sabi:  "In traditional Japanese aestheticswabi-sabi () is a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection.[2] The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of appreciating beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete" in nature.[3] It is a concept derived from the Buddhist teaching of the three marks of existence (三印sanbōin), specifically impermanence (mujō)suffering (ku) and emptiness or absence of self-nature ()."


                           https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wabi-sabi


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