A Donation of Shoes by Ted Kooser
The Big Picture by Ellen Bass https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_081dDhyXU
Third Rock from the Sun by Dorianne Laux
A Winter Twilight by Angelina Weld Grimké
Emmonsail's Heath in Winter by John Clare
Gravitational by Alfred Corn
Ted Kooser: Thank you Ted for your goodbye poem. We'll look forward to Kwame Dawes taking over the stewardship of "American Life in Poetry". Now... for your poem... We loved the liquid l’s, how not only shoes are recycled but also lines of poetry such as Thomas Gray’s Elegy (… left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,/ Nor cast one longing lingering look behind?
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44299/elegy-written-in-a-country-churchyard
We discussed the Capitalization of Goodwill and Destiny. Although no conclusion reached, indeed, it feels the “old cardboard carton” could be our future coffin. Lovely personification of shoes and a way to address the inevitability of the end of a life, whether it be “wingtip, slip-on, workboot, sneaker”. Just the mention of those names enhances both shoe and metaphor!
Ellen Bass: Hearing her read in a live reading, and the laugh of the audience in the 4th stanza, called our attention to "the bad day at the slots". The gentleness of her voice cradled the assonance and slant rhymes, such as sun/tongue/cub, in the beginning, the spondee "burnt ferns" the "home/grown" at the end.
We appreciated the juxtapositions, the play between universal and quite personal, the witty insertion of the song title, "They Can't Take That Away from Me"... the tongue-twistingly difficult "excruciatingly insignificant" where we are helped by the enjambment, which only accentuates the "insignificant"...
Everything is transitory... the things we associate with "treasure" may well be a moment on a lumpy couch, and matching cardinals of sweater and bra-strap may lead us to appreciate what is at risk.
We noted lines that stuck out further in the stanzas, like the 4th stanza from the end... Perhaps it is that longing she describes for endangered animals that keeps her in the same "room" (stanza) about the bears.
"when I get home /// line and stanza break... and she becomes animal herself, warbling. Much to admire about this poem which we didn't get to. Thank you Vicki for bringing up the Wordsworth
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45549/she-dwelt-among-the-untrodden-ways, and how we attach ourselves
to those we love.
Dorianne Laux: Vicki shared her story of teaching her 2nd graders about the solar system by making a model with the sun and planets. The Earth, the size of a pingpong ball seemed indeed tiny compared to the sun. (1,3,00,000 planet Earths could fit inside the sun!). From "rock" in the title to the final word of the poem, "stone", the poem rocks from amazement of what this planet bears, to our inability to pay attention to one of the billions of miracles. Rich with images, and condemnatory description of humans as "evolved image-making brains" unable to pluck up an orange maple leaf in fall to admire in the palm of our similarly shaped hand... humans who "invented week-ends to have time to spare, (time another idea devised like an "epilogue"). We are not forever... not pronounced from any pulpit, merely, the idea that we are not in control of birth and death in this universe (which made us from its "shattering and dust"). The question of whether we are reprimanded and might be better off if we were ignorant came up, countered by the thought, that the word "ignorance" be substituted by "innocent". "When was the sun enough?" brought up the idea of sun worshippers, primitive ideas of its birth and death, or incomplete comprehension that indeed, our planet is not part of a heliocentric vision. As for this warmth "we've yet to name", it would be hard not to think of the important abstractions that guide our behavior.
The book Sapiens by Noah Harari came up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapiens:_A_Brief_History_of_Humankind
Angelina Weld Grimke: a beautiful poem whose 8 lines wrap us in subtle rhymes and music to contemplate mystery.
Lori gave a beautiful description of why it is a perfect "grief poem". Winter, as the month, when we long for younger, brighter days; twilight, the mysterious time before dark and death of a day, the star, perhaps our life-giving sun. Like Marna, she sees the poem reflecting on nature in winter, but goes further. This small portrait on "Life expanded to the universal, where the metaphor circles back to the Universal in life" We were also sensitive to the contrast of opne group of trees contrasting with one lonely fir, apart. Perhaps a Christmas Tree, and the star the star of Bethlehem, although that didn't come up. Rose was reminded of John Cage's 4'33
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4′33″ where the musicians sit for three movements in silence... the opening word of the poem.
John Clare: The now oft-sited Emmonsail's Heath in Winter resembles a Shakespearean sonnet with the odd unrhymed 10th line (abab/bcdcd/e? /ff/gg) and old English words, filled with delightful words for birds, (bouncing woodcock, idling crow, fieldfares, bumbarrels) bracken, shrubs (furze and ling). We agreed, that for this sort of poem we do not care what it means!
Keats may have chided Clare (1793-1864) https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/10/27/the-natural-5 for emphasizing descriptive nature over any sentiment... but we were left with great appreciation for the arrangement of syllables, and celebration of old words.
For more of his poems: https://interestingliterature.com/2019/01/10-of-the-best-john-clare-poems-everyone-should-read/
Alfred Corn: Delightfully humorous exploration of gravity, choreographed through the life cycle, male and female from birth to death. We remarked the thread of horse, (horses threw riders... when you let the reins go (and have a nap!), cradled (breech birth) 6 feet under, where "that horsepower meant to haul our bones..."-- Indeed we enjoyed the ride through the inventive levity!
Fun to hear him read the pleasing slant rhymes, amusing images (Terra's a magnet, we its iron filings; the solar kingpin... dread of the mere 1 g rising from a squat). Although he uses enjambement, he doesn't pause to indicate it as her performs the poem which increases the playful mood.
David was reminded of Frost's poem, After Apple Picking-- https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44259/after-apple-picking on the subject of gravitas...
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