The Tiger Who Wore White Gloves by Gwendolyn Brooks;
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In the set of poems discussed 1/22 and 1/23, we were reminded that humor is important, and sometimes a poem is just trying to have fun. Here is a delightful example of an Ekphrastic poem doing just that. https://www.rattle.com/the-grass-ceiling-by-kevin-west/
How wonderful that there are so many important words waiting for us to discover them, weave them into meaningful conversations!!!! I've done my best to compile the nutshell version of discussion with MULTIPLE associations provided by both the Pittsford and Rundel group of 1/22 and 1/23
Note: Rundel group: Joyce had proposed the Yeats, but was not in attendance, so we will discuss it a different time.
Nutshell:
Context flavors everything. On January 22, two days after the inauguration of Donald Trump, I know my head was reeling with disbelief at the swift and numerous measures he took on the afternoon of January 20 disregarding any respect for law, common sense and human decency. That it was the same day as the one designated to honor Martin Luther King felt like the sting from a barbed tail of a Manticore (Judith kindly provided mention of this mythical beast during discussion of Yeats.)
The Tiger Who Wore White Gloves
Although the first poem by Gwendolyn Brooks, penned in 1974, may not have been meant to address racial injustice, it would be hard not to look at the "white gloves" as the symbol of those in power and the "nice decree" of how tigers should be, the polite and dignified way expected. Discussion included a host of references to how it feels to be black in the United States such as
Black Boy by Richard Wright; Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin. In 1968, the dignified language of hope offered by Martin Luther King and poems by Langston Hughes did not take the "terrible /tough" inner "wearing what's fierce as face" Tiger approach. As we saw last week in Terrance Hayes, American Sonnets for my past and future assassins , without hearing his voice, one senses enormous anger. In the link provided, you will hear his voice is measured, neutral.
The poem feels like a children's story, like Little Black Sambo. It is reassuring to feel the pulse of the underlying message, that "what you are is who you are, which doesn't change the Tiger" . We agreed that Ms. Brooks is having fun, but it is funny with a sharp point, balancing two realities. We drew parallels with the Pigeon poem from last week, Injustice with it's unspoken "dove".
Bernie brought up Rabbi Nachman of Breslov: "The whole entire world is a narrow bridge and the main thing is to have no fear at all." (Act Happy!)
By all things Planetary: This passionate sonnet, beautifully delivered at the end of last week's session by Judith, is an example of Gwendolyn Brooks skill as a poet. The diction, sounds, images are satisfying and convincingly send a message from a very strong woman who shows the difficulty of holding her ground when swept up by passion. Herewith a good link that says more about her sonnets:
Dream Variation: We remarked the repeats, the mirroring and variations of the two stanzas, much like Hughes' poem "Hold Fast to Dreams". Comments included the "polite" tone, as survival strategy given his time period. We noted the first stanza has 9 lines, the second, only 8 with no repeat, "That is my dream!"
"White" replaced by "quick" -- and that tree, which one person saw as a lynching tree, the three points of suspension in the second stanza, and night compassionate in its tenderness... "black like me".
The first stanza, where black is not judged, as skin color, but a shade, darkness, like night is dark.
Marna brought up this amazing artwork called Synedoche (in grammar, that means take a part for the whole). Here, each block of color represents a portrait of an individual’s skin color. Each subject would sit for fifteen to twenty minutes for the artist, who closely examined a patch of his or her skin before blending an assortment of paints to replicate the exact shade. The panels are ordered alphabetically according to the sitters’ surnames, rendering Synecdoche a sort of abstracted group portrait.
The second coming: At Rundel, Joyce had been the one proposing this poem: On 1/30, she explained how she had re-typed the poem in larger font, as it really spoke to her, especially the lines "The best lack all conviction, while the worst /Are full of passionate intensity as she thought of the Jan. 6th insurgents. She brought up the wisdom of "Be happy for good fortune; compassionate for those in trouble; and be indifferent to evil".
Yeats believed in the power of cyclical history, and initially the poem was called "The Second Birth". The apocalyptic vision of the second part of the poem is just one cycle, not the end-all, be-all, and indeed, the positive and negative will continue in their cycles. We all agreed this poem is filled with a powerful music one can get lost in, and the value of symbols in it is their power of suggestion of the infinite, not fixed meaning. Certainly it is one of those poems that could be discussed at length and multiple times and is highly anthologized unlike other of his poems like September 1913, or the poem about his daughter. George mentioned the book Stone Cottage by James Longenbach which paints the relationship between Yeats and Ezra Pound, and the "war years" and Yeats' view of WW1 and "war poetry". I also had provided this link.
Paul made an excellent summary: "the Falcon" is evil... the "Falconer" is reason... the 3rd line refers to the military term "holding the center" used in war... The last two lines of the first stanza have been used in MANY ways they are so brilliant -- even for comparing good and bad cholesterol!
Surely... repeated twice... Second coming repeated twice... The Spiritus Mundi refers to collective unconscious/soul of the universe. The shape in the sands of the desert, with lion body and head of man is the Sphinx ... 20 centuries = 2,000 years... In 1919 when Yeats wrote this, just after world war I, and a major Spanish flu epidemic akin in effect to the pandemic, in the midst of Irish rebellion, 2 years after the Russian Revolution, unrest in the Middle East, the mood at best is bleak. That verb SLOUCHES... could also refer to the first coming of Christ, which far from solving the horrors humans create, provides yet new versions.
Yeats believed in the cyclical nature of the world. The irregular stanzaic patterns, lack of end rhyme reinforce the sense of chaos. This is a similar treatment as Hughes, where one stanza presents a seemingly objective situation, the other a subjective state of dream. Yeats does not spare us ghastly detail in his chillingly majestic poem touching perhaps our deepest fear that we can do nothing about our fated doom.
Regrets: I do not know this poet, whose poem appeared in the Winter 2024 issue of Rattle with only one sentence: "I write poetry because order is a protest against despair".
This immediately recalls the words of Robert Frost who said "Poetry is a momentary stay against confusion." One participant pointed out the opening line "belies the despair that follows". Indeed, knowing how malleably changeable we are, the idea of being able to "stuff a self into your skin" and think it reliable is also revealed as impossible to pin down as we live in our liminal space of "almost is", "might have been".
A thank you to Kathy for sending poems that give a chuckle! Here are two of them:
A little Girl Tugs:
For some reason, the Rundel group picked up on the Latin abbreviation "e.g." (Exempli gratia). The speaker of the poem is clearly adult so perhaps it is meant to reinforcee that.
God Only Knows: Simple, satisfying, and we could just enjoy the poem.
[1] "God Only Knows" was composed for an event at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City celebrating the 60th anniversary of the literary journal The Hudson Review. The event was part of the Guggenheim's Works and Process series and included not only musical settings of poems by Dana Gioia, but readings and interviews with the poet as well.
"God Only Knows" was published in Gioia's volume Daily Horoscope in 1986.
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