Happy Valentine's Day, however you can embellish the happy. (It helps to make a list of positives in your life. This might include celebrations of loving gestures human beings give to each other )-- and I pause there, to thank everyone who is on this list for loving the conversations that come from sharing poems. For sure, I want to thank everyone (especially Joyce who provided the pink hearts) for penning such lovely notes! They are totallty reciprocal and I return the positive feelings! As for the Patron Saint of Bees, and Epileptics, so cruelly martyed in the 3rd century... (Saint Valentine) or the commercial parephenalia created and ascribed to him, I do hope big KISS will keep things simple, and perhaps a little silly.
Barb Murphy shares this quote from Christian Wiman when he was Editor of Poetry Magazine: she taped it to heroffice door when she was teaching full-time:"Let us remember...that in the end we go to poetry for one reason, so that we might more fully inhabit our lives and the world in which we live them, and that if we more fully inhabit these things, we might be less apt to destroy both."
Poems for next week: (you'll note Jim's tongue twister comes first. I do hope you enjoy the pleasant pheasant plucker's presence! ) You might know that the wry Frederick Ogden Nash (1902-1971) although born in Rye, New York had an ancestor directly related to the naming of Nashville..
We Made Quite a Do by Jim Jordan; The Cow, The Pig by Ogden Nash; The Flea by John Donne; A Caution To Everybody by Ogden Nash; Moon Gathering by Eleanor Wilner; POEM IN WHICH I INSPECT THE FABRIC CARE LABEL by Dick Westheimer
Nutshell:
Much ado: We had the honor of Jim coming in person to read his poem. It received a sound round of applause and chuckles on Wednesday, and quite a few more compliments Thursday. What fun the contrasting modern sound (sass) with the fancier "fusillade" all with the overplay of battle play inside a play and in history! Phew! An audacious and ambitious project -- but as Mike said pulled it off quite successfully! Not overdone, but with all the delight of Shakespeare making the reader want to read that play... but meanwhile enjoying how Jim and friends are enjoying it!
So what makes us glad to read/hear wordplay -- or conversely find it tiresome? It came up that alliteration is great for satire and expressing anger, but not great when it interferes with the tone or message. Wit can fall into similar pros and cons, best expressed as comedy perhaps.
Ogden Nash: the small sampling provided much merriment! Graeme thought Nash might need some help with a review of anatomy for the cow; The cow is of the bovine ilk; one end is moo, the middle is milk, and the other end of entirely different ilk. An alternative might go directly to rhyme with poo.
It brought up many fun references. Polly shared Nash's view of the Turtle: The turtle lives twixt plated decks/which practically conceal its sex./ I think it clever of the turtle/In such a fix to be so fertile.
We moved on to the Flea, which Paul helped us appreciate for its spicy suggestions and more background on John Donne quoting his use of vernacular with a liberal translation of The Canonization: "Shut up and let me love!" (Well... the opening line is actually, "For God Sakes Woman, be quiet... ") He suggests, if you enjoyed animal poems, to check out Robert Burns, and his comments To a Louse" espied on a lady's bonnet in church.
Thanks to Judith, we enjoyed very much "Archy" the cockroach recording the alley cat Mehitabel's story, helping his punctuation along, since could not manage the shift key on the typewriter when recording (note 3rd stanza, there's a small typo: guts, not gust).. The liberal dose of French indeed makes the Ballade resemble a take-off of François Villon. Don Marquis, by the way, is not a Spanish Nobleman, but an American, Donald, from Walnut, Illinois (1878-1937). Neil brought in his copies of Archie and Mehitabel to show and mentioned the musical ! Bart (Rundel) summed it up: the poem is a delightful example of brio filled panache and unexpected surprises.
Moon Gathering: this poem by one of the newest Chancellors of the American Academy (note, she is 88!) could have provided a month of discussion and appreciation. The title sets up mystery with the intrigue in the play of noun and verb in the word gathering. Who is they? Who is we?
We shared feelings regarding tone: a sense of sacred, perhaps ancient ceremony of Wickens, and travel with the ancestors of the stars. The moon is a powerful symbol, and Wilner sets the stage with the word scrim, the light curtain used in theatre. Her use of the future tense, shifting to present allows the reader to travel simultaneously with the poet in two worlds. This is one of those mysterious poems which engages the reader fully, but skirts explanation. Details include moon as "hook", the old-fashioned well and dipper, and the scientific term, "precession" used for the wobbling state of a planet on its axis. As for an understanding of the three zeros standing like pawprints it is not clear: a reference to the millenium, the summer triangle or Canis Major (the big dipper's other Dog name)? Without knowing, the impact of possibilities is not confusing, but enhances the intrigue. All this lends to a sense of summoning spirits.
Voicemail Villanelle: Here, the form is used to enhance a light-heartedly clever commentary on the telephone, the "menus" providing choices with the obvious lies of the two repeated rhymes We'll be with you right away; We're grateful that you called today.
Poem in Which: The Rattle prompt from Denise Duhamel, is a wonderful challenge. Tap the hyperlink to read the review about her book called In Which
Denise writes this in a note to her Jan, 2025 poem, "Poem in which I press Fast Forward" :
“I started writing the poems from In Which after reading Emily Carr’s brilliant essay ‘Another World Is Not Only Possible, She Is on Her Way on a Quiet Day I Can Hear Her Breathing.’ (American Poetry Review, Volume 51, No. 3, May/June 2022) Carr borrows her title from Arundhati Roy, political activist and novelist. In her delightfully unconventional essay, Carr talks about rekindling intuition in poems, offering ‘a welcome antidote to whatever personal hell you, too, are in.’ Carr’s invitation to be unapologetic, even impolite, gave me new ways of entering my narratives. Soon I was imagining I was someone else completely. Or sometimes I looked back at my earlier self, at someone I no longer recognized.”
We very much enjoyed the scenario inspired by a "care" label. The stanza enjambments propel the poem forward, as an accumulation of slant rhymes flesh, chest, caresse, yes weave a story. Inspecting an actual label, the poem calls on how we label, the importance of care, as subtext. Although she could not make it in person, Marge Burgio, responded to the last with her poem.
"Read the Care Label"
Don't Discard
Give a light washing
of streams from above,
May need TLC if wrinkled
Or smooth like a dove.
Perhaps a swift kick
in the pants...
Will be the best aid!
Or just a listening ear
without more to say...
Soft music to soothe
at the end of the day.
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