Poems for July 23

 Evening Walk  by Charles Simic; Climbing China's Great Wall by Afaa M. Weaver; The Space Between by Jill Jupen;  After Hayden Carruth  by Jacqueline Winter Thomas; After Television  by Hayden Carruth;  Time of Tyranny, 49 by  Lyn Hejinian; See You Tomorrow  by Hayden Carruth; Places With Terrible Wi-Fi by J. Estanislao Lopez

 It just is luck, and 6th sense as I stumble into poems and poets who seem to treasure the power of words that restore our sense that this life is an invitation to notice, wonder and share textures and feelings of our connections.

Often the poems in O Pen express feelings that line our lives, or elaborate feelings of others so we can better understand them.  They guide us, give us faith that indeed, we can hold on for a moment to something "unsayable".   The sharings and responses of those present enrich all this. 

 The role of the artist is exactly the same as the role of the lover. If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.—James A. Baldwin (from Conversations with James Baldwin, Univ. Press of Mississippi 

Jerry's "words"; a participant's sister writes a book: https://bainbridgeisland.press/products/a-woman-in-pieces; Marna's transportation.  Hard to remind people... The focus of O pen... looking at the human condition through the lenses of poems.  However, I find myself citing people's names. Should I refrain from that? 

Nutshell: -- this is more personal than what I sent out to the O Pen group.  

Evening Walk: We enjoyed the sense of  mystery  beautifully accentuated by enjambments of the first lines of the first 3 stanzas.  Elaine coined a term of the "internal poem" for such a meditative piece that brings us "inside" ourselves, and prompts us to remember perhaps a place we have put aside.  Elmer noted the juxtaposition of nature and reality... on one hand, the poet walking, on the other, a personification of trees.  What an unusual image of a tree as staircase, rising to heaven, as the night slowly descending. Jan noted the short i sounds (listening/lips/bit/wind/fit/unpinned/ dinner) which contrast with the long I (night/high/decide/quiet/light/sky).   That helped people hear the O's at work . Lines that stood out:  3rd stanza, next to last line: happy heart, what heavy steps you take...  

Climbing China's Great Wall: We agreed the title brings us to the experience of climbing the wall, so one feels a live interaction with it, as opposed to a description of this amazing feat of engineering, replete with gatehouses and keepers, a signal system   for danger lighting fires.  (Judith suggested the movie Mulan which shows this.) You might enjoy reading some of the "truth and fiction" about it here: https://www.chinahighlights.com/greatwall/fact/  Friends of ours who live in Beijing confirmed the opening line.  In the Mutianyu area, the stairs were built before there was architectural code, which made them steeper with inconsistent rises and runs... They mentioned, since the descent is harder on the knees than the ascent, for a few RMB you can bobsled all the way down the mountain! 

Now for the poem:  I didn't notice the rhyme scheme  until the next to last tercet -- a sign of an excellent craftsman in my book.  Afaa M. Weaver weaves in history, but also human elements of soldiers, "wishing for the lovers they left behind" and the mothers, "weaving braids of grief/in their hair".  The surprise of an actual "little old woman" -- perhaps invented to bring all together in the final stanza: the stairs, the legend, skeleton of the wall, "where white cranes dance in pairs" -- the crane, symbol of purity, grace, and longevity, 

and in pairs, perhaps a symbol of faithful union.  Judith corrects herself: the bird symbol for wedded bliss in China is the (or properly are) mandarin ducks.  It is in Japan that the cranes are considered symbols of marriage.  But the crane is a Chinese symbol for long life and prosperity.

The Space Between:  the poet mentioned how Hayden Carruth supported her and I gave this link about him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayden_Carruth  and https://www.npr.org/2008/10/02/95310480/hayden-carruth-a-poet-with-a-jazzmans-touch

  We definitely felt the poet as being "beside herself" or "outside of herself".  We enjoyed the sense of mystery, especially 2nd and 4th stanzas, trying to imagine the situation.  The space between what you thought was felt, and physical distance between two people, and the ambiguity of being separated from herself, thus from another-- as one person put it, the "missingness" of love.   

Judith quoted from  Richard III, Scene 3, Sir Richard's Soliloquy:  Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh.

What do I fear? myself? there's none else by:
Richard loves Richard; that is, I am I.
Is there a murderer here? No. Yes, I am:
Then fly. What, from myself? Great reason why:
Lest I revenge. What, myself upon myself?
Alack. I love myself. Wherefore? for any good
That I myself have done unto myself?
O, no! alas, I rather hate myself
For hateful deeds committed by myself!
I am a villain: yet I lie. I am not.
Fool, of thyself speak well: fool, do not flatter.
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.
Perjury, perjury, in the high'st degree
Murder, stem murder, in the direst degree;
All several sins, all used in each degree,
Throng to the bar, crying all, Guilty! guilty!
I shall despair. There is no creature loves me;
And if I die, no soul shall pity me:
Nay, wherefore should they, since that I myself
Find in myself no pity to myself?
Methought the souls of all that I had murder'd
Came to my tent; and every one did threat
To-morrow's vengeance on the head of Richard.

After Hayden Carruth:  the title could be a "nod to" the poet, or perhaps a Eulogy -- and recognition of his influence.  I read the poem backwards, to play with the idea that the poem seems to be Carruth speaking back.  It is not snow...nor sleeping silence  vs.  An old man sleeps like/snow on hills.  

We remarked how when you lay your ear against your hand or someone else's skin, you hear your own heartbeat.   

After Television:  this is Carruth playing perhaps with irony.  The poem was published in 1994, so a year after the World Wide Web was made available to the public.  Stephen Jay Gould refers to Homo Sapiens as "a tiny and accidental evolutionary twig"...  -- but what are we doing to ourselves?  I didn't know about the ironic nickname    The discussion included fond reminiscences of childhood before TV.  Carruth provides delightful adjectives: squirmy trees; mumbling days, but also inexhaustible sadness. 

Judith brought up:   Homo Sap.  She also mentioned Ogden Nash about TV and being the village idiot... so for video, one is the village vidiot.

Time of Tyranny: Hejinian's work often demonstrates how poetry is a way of thinking, " a way of encountering and constructing the world, one endless utopian moment even as it is full of failures."(https://poets.org/poet/lyn-hejinian).  The 14 lines peppered with alliterations do not avoid words like ambiguate, obviate.  The poem borders a sense of science fiction, perhaps a slant reference to artificial creation of life.  We agreed... a lot of emotion. 

 Neil taught us the term, -30- used in journalism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/-30- 

See you tomorrow:  Humorous, perhaps describing the apocalypse or his own aging.  We enjoyed the honesty.  Judith sang for us, "Beautiful Geezers"... to the tune of Stephen Foster's Beautiful Dreamers https://genius.com/Stephen-foster-beautiful-dreamer-lyrics

Places with terrible Wi-Fi:  A list poem which ponders what it would be like without the internet.

What is sacred?  The reference of Megiddo: an important town in the Old Testament where battles took place,  Armaggedon  so the "Tell of M" is a pun on Tel Meggido   an archeological site and a national park…