Food by Brenda Hillman; Elegy by W.S. Merwin; One stanza ghazal (untitled) by Agha Shahid Ali; Poem by Langston Hughes; A Bowl of Fruit by Stephen Dunn; The Traveling Onion by Naomi Shihab Nye
Nutshell: What feeds us? These poems consider the commonality of food and how we deal with life, knowing there will be an end. What I love about putting them together, is the variety that is served:
One long collage of a poem which could be a short story focussing on mothers, on where and how daughters and mothers are eating, painted like a Breughel scene with multiple personalities at play; 3 short poems: a one liner called Elegy; a one stanza ghazal and a short two stanza poem; a poem like a still-life composing a bowl of fruit with concealed messages; a multi-layered poem triggered by an onion.
The discussion was rich and lively, and I wish the poets could have heard the interactions with their words!
As for the short poems, I am reminded of June Jordan, "These poems" (1977) - things she does in the dark/reaching for you/whoever you are/and/are you ready? where words are stones in the water/ running away. where skeletal lines/ are desperate arms for my longing and love. As poet, she is a stranger/learning to worship/the strangers around her-- whoever you are/whoever you become.
How is it that desire or concern for connection can be expressed in so many ways? I like that some of the group reading, are inspired to transform what is read to their own idea in the spirit of respectful conversation. For instance, why not write a haiku for Merwin's one-line "Elegy"? He provides the 7 syllable line. What 5 syllable line might you put before and/or after?
Or, for the Stephen Dunn poem, to switch the final sentence to read: But surely by now you've come to realize/there is no word, only this bowl of fruit/made out of worms...
I was glad some looked up the background of the poets. Brenda Hillman is highly experimental. Praising Hillman’s deft handling of form and subject, poet, and critic Marjorie Welish wrote, “Each poem … creates its own experimental configuration, within which the phrase swerves and discombobulates sense, as several registers of subject complicate the sampling of experiences and also as the experimental format throws the lyric into symbolic disarray one moment and naturalist scrutiny the next. And even more: she writes as if the lyric poem had a political calling.”
Now to examine each poem:
Food: We all eat -- and the poem paints a Breugel-esque portrait you might forget is in the setting, (given in the first line) of a fast food place because of the variety of mommies, children, with a sprinkling of Russians, a nostalgic leap into what seems to be a different kind of restaurant. It ends with the daughter eating a fast food burger, and a mother's recall of her eating at home over "the mantra of the refrigerator" (which says to feed her) and what her daughter sees in a parallel mother and son. Even if you don't know Oakland or Marin County, MacDonalds is ubiquitous, established in 1940 in San Bernadino, and almost 90 years later, is a worldwide experience in which to watch people.
There are many lovely poetic gestures which layer multiple meanings-- like the bands of black seared onto meat "like the memory of a cage"; or the CCCC slices in "an oil of forceful herbs". Observations, labeling someone "Mr. Egotistical Sublime" or noting a girl's face "stood for something/and from it, a little mindless daylight was reflected." We wondered about the tall boy and mother-- which one of them was "repressed rage/in espadrilles, if he is carrying a tray for her, and she is saying "Oh this is fun" ?
595 words in 88 lines, as if playing possibilities on a piano. We agreed, that although it reads like a short story, it is a poem with delightfully weird structure.
Elegy: Positioned as a one-liner next to the first two pages, this zen-like Elegy, was like a brush of "negative capability", Keats' term for accepting uncertainty, mystery, and doubt without impatiently searching for absolute facts or logical reasons.
If it had not been written by Merwin, would we have paid attention to it? We spoke at length about loss, how the one line brings losses home. Changing on emphasis on the words, e.g. WHO would I show it to (everyone's dead, so what's the point) or Who would I SHOW it to (the choice of showing, vs. keeping it quietly silent to oneself) increases the multiple layers and emotional impact. Why the need to write an elegy? For whom? Oneself, the person gone, for all those who you wished had known this person the way you did? There is perhaps a larger sense of loneliness, and grief.
See: Every waking minute of each day is its own elegy: https://ordinaryplots.substack.com/p/ws-merwins-elegy I gave the link in the footnote on p. 3 of the poems. Perhaps Merwin is questioning the purpose of poetry. How can I return the love that a loss has left me thinking of? What good is a poem if I can't. Kelly quotes Merwin: "Poetry conveys both the great possibility and the thing we can't do."
Next week we will read Merwin's “For the Anniversary of My Death”. To summarize Dan Chiasson's article about it: The poem addresses the problem of being outlived. “Elegy,” Merwin’s great single-line poem—not the greatest short poem, but perhaps the shortest great poem, ever written—is about the converse problem, that of outliving.
One stanza Ghazal: I'm not sure what the title is. Again, the problem of connection... who are we? what matters in living? What is it that explains our existence?
Poem: Langston Hughes opens and closes the poem with the same words, which skillfully embue the power of the context and placement of words. As Mary put it, "this poem rejuvenates my heart". We searched to find out who "F.S." was -- apparently a political activist Langston met in Harlem.
A Bowl of Fruit: The poem by Stephen Dunn is the first in his book Local Visitations and well-described in this delightful article about his poetry: https://blackbird-archive.vcu.edu/v2n2/features/smith_r_111403/dunn_s.htm
Billy Collins says this about his cleverness and craft: "The art lies in hiding the art, Horace tells us, and Stephen Dunn has proven himself a master of concealment. His honesty would not be so forceful were it not for his discrete formality; his poems would not be so strikingly naked were they not so carefully dressed."
Jeanne Andree was a colleague of Dunn at Stockton University. This playful extended metaphor employs word play using still-life vocabulary and noun/verb stacking. As one person put it, Jeanne is interested in the specifics of trees, whereas Stephen shows how to see the bigger picture of the forest.
The Traveling Onion: We enjoyed sharing onion stories... but also noted the repeat of "small and forgotten" in line 3 and 12". If you ask Aristotle, Nietszche or AI, "What difference does an onion, or a person, or any living thing make?" you can explore the idea of living things giving purpose and order to chaos. See below what AI provides. Poets don't need AI, but do draw on thinkers, and myths, and even "The Better Living Cookbook", which may even have been an invented detail. The part about the onion being a solemn item of worship, apparently can be corroborated by the custom of laying a hand on an onion when taking an oath.
We enjoyed the detailed description from crackly paper peeling, to the post-simmered translucence, rather like rings of a tree, revealing history. Yes, tears fall/for something small and forgotten... especially when sacrificed for the sake of others.
The addition of "traveling" in the title adds the sense of metamorphosis, exchange, and perhaps also, survival.
AI Summary of why something living matters.
- Fighting chaos: The universe wants things to mix and spread out. Life pulls energy in to stay whole.
- A rare spark: Matter usually forms rocks and dust. Life is rare matter that wakes up and notices itself.
- Simple survival: An onion does not think or weep from sadness. It just grows, feeds itself, and protects its core.
- Part of a web: It takes food from the soil. It feeds other animals or humans. It matters because it is one link in a large chain.
- Self-awareness: A person knows they are alive. They feel pain, joy, and love.
- Creating meaning: People ask big questions. They build art, write rules, and care for others. We give the universe a voice and a heart.
- No grand boss: No one wrote a rulebook saying life must exist.
- Self-made value: Because life is rare and fragile, it holds its own value. When you care for an onion or a person, you push back against the dark and create a reason to care.
