Friday, September 13, 2013
a little addendum to Sept. 9
Judith shared this, in reference to the Kite.
Spring and Fall
by Gerard Manley Hopkins
to a young child
Márgarét, áre you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! ás the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sórrow's spríngs áre the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Poems for September 16
I enjoyed the commentary about Heaney's poem "The Gutteral Muse" –Sept. 9 issue of New Yorker: p.55 (originally published by New Yorker, June 25, 1979 http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews/2013/09/06/seamus-heaney-the-guttural-
Of course, we do not do justice in a brief hour, discussing 5-6 poems—
and I agree with the commentary’s point that we are better for musing, re-reading, sleeping on poems, noting what we notice, hear, and the directions in which poems take us. I look forward to discussing. Martin will share
information about Architrave Press and Personal by Michael Bazzett. http://architravepress.storenvy.com/products/1338191-personal-by-michael-bazzett
From the Republic of Conscience by Seamus Heaney
To the Creature of the Creation – James Wright
Never Again Would Bird's Song Be the Same by Robert Frost
Cuchulain Comforted – W.B. Yeats
Personal by Michael Bazzett
Poems for Aug. 26
Optimism by Jane Hirshfield
Taken from Harold Bloom, "Till I end my Song-- a Gathering of Last Poems"
Dirge* by James Shirley (1596-1666) (this is one of Robert Frost’s favorite poems.)
This Living Hand – John Keats (1795-1821)
Crossing the Bar* -- Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)
I was not there to lead the discussion, but not surprisingly given the spirit "O Pen", I was told as satisfying as ever.
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
Poems for September 9
In tribute to Seamus Heaney.
"The Given Note", read at Seamus Heaney’s Funeral, September 2, 2013:
Passing – by Kwame Dawes, first of four poems written in tribute of Seamus Heaney, published in the WSJ.
The 4th one by Dawes is “after A Kite for Aibhín”. We will discuss the poem that inspired it,
"L'Aquilone" by Giovanni Pascoli, which Heaney translated, as well as Heaney's poem inspired by it:
A Kite for Aibhín
Knocks on the door by Maram Al-Massri (a very short poem appearing in "Poetry Not Written for Children that
Children Might Nevertheless Enjoy," by Lemony Snicket.
"Digging", by Heaney.
What is necessary to understand a poem? We discussed at length the different aspect
of “understanding” – how biographical information enhances meaning; how understanding what goes into a poem like “A Kite for Aibhin” based on Heaney’s translation of “Aquilone, a poem allows layers of meaning which the poems by themselves could not offer. A poem allows us several readings – line by line,
line as what is spooled out from title, gathered to linger in a final line that perhaps
already invites a departure to some new land. We read aloud “The Republic of Conscience” which I have slated for next week, and also “Picking Blackberries”
in addition to the discussion.
What a fitting tribute to Seamus Heaney to read aloud “The Given Note”. Singular,
unique, specific note, linked to the Irish islands where only Gaelic is spoken.
A hint of Shakespeare’s Tempest, and concurrent universes, a hint of an orchestra, where an oboe gives the A, or magic. The play on air, note, bow, the evocation of a musical spirit level communicating “this air” – drawn from “out of the night”, from “nowhere”,
The power of his gift – not of gab in the first definition of glib talk, but gift of
I was reading his “nobel prize acceptance speech, which has another idea of “air”.
“And yet the platform here feels more like a space station than a stepping stone, so that is why, for once in my life, I am permitting myself the luxury of walking on air.
I credit poetry for making this space-walk possible. I credit it immediately because of a line I wrote fairly recently instructing myself (and whoever else might be listening) to “walk on air against your better judgement”. But I credit it ultimately because poetry can make an order as true to the impact of external reality and as sensitive to the inner laws of the poet's being as the ripples that rippled in and rippled out across the water in that scullery bucket fifty years ago. ”
He quotes as well Archibald MacLeish, “... ‘A poem should be equal to/not true.’ As a defiant statement of poetry's gift for telling truth but telling it slant, this is both cogent and corrective. Yet there are times when a deeper need enters, when we want the poem to be not only pleasurably right but compellingly wise, not only a surprising variation played upon the world, but a re-tuning of the world itself. We want the surprise to be transitive like the impatient thump which unexpectedly restores the picture to the television set, or the electric shock which sets the fibrillating heart back to its proper rhythm. ”
So it felt reading his poems, that we were in the presence of music, clear and inspiring,
with a wisdom.
In the poem, “Passing” written in tribute to Heaney by Kwame Dawes, I could not find the source of the Heaney epigraph: The day he died, the day he didn’t need
To catch the horse since the horse had come to him
Where he sat beside a path -- Seamus Heaney
Poetry allows us to talk about death, as a universal, and yet glean the particulars of a culture, and how they shine a light on understanding. We felt Dawes was close to some of Emily Dickinson’s writing about death, and discussed at length the word “violent” –
as it pertains not to those who have died, but to us who remain, living.
to quote the context, “But death, sudden and violent, and by this/
I mean the halting of animation, the suspense/
that becomes the dying person’s last/
expression; to see that break in time/
is to kill something in us, again, each time.
In discussing both Heaney’s translation of “Aquilone” and his own poem, “A Kite for Aibhan”, we discussed at length the word “windfall” and the change of register in the translation:
“You who were lucky to have seen the fallen/
Only in the windfall of a kite.
It is as if the kite-flying were already coupled with the emotion of a young Heaney
at boarding school, learning about the violent death of his 4 year old brother in an accident, and the emotion of living in times of war...
For his little grand-daughter, the ending line flies with a sense of elation, freedom,
and yet also this sense of fate, of what falls, depending on how the wind blows...
“The kite takes off, itself alone, a windfall.”
**
Heaney’s final words, “Do not fear” (Noli Timere) address his conviction that a poet’s role is to write about our fears, identify, describe, as accurately as possible, not,
to quote Michael Enright, necessarily to assuage them, but so that we know what we are dealing with. CBC News Posted: Sep 6, 2013, http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/story/2013/09/06/seamus-heaney-michael-enright-essay.html
“Our poets act as the counter to our fears. Our poets don't change the world, but instead change the way we look at it. They provide a glimmer of something better.”
"The Given Note", read at Seamus Heaney’s Funeral, September 2, 2013:
Passing – by Kwame Dawes, first of four poems written in tribute of Seamus Heaney, published in the WSJ.
The 4th one by Dawes is “after A Kite for Aibhín”. We will discuss the poem that inspired it,
"L'Aquilone" by Giovanni Pascoli, which Heaney translated, as well as Heaney's poem inspired by it:
A Kite for Aibhín
Knocks on the door by Maram Al-Massri (a very short poem appearing in "Poetry Not Written for Children that
Children Might Nevertheless Enjoy," by Lemony Snicket.
"Digging", by Heaney.
What is necessary to understand a poem? We discussed at length the different aspect
of “understanding” – how biographical information enhances meaning; how understanding what goes into a poem like “A Kite for Aibhin” based on Heaney’s translation of “Aquilone, a poem allows layers of meaning which the poems by themselves could not offer. A poem allows us several readings – line by line,
line as what is spooled out from title, gathered to linger in a final line that perhaps
already invites a departure to some new land. We read aloud “The Republic of Conscience” which I have slated for next week, and also “Picking Blackberries”
in addition to the discussion.
What a fitting tribute to Seamus Heaney to read aloud “The Given Note”. Singular,
unique, specific note, linked to the Irish islands where only Gaelic is spoken.
A hint of Shakespeare’s Tempest, and concurrent universes, a hint of an orchestra, where an oboe gives the A, or magic. The play on air, note, bow, the evocation of a musical spirit level communicating “this air” – drawn from “out of the night”, from “nowhere”,
The power of his gift – not of gab in the first definition of glib talk, but gift of
I was reading his “nobel prize acceptance speech, which has another idea of “air”.
“And yet the platform here feels more like a space station than a stepping stone, so that is why, for once in my life, I am permitting myself the luxury of walking on air.
I credit poetry for making this space-walk possible. I credit it immediately because of a line I wrote fairly recently instructing myself (and whoever else might be listening) to “walk on air against your better judgement”. But I credit it ultimately because poetry can make an order as true to the impact of external reality and as sensitive to the inner laws of the poet's being as the ripples that rippled in and rippled out across the water in that scullery bucket fifty years ago. ”
He quotes as well Archibald MacLeish, “... ‘A poem should be equal to/not true.’ As a defiant statement of poetry's gift for telling truth but telling it slant, this is both cogent and corrective. Yet there are times when a deeper need enters, when we want the poem to be not only pleasurably right but compellingly wise, not only a surprising variation played upon the world, but a re-tuning of the world itself. We want the surprise to be transitive like the impatient thump which unexpectedly restores the picture to the television set, or the electric shock which sets the fibrillating heart back to its proper rhythm. ”
So it felt reading his poems, that we were in the presence of music, clear and inspiring,
with a wisdom.
In the poem, “Passing” written in tribute to Heaney by Kwame Dawes, I could not find the source of the Heaney epigraph: The day he died, the day he didn’t need
To catch the horse since the horse had come to him
Where he sat beside a path -- Seamus Heaney
Poetry allows us to talk about death, as a universal, and yet glean the particulars of a culture, and how they shine a light on understanding. We felt Dawes was close to some of Emily Dickinson’s writing about death, and discussed at length the word “violent” –
as it pertains not to those who have died, but to us who remain, living.
to quote the context, “But death, sudden and violent, and by this/
I mean the halting of animation, the suspense/
that becomes the dying person’s last/
expression; to see that break in time/
is to kill something in us, again, each time.
In discussing both Heaney’s translation of “Aquilone” and his own poem, “A Kite for Aibhan”, we discussed at length the word “windfall” and the change of register in the translation:
“You who were lucky to have seen the fallen/
Only in the windfall of a kite.
It is as if the kite-flying were already coupled with the emotion of a young Heaney
at boarding school, learning about the violent death of his 4 year old brother in an accident, and the emotion of living in times of war...
For his little grand-daughter, the ending line flies with a sense of elation, freedom,
and yet also this sense of fate, of what falls, depending on how the wind blows...
“The kite takes off, itself alone, a windfall.”
**
Heaney’s final words, “Do not fear” (Noli Timere) address his conviction that a poet’s role is to write about our fears, identify, describe, as accurately as possible, not,
to quote Michael Enright, necessarily to assuage them, but so that we know what we are dealing with. CBC News Posted: Sep 6, 2013, http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/story/2013/09/06/seamus-heaney-michael-enright-essay.html
“Our poets act as the counter to our fears. Our poets don't change the world, but instead change the way we look at it. They provide a glimmer of something better.”
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
poems for August 19
Where is summer going?
Although I won't be physically moderating next week I will want to hear the discussion!
No meeting September 2 (Labor Day)
Today:
Frost: Meeting and Passing and Putting in the Seed
How To Tell Your Mother There Will Be No Grandkids in Her Future
by Ira Sukrungruang
The Composer Says This is How We Should Live Our Lives by Patricia Fargnoli
Paradoxes and Oxymorons by John Ashbery
Mutability -- Percy Bysshe Shelley
Frost's sonnet, Meeting and Passing, opened up a discussion on what gives us delight such as the metaphor of geometrical figures morphing into the image of a man and woman (possibly Robert and Elinor and a memory of their meeting in 1890) and the use of the parasol,as in a Chekhov play, whose point does the speaking. Kathy thought of the Venn diagram to explain how Frost addresses the complexity of being one self, not yet two, but more than one. Martin brought up the Jungian slant of going down, into the psyche, the travel allowing experience to be understood with new eyes.
We ended with "Putting in the Seed", discussing the how to behind sensuous passion-filled apple blossoms and Spring composting.
In contrast, the denial of birth appears in the Sukrungruang poem, posted on the same day as the bombing of Hiroshima. How do you tell the old generation you are not going to carry on the family seed and what does this mean? We laughed at the excuse of "work crying in your briefcase"; noted the order of wishes for three more lives where work, dreams come before mother, but within that one, a shift from a conditional to future tense, promising many Siamese warriors. There are many possibilities -- not being able to have children is one, not choosing to is another, with a variety of reasons -- unliveable conditions, whether environmental or horrific twists of war, unjust society, etc. We tried a "variety" of possible responses, with particular attention to the role of wish.
The Fargnoli poem with its bounding tercets directed by a fairly invisible baton or a conductor was lots of fun to read outloud. We admired the cleverness of the conceit matched by the run-on, single sentence, filled with repetitions, hyphenated adjectives. It seemed to halt here:
... and the sea-wind
where there are no trees to stop it rollicks
making it difficult to match subject and verb -- rather like losing a theme in too many notes, without neat divisions of bar lines; likewise:
the wind and the white-capped
plum-blue ocean and a man's foot measuring time
combines a swell of wind, sea, and conductor -- the plum, resonating with "plumb", and depth, just as time
is both measure for music, but also our organization of years and seasons.
How do we live? Ashbery invites us to risk, be in the moment where you do something you aren't familiar with.
The playful tone he establishes works beautifully, for paradox and oxymoron, rather like Frost's ulteriority, saying one thing and meaning another.
The opening stanza is a case in point:
You have it but you don't have it. (paradox of meaning)
You miss it, it misses you. You miss each other. (subject/object switch, double meaning of miss; to a reflexive loaded with meaning, which isn't missed at all, but very present, although unpinnably untranslatable!)
What is lost in the "steam and chatter of typewriters."? machine/human as Ashbery softly switches the human "you" to become the created poem. Pleasing brilliance.
How make an inanimate thing an animate thing?
How does metamorphosis work? Shelley's "Mutability" provided a discussion on attitude, on shifts and sways that are part of what we all navigate as humans. we hang on to things... we cannot control these things... we sing
carpe diem only to complain there is no free will and ended up with a tribute to the resilience of humans to keep on going, no matter the circumstances.
mutability
how do people learn...
time moves us from one thing or another...
no constancy.
quotable.. 3rd stanza. Pretend your happy, and you can be happy.
brush your teeth, Washing your hair, put on lipstick...
we hang on to things...
we cannot control these things...
carpe diem.
no free will.
romantics invented modernity... devotion to subjective...
the beautiful forevers... Kathy: rage against ...
resilience of humans...
Although I won't be physically moderating next week I will want to hear the discussion!
No meeting September 2 (Labor Day)
Today:
Frost: Meeting and Passing and Putting in the Seed
How To Tell Your Mother There Will Be No Grandkids in Her Future
by Ira Sukrungruang
The Composer Says This is How We Should Live Our Lives by Patricia Fargnoli
Paradoxes and Oxymorons by John Ashbery
Mutability -- Percy Bysshe Shelley
Frost's sonnet, Meeting and Passing, opened up a discussion on what gives us delight such as the metaphor of geometrical figures morphing into the image of a man and woman (possibly Robert and Elinor and a memory of their meeting in 1890) and the use of the parasol,as in a Chekhov play, whose point does the speaking. Kathy thought of the Venn diagram to explain how Frost addresses the complexity of being one self, not yet two, but more than one. Martin brought up the Jungian slant of going down, into the psyche, the travel allowing experience to be understood with new eyes.
We ended with "Putting in the Seed", discussing the how to behind sensuous passion-filled apple blossoms and Spring composting.
In contrast, the denial of birth appears in the Sukrungruang poem, posted on the same day as the bombing of Hiroshima. How do you tell the old generation you are not going to carry on the family seed and what does this mean? We laughed at the excuse of "work crying in your briefcase"; noted the order of wishes for three more lives where work, dreams come before mother, but within that one, a shift from a conditional to future tense, promising many Siamese warriors. There are many possibilities -- not being able to have children is one, not choosing to is another, with a variety of reasons -- unliveable conditions, whether environmental or horrific twists of war, unjust society, etc. We tried a "variety" of possible responses, with particular attention to the role of wish.
The Fargnoli poem with its bounding tercets directed by a fairly invisible baton or a conductor was lots of fun to read outloud. We admired the cleverness of the conceit matched by the run-on, single sentence, filled with repetitions, hyphenated adjectives. It seemed to halt here:
... and the sea-wind
where there are no trees to stop it rollicks
making it difficult to match subject and verb -- rather like losing a theme in too many notes, without neat divisions of bar lines; likewise:
the wind and the white-capped
plum-blue ocean and a man's foot measuring time
combines a swell of wind, sea, and conductor -- the plum, resonating with "plumb", and depth, just as time
is both measure for music, but also our organization of years and seasons.
How do we live? Ashbery invites us to risk, be in the moment where you do something you aren't familiar with.
The playful tone he establishes works beautifully, for paradox and oxymoron, rather like Frost's ulteriority, saying one thing and meaning another.
The opening stanza is a case in point:
You have it but you don't have it. (paradox of meaning)
You miss it, it misses you. You miss each other. (subject/object switch, double meaning of miss; to a reflexive loaded with meaning, which isn't missed at all, but very present, although unpinnably untranslatable!)
What is lost in the "steam and chatter of typewriters."? machine/human as Ashbery softly switches the human "you" to become the created poem. Pleasing brilliance.
How make an inanimate thing an animate thing?
How does metamorphosis work? Shelley's "Mutability" provided a discussion on attitude, on shifts and sways that are part of what we all navigate as humans. we hang on to things... we cannot control these things... we sing
carpe diem only to complain there is no free will and ended up with a tribute to the resilience of humans to keep on going, no matter the circumstances.
mutability
how do people learn...
time moves us from one thing or another...
no constancy.
quotable.. 3rd stanza. Pretend your happy, and you can be happy.
brush your teeth, Washing your hair, put on lipstick...
we hang on to things...
we cannot control these things...
carpe diem.
no free will.
romantics invented modernity... devotion to subjective...
the beautiful forevers... Kathy: rage against ...
resilience of humans...
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Poems for August 12
A Lemon and Cat's Dream by Pablo Neruda trans. by Alastair Reid
Remember the Moon Survives -- Barbara Kingsolver
Apotheosis by Barbara Kingsolver
Our Father Who Drowns the Birds -- By Barbara Kingsolver
Two poems by Neruda,translated from Spanish into English; three by Kingsolver translated from English into Spanish.
Even if you do not triangulate a third meaning from two languages, these poems work ideas into shape in spite of what language they use.
Will you think of a lemon the same way? And how do you dream? How would you use "moon" and "survive" in the same sentence? Apotheosis (from Greek ἀποθέωσις from ἀποθεοῦν, apotheoun "to deify"; in Latin deificatio "making divine"; also called divinization and deification) is the glorification of a subject to divine level. The term has meanings in theology, where it refers to a belief, and in art, where it refers to a genre. And finally, the prayer-like title, with the irony of a destructive God.
**
Notes from Elaine on the discussion:
The poems were complex and looking at them again reminds me of how much more we could say, even when the discussion is good.
On "Cat's Dream" we got into a dog discussionn briefly because Jim said he had a husky that was just like a cat (gave details) and I added that each dog is different, however, and one of mine is much more tuned into me than a cat. Then David said we need to get back to the poem and I seconded that. We pondered the "stone carved moustache" without much success. Someone said the details (as in most great poems) such as the "geology of the sand-colored tail" and the falling but the growing and relentlessness lead to the human condition beyond the cat's.
As I said about "Remember the Moon Survives," most agreed that it was a dark poem about abuse of women, or a woman, but I pointed out the hopeful flowers and the surviving moon (often connected to women). But the burglar and black widow, etc. keep the poem scary (sometime in there, Kathy related she feels mostly serious darkness about Kingsolver and can't get into her, though she nodded thoughtfully when David and I pointed out humor and strong characters and some novels with a lighter touch). The memory of the poison in the spider and "event" remain but also "eyes see through the dark."
We again mentioned the humor in her work with "Apotheosis." The miracle of the egg was so well done, so specific, a real delight to me. It gets serious with the "hand" that feeds and then robs us. But the images of the end of war and anger and the hunters shooting the birds of prey give some kind of hope while not ignoring the savagery. I can't remember who said what, but these are a few of my thoughts. I got a kick out of the "miracle in twelves"--dozen eggs plus the idea of a miracle in each. Lots to think about here. Lots of fun! Elaine
Remember the Moon Survives -- Barbara Kingsolver
Apotheosis by Barbara Kingsolver
Our Father Who Drowns the Birds -- By Barbara Kingsolver
Two poems by Neruda,translated from Spanish into English; three by Kingsolver translated from English into Spanish.
Even if you do not triangulate a third meaning from two languages, these poems work ideas into shape in spite of what language they use.
Will you think of a lemon the same way? And how do you dream? How would you use "moon" and "survive" in the same sentence? Apotheosis (from Greek ἀποθέωσις from ἀποθεοῦν, apotheoun "to deify"; in Latin deificatio "making divine"; also called divinization and deification) is the glorification of a subject to divine level. The term has meanings in theology, where it refers to a belief, and in art, where it refers to a genre. And finally, the prayer-like title, with the irony of a destructive God.
**
Notes from Elaine on the discussion:
The poems were complex and looking at them again reminds me of how much more we could say, even when the discussion is good.
On "Cat's Dream" we got into a dog discussionn briefly because Jim said he had a husky that was just like a cat (gave details) and I added that each dog is different, however, and one of mine is much more tuned into me than a cat. Then David said we need to get back to the poem and I seconded that. We pondered the "stone carved moustache" without much success. Someone said the details (as in most great poems) such as the "geology of the sand-colored tail" and the falling but the growing and relentlessness lead to the human condition beyond the cat's.
As I said about "Remember the Moon Survives," most agreed that it was a dark poem about abuse of women, or a woman, but I pointed out the hopeful flowers and the surviving moon (often connected to women). But the burglar and black widow, etc. keep the poem scary (sometime in there, Kathy related she feels mostly serious darkness about Kingsolver and can't get into her, though she nodded thoughtfully when David and I pointed out humor and strong characters and some novels with a lighter touch). The memory of the poison in the spider and "event" remain but also "eyes see through the dark."
We again mentioned the humor in her work with "Apotheosis." The miracle of the egg was so well done, so specific, a real delight to me. It gets serious with the "hand" that feeds and then robs us. But the images of the end of war and anger and the hunters shooting the birds of prey give some kind of hope while not ignoring the savagery. I can't remember who said what, but these are a few of my thoughts. I got a kick out of the "miracle in twelves"--dozen eggs plus the idea of a miracle in each. Lots to think about here. Lots of fun! Elaine
Friday, August 2, 2013
poems for August 5
Poems for August 5
What provokes memories? What language provokes us? What part of an audience do we identify with?
The Pasture by Robert Frost
Taking Out the Trash by George Bilgere
That's Incredible! by Michael Robbins
Under the Window by Elizabeth Bishop
After Apple Picking by Robert Frost
Although the discussion didn't delve into these questions, we thoroughly enjoyed quite different "voice" of each of these poems -- the New England overtones in "Sha'n't" and "may I", in The Pasture, the growing boy's voice in "Taking Out the Trash", tones in an anniversary poem for 9/11 which disguise what it is until the last stanza, the rich layers Bishop provides us from the name of the Brazilian City to reference to Shakespeare's 7 stages of men
finishing with the memorable "After Apple Picking" which marks transitions from summer to fall to winter; wake/sleep, past/present
Invitation to two different audiences. The first emphasizes cleaning, clarifying; the second nurturing. the first studied, the second sentimental.
On Apple Picking : one of the poems that "will be hard to get rid of". We all noted the poem's "feast of the senses" -- only one is missing — taste.
Back to The Pasture -- 8 lines, each stanza ending with the same line, with a gentle sense of invitation,
without any misgivings about what it would be like to accompany Frost in his work.
Tim Kendall mentions that "Not only are the two stanzas linked by the soothing vowel music of the repeated 4th line... but also by attachment to ancient pastoral tradition signaled even by the title.
Spring: connection w/ Muses – so, poetry steeped in classical education.
calf: Virgil: Eclogues... otherwise known as Bucolics – care of cattle.
The Georges Bilgere poem is filled with delight -- remembrance of a father is only part of it -- we all
laughed in the first stanza where taking out the trash "is not something I'm ever going to do" -- and of course, the poems starts and ends there and gets you thinking about what gets thrown out, along with losses...
Even the word "model son" has a sense of the way parents shape their children...to meet the grown up world of shaving, smoke, bad news. The juxtapositions of hat/rake and tilt/father; smoke/bad news provide a pleasing simultaneity like a cubist painting. Do we need to be told "these are the losses I'm mourning/this morning"
or is this last stanza necessary to get us to think about loss?
"That's incredible" is another clever poem that masks it's intention with cliche and vernacular. By the time we arrive at the bomb in the final stanza, the overlay of weapon-filled/military vocabulary becomes clear.
Don't be duped. this is a poem written for the 10th anniversary of 9/11 hole. What are our "holes" -- what do we hold, pour out-- and do we know our "ass from our elbow" ? The mention of "gloaming made us think of these lyrics:
In the gloaming, oh my darling
When the lights are soft and low
And the quiet shadows, falling
Softly come and softly go
When the trees are sobbing faintly
With a gentle unknown woe
Will you think of me and love me
As you did once, long ago?
The Elizzbeth Bishop, Under the Window poem gave rise to a long discussion about Ouro Preto the mining town in Brazil, which means Black Gold and in the 17th century was called Villa Rica because of the Gold rush. We talked of all the details -- how ecologically this could be a contemporary poem speaking of water, of people on the street, still quoting Shakespeare's 7 ages of men...
The opening line allows the reader in: The conversations are simple -- but the poem illustrates that nothing is simple... Among the details, humor in the observations: for instance:
Here comes some laundry tied up in a sheet,
all on its own, three feet above the ground.
Oh, no--a small black boy is underneath.
The bumper sticker on the truck ("with the syphilitic nose) which has an echo of Isaiah "Here I am" quickly turned to FOR WHOM YOU HAVE BEEN WAITING.
By the end, small snatches of disparate conversations return as examples of the "seven ages of man":talkative, soiled and thirsty. Oil in the water... which once all the animals and people drank, saying this is good.
The last stanza where the reflections in the ditch of standing water, "like bits of mirror--no, more blue than that:/like tatters of the Morpho butterfly." leaves one with a sense of irreparable destruction.
We carried the blue into the Frost's ladder in the apple tree pointing to heaven... but which ends with the question of having made a wrong choice, the "overtired…" indicative of perhaps not being careful in what "wished for".
Kendall refers to the form as "free from blank verse; and ambition to record rhythms of natural speech put aside."
To quote Reuben Brower: "the poem comes to the reader through sentences filled with incantatory repetitions and rhymes and in waves of sound linked by likeness of pattern" -- never predictable.
A poem addressing transitions, summer to fall, fall to winter; past to present; waking to sleep. and sleep mentioned 7 times... woodchuck – hibernation...a time to mull over, reflect on one's actions.
What provokes memories? What language provokes us? What part of an audience do we identify with?
The Pasture by Robert Frost
Taking Out the Trash by George Bilgere
That's Incredible! by Michael Robbins
Under the Window by Elizabeth Bishop
After Apple Picking by Robert Frost
Although the discussion didn't delve into these questions, we thoroughly enjoyed quite different "voice" of each of these poems -- the New England overtones in "Sha'n't" and "may I", in The Pasture, the growing boy's voice in "Taking Out the Trash", tones in an anniversary poem for 9/11 which disguise what it is until the last stanza, the rich layers Bishop provides us from the name of the Brazilian City to reference to Shakespeare's 7 stages of men
finishing with the memorable "After Apple Picking" which marks transitions from summer to fall to winter; wake/sleep, past/present
Invitation to two different audiences. The first emphasizes cleaning, clarifying; the second nurturing. the first studied, the second sentimental.
On Apple Picking : one of the poems that "will be hard to get rid of". We all noted the poem's "feast of the senses" -- only one is missing — taste.
Back to The Pasture -- 8 lines, each stanza ending with the same line, with a gentle sense of invitation,
without any misgivings about what it would be like to accompany Frost in his work.
Tim Kendall mentions that "Not only are the two stanzas linked by the soothing vowel music of the repeated 4th line... but also by attachment to ancient pastoral tradition signaled even by the title.
Spring: connection w/ Muses – so, poetry steeped in classical education.
calf: Virgil: Eclogues... otherwise known as Bucolics – care of cattle.
The Georges Bilgere poem is filled with delight -- remembrance of a father is only part of it -- we all
laughed in the first stanza where taking out the trash "is not something I'm ever going to do" -- and of course, the poems starts and ends there and gets you thinking about what gets thrown out, along with losses...
Even the word "model son" has a sense of the way parents shape their children...to meet the grown up world of shaving, smoke, bad news. The juxtapositions of hat/rake and tilt/father; smoke/bad news provide a pleasing simultaneity like a cubist painting. Do we need to be told "these are the losses I'm mourning/this morning"
or is this last stanza necessary to get us to think about loss?
"That's incredible" is another clever poem that masks it's intention with cliche and vernacular. By the time we arrive at the bomb in the final stanza, the overlay of weapon-filled/military vocabulary becomes clear.
Don't be duped. this is a poem written for the 10th anniversary of 9/11 hole. What are our "holes" -- what do we hold, pour out-- and do we know our "ass from our elbow" ? The mention of "gloaming made us think of these lyrics:
In the gloaming, oh my darling
When the lights are soft and low
And the quiet shadows, falling
Softly come and softly go
When the trees are sobbing faintly
With a gentle unknown woe
Will you think of me and love me
As you did once, long ago?
The Elizzbeth Bishop, Under the Window poem gave rise to a long discussion about Ouro Preto the mining town in Brazil, which means Black Gold and in the 17th century was called Villa Rica because of the Gold rush. We talked of all the details -- how ecologically this could be a contemporary poem speaking of water, of people on the street, still quoting Shakespeare's 7 ages of men...
The opening line allows the reader in: The conversations are simple -- but the poem illustrates that nothing is simple... Among the details, humor in the observations: for instance:
Here comes some laundry tied up in a sheet,
all on its own, three feet above the ground.
Oh, no--a small black boy is underneath.
The bumper sticker on the truck ("with the syphilitic nose) which has an echo of Isaiah "Here I am" quickly turned to FOR WHOM YOU HAVE BEEN WAITING.
By the end, small snatches of disparate conversations return as examples of the "seven ages of man":talkative, soiled and thirsty. Oil in the water... which once all the animals and people drank, saying this is good.
The last stanza where the reflections in the ditch of standing water, "like bits of mirror--no, more blue than that:/like tatters of the Morpho butterfly." leaves one with a sense of irreparable destruction.
We carried the blue into the Frost's ladder in the apple tree pointing to heaven... but which ends with the question of having made a wrong choice, the "overtired…" indicative of perhaps not being careful in what "wished for".
Kendall refers to the form as "free from blank verse; and ambition to record rhythms of natural speech put aside."
To quote Reuben Brower: "the poem comes to the reader through sentences filled with incantatory repetitions and rhymes and in waves of sound linked by likeness of pattern" -- never predictable.
A poem addressing transitions, summer to fall, fall to winter; past to present; waking to sleep. and sleep mentioned 7 times... woodchuck – hibernation...a time to mull over, reflect on one's actions.
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