First, some humor:  in my "prélude" sent early Friday 4/4, one person wrote me this: "You know how software applications sometimes truncate words when they're too long to fit in the computer-allowed space? Your attachment called "Prelude to Nutshell Discussion..." got cut off in my e-mail so it said "Prelude to Nuts." I had to laugh even before opening it.

Then, insight from Maya Angelou: There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside of you. -Maya Angelou  (1928-2014)

In a similar way, every poem I chose for April 2-3 seemed to have links within links of stories that cry out to be told!  How to summarize two discussion sessions on such rich material

 

The briefest summary: This week's selection contained  another poem for an "inaugural occasion", another response to the photo of an abandoned library... for humor, a Billy Collins... a different take on cake, an invisible stenographer, and Langston Hughes' mockery of what the old privileged guard in the 19th century might call Poetry.  

 

NUTSHELL OF DISCUSSION 4/2-3

 

1. The Strength of Fields by James L. Dickey[1]

I was so pleased that everyone enjoyed the sounds, took time to reflect on the complexity of the intertwining in this poem. The link in the footnote connects this poem to the inauguration of Jimmy Carter in 1977 and  his choice of the Dickey, the 18th United States Poet Laureate (appointed in 1966) to pen a poem for the gala held the day before.  As a  "occasional poem" for this occasion,  it would be fitting to choose an exploration of the theme of interconnection. Van Gennep, mentioned in the epigraph further emphasizes the common human rites of passage.

 

 The poem itself unrolls slowly, replete with hyphenated nouns or noun-adjective combinations, and repetitions.

moth-force                              "the sun can be conquered by moths"

field-forms                  (strength /of fields; Lord of all the fields... tended strength

light-decisions

town-moths

train-sound      // freight-train

home-deep      -- (street-lights, blue-force and frail /as the homes of men; blue home-town air)

 

You could make a map of overlays of words such as moon, sea, light, (solar system, sun, stars) Lord, interconnecting along with the sound of a train asked to speak in the voice the sea/would have if it had not a better one. We brought up the idea of "Moth-Force" as both fragility but also persistence.  Moths are capable of navigating in the dark.  

Some felt a quality of a prayer.  The ambiguous nature of pronouns, when they can refer to several different things accentuates a sense of a misty, mysterious moment at night.   For example:  "They look on and help".  They could be the stars.  The dead buried in the pastures.  The pastures themselves.  The moths. 

If you look at the choices of spacing, James Dickey has made waves of indentations but also towards the end, a larger stanza breaks.  Hunger, time and the moon:

[space]

[space]

The moon lying on the brain

 

                                                            as on the excited sea        as on

The strength of fields.

Perhaps this is to give the reader time to think about hunger, time, the moon.  

Then he gives three separate examples, all combined, united by the light of the moon.  I shared with Rundel one of my favorite haikus:  moon in the water / broken and broken again / still it is there.

What is there is the tended strength, announced in the title, The strength of fields, and repeated again.  Everything is in that. The lines tighten, unified in space in a strong block.

 

Mid-poem, Dickey asks, You?    [space]                        I?   What difference is there?  We can all be saved. 

This single line hangs with double-space above and below it.

 

At the end,  he uses the space again filled with an emotional kindness.

More kindness (repeated for the 3rd time) will do nothing less

  Than save every sleeping one

   And night-walking one

 

Of us.  

Every one... meaning all creatures.

The final sentence is one to continue to repeat for us all.  My life belongs to the world.  I will do what I can.

**

Not Even by Michelle Visser

This title launches us into the poem.  How many ways could you continue ?

 

What an odd beginning to introduce Hildegard as if in passing, as if everyone knows there is only one Hildegard worth mentioning, to make the point that in the 12th century, the preparation of parchment was from sheep (white sheep provided the finest, but also calves provided yellow parchment and goats were used as well.)  Carolyn filled us in on the laborious process involved!  She was also generous in bringing in books about Hildegard von Bingen, German Benedictine Abbess and  brilliant polymath born 2 years before the start of the 12th century.  Apparently, she would write words in wax tablets, as only male Abbotts were entrusted with ink on parchment for Biblical exegesis.  She went along with belittling her ability, to give her own ideas more credence as visions coming directly from God. Her friend, the monk and scribe Volmar, would then translate her writings into proper Latin (and scribe them in calligraphy on parchment.)  Not only was her noteworthy writing prolific, but her compositions of music and beautiful illuminations testify to a beautiful and exceptional soul.

 

Back to the poem: We puzzled about the opening sentence.  Perhaps a tribute to her genius, or a way to underscore the countless skins involved to transcribe a Bible in the days before the printing press?  It is not a long poem, but as a response to a photo of an abandoned library, the metaphor of books wrapped in animal skins (the cerebral anchored by the physical) is given the setting of a cold monastery, the grueling work, the thin, gruel to feed the monks, clothed in thin robes, thin hope.  The conclusion is that our animal/human nature also covers us, perhaps more thinly for non-monks, but our faith in the divine can never fully overcome it.  Thin seems to merit attention and accentuates a sense of shivering misery.

 

We laughed heartily at the personification of the books, which writhed, forced themselves/apart or together depending on conditions.

**

Osprey by Billy Collins :  delightful capture with his wry tone of a "birder" and our human fallacies promising to do X as soon as Y, before we get around to Z.  One sentence in 4 quatrains,

opening with an address to an un-named large brown, thickly feathered creature (which the title says is an Osprey -- which detail only augments the irony!).  We have a complete sense of what the bird watcher carries, wears, his boat, the location, and even preference for a restorative tonic once he arrives home, to look up the name of the bird.  On a larger note, the poem perhaps is calling attention to the importance of calling people by their names, knowing more about them. 

It brought up the recommendation of this 8 episode series that looks as the bonding effect of love: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Resident_(TV_series)

 

Banana Bread  by Abby Murray: Anyone who has made banana bread will immediately relate to this masterful description of the bananas who take on quite the role as they freckle, bruise, wrinkle, shrink, are "ugly as salted slugs and sad as you'd expect the fruit of guilt to look."  One

feels a touch of compassion for them, but also for the poet who reflects on how easy it is to squander what lives to be savored.  Lovely moral twist of a lesson at the end -- far more satisfying than the cliché about life giving you lemons  and squeezing it into lemonade.   Wouldn't it be fabulous to be able to assemble our mistakes, "sort our shame and turn it into something as sweet, as useful as cake".

 

The Invisible Stenographer...  by Kathleen Wakefield

Her note about this "persona" clues us in about the power of choosing a persona who will take on the world to write about.  It reminded Marna about children who invent an invisible friend who shoulders difficulties and makes them bearable.  One person noted the crucial importance of "Invisible" in the title, and how important a translator is for instance in sessions of the UN.  Many remembered stenography as a course offered in high school, and most consider short hand an art akin to translation. What a great metaphor for noting a running inventory of all that goes through our head!  

The first stanza summons 4 voices in a cast of  characters, which leads to the question in the second stanza about the role we have in our lives, who's important, and again, this theme of interconnection, the idea that giving/receiving allows the best of us to flourish.  

 

Formula by Langston Hughes.  

In the handout I had a long note about Stereo in Blues  early poems by Langston Hughes curated by Danez Smith. (posted on blog with "Prelude to a Nutshell").

I mentioned the book James by Everitt where in chapter 2, the older slave teaches the young slaves how to survive by disguising what they really think when they speak.  Hughes seems to do this here with irony.  "Formula" as title, the "proscribed" or "prescriptive" way to write poetry seems to mock 19th century privileged white male poets and their idea of "the muse".  Perhaps he is also mocking the  way they draw on the Western canon as well.  You can see he wants poetry to have that exclamation point!  His repeat of the same words in the first stanza has only that distinction and the removal of "should".  This shifts the meaning of "lofty things".

In consequence, soaring thoughts also goes beyond mere abstractions of beauty and truth, and those birds, those wings are free to express the inner truth and outer life of all people.  You can see how Hughes was a founder of a whole new poetics -- not just for black poets, but for us all.

 

I end this long blog filled with gratitude for the nourishment poems provide us all -- each one of us receiving just what we are ready and eager to receive.   

 

 

---

[1] Poem shared in the week-long ceremonies preparing President Carter's inauguration in  1977.  Article about it contains reference to Robert Hayden and many others: https://blogs.loc.gov/bookmarked/2025/01/02/jimmy-carters-lifelong-love-of-poetry/

additional poems related to those of April 2-3

When Carter returned home to Plains, Georgia, in 1981 after his term in the White House, Miller Williams and James Whitehead both wrote poems honoring Carter. Williams’s poem “Sir” (p. 470) and Whitehead’s poem “For President Jimmy Carter on His Homecoming” (p. 471) were later published in the Summer 1981 issue (v. 3, no. 4) of New England Review. You can listen to Whitehead read his poem, which champions Carter as “a steward for the earth” who “cared for human dignity,” starting at 17:02 of the aforementioned A Word on Words episode. I close this post with the last stanza of the poem, which seems an appropriate epitaph for a man whose life was so full of love for all of Earth’s inhabitants:

People and history
Begin to say it’s clear you love the earth,
Day in, day out, so much you catch your breath
To imagine how The Death
Might take the possibility of love away.
Thank you, sir, I’ve nothing more to say. 

FROM RICHARD BLANCO : We're the cure for hatred caused by despair. We're the good morning of a bus driver who remembers our name,

the tattooed man who gives up his seat on the subway. We're every door held open with a smile when we look into each other's eyes the way we behold the moon. We're the moon. We're the promise of one people, one breath

declaring to one another: I see you. I need you. I am you.

 

"Declaration of Inter-Dependence" HOW TO LOVE A COUNTRY, Beacon

 I am sensitive to the over-abundance of information available.  The first poem, by James Dickey, performed at the Gala before  Jimmy Carter's inauguration led me to explore how his love of poetry and belief in the power of words well used, would result in sharing with congress this poem by Dylan Thomas:"The Hand that Signed" by Dylan Thomas  https://poetryarchive.org/poem/the-hand-that-signed-the-paper/--

Dylan Thomas looks at what kings order w/ their signature... and yet a goose's quill can also put an end to murder... that put an end to talk... ) the finger joints cramped with chalk,  A Hand rules pity as a hand rules heaven... // hands have no tears to flow. 

Sunday, Rattle Magazine had a version of this signing, mocking the teetering tower of executive orders on the  president's  oak desk, called  Resolute made of timbers taken from the British ship that shares the desk’s name.  https://rattle.com/executive-orders-by-tonya-lailey/

Tonya LaileyExecutive Orders

Who, in a back room, prepares the folders? The ones

that look like menus from ’80s family restaurants.

In the office, there’s always a person, let’s be honest,

a woman, who procures the staff birthday cards 

then devises a way to circulate them—in a binder, a folder,

within a pad of paper—for discreet signing by fellow

workers. Does the executive-order-folder-preparing-

woman take care of the White House birthday cards

too? I wonder. May I take your order? Does she

say that before whisking the folders off 

to the Office of the Federal Register to be given 

a sequential number?

  

In today’s New York Times photo, just one folder lies

open on the high gloss of the Resolute Desk. Oak 

rests below the thick polish. Timbers taken from the British 

ship that shares the desk’s name. Earlier NYT photos 

showed folders in stacks, like at a hostess station

where families wait to be taken to a table. I remember 

those months too, when there were so many birthday

cards to sign at work that eventually I just signed

my name without much thought for whom it was for

or what anyone else wrote. I’d grab a juicy, inky

marker, like a Sharpie, and use my time to form every

letter in my name, as if that were the gesture, as if 

that were the work. I learned recently of an English 

ancestor on my dad’s side, who mastered his art of making 

wooden bowls. That’s what he learned to do in life, 

so that’s what he did. He turned wooden bowls 

with a pole lathe. Elm mostly. I read he didn’t concern 

himself much with what happened to them

after he’d made them. I once found a photo of him 

in his work shed in an archive online. He and his lathe

in a murky light. Behind him, tower after teetering tower 

            of empty wooden bowls. 

Tonya Lailey

“The photos of President Trump at the Resolute Desk signing executive orders are piling up. For whatever reason, the March 26th one hit me in a new way. Maybe it’s the Sharpie and seeing the name Donald being fully written out in big thick ink. I had been noticing how repetition renders ordinary the story of relentless executive orders. I wanted to explore the ordinary, the simplicity in the act of signing in an office, be it the oval one or otherwise, the familiarity in the office work involved, the movements of people and papers. It is curious to me how such reckless and deadly expressions of power nonetheless adhere to certain codes of conduct, certain rituals. My ancestor’s empty bowls flew in while I was writing. I feel they belong here.”

Poems for April 2-3- prelude

 The Strength of Fields by James L. Dickey[1]  Not Even by Michelle Visser*** see footnote; Osprey by Billy Collins; Banana Bread  by Abby Murray; The Invisible Stenographer Listens to the Dead  by Kathleen A. Wakefield; Formula by Langston Hughes

A lovely thought from Kahil Gilbran (thank you Carolyn):  "All things shall melt

and turn into songs

when spring comes. 

Spring is full of tricksy weather, and the history of April Fools a perfect foil.  To follow up on last week, another poem for an "inaugural occasion", another response to the photo of an abandoned library...

for humor, a Blly Collins... a different take on cake, an invisible stenographer, and Langston Hughe's mockery of what the old privileged guard in the 19th century might call Poetry.  

The nutshell  for last week: has links to the 3.5%; to This American Life; to Verdi -- kindly understand, this is trying to collate a wealth of treasures offered in discussion, not a scholarly report!

I am posting several "nutshells" for this week.  Sent out with "Nutshell #1" these words:

 

This morning I googled the antonyms of subtle thinking about how  tyranny starts in subtle ways. One of these is abusing language. (beware of dangerous words with fatal notions like "emergency" and "exception".)  I was taken to a list of 1,146 words : https://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/the-opposite-of/subtle.html

What is frightening to me, is that some of the antonyms reflect the slippery nature of understanding what subtlety is-- on the surface, many of the words look like positive attributes.  I skimmed through 12 of the categories and stopped after antonyms of beautiful, elegant, astute, wise.

 

Subtle has the reputation for being difficult, ambiguous, unclear-- and the opposite thus gains power by promising to be moral, conscionable, trustworthy, sincere -- 

in the same group of words for "understated" (the "bad" connotation of subtle as delicately complex) immoderate, shocking, misguided, ill-advised  hold hands with  explicit, apparent, 

the opposite of "capable of making fine distinctions" is a best buddy of "innocent, naive, trustful, honest, genuine" !

 

Tyranny is not afraid to be unsubtle, as it puts on its sheep's clothing.

***

**Footnote for Not Even: Last week we enjoyed the poem by Dick Westheimer responding to the photo "Abandoned Library" by Walter Arnold[1], part of Rattle Review's ekphrastic challenge.   Michelle Visser[1]

 Formula:  from the book Blues in Stereo: the early works of Langston Hughes, curated by Danez Smith. It is the final poem of the book, and Smith calls it "ant-Hughes" in the poetics of its claims.  He's poking fun in the voice of the "Muse of Poetry" which Smith thinks is the kind of poet Hughes would least like to see in the world.  Who will be the poets that speak -- who will provide the poems that help us change the world, invite us to have an active hand?  Poetry should treat/of lofty things  in the opening line, moves from statement to command in the final stanza:  Poetry!/Treat of lofty things...Can the shift be believable -- that this include the manure-rich dirt, pain -- lofty things spring from such things , and the call is for all of us to speak to the pain, conjure up compassion for the entire realm of living. 

---

[1] Abandoned stacks of books at the historic Cossitt Library in downtown Memphis, TN 

---

[1] Megan O’Reilly: “The first line of ‘Not Even’ intrigued me with its unexpected phrase, ‘the hard number of sheep it took to copy a bible.’ I was drawn to the contrast between nature and the metaphysical, which continues in the juxtaposition between the physicality of the monks (the stones making their ‘bones ache with cold,’ their ‘thin gruel and thin cloth’) and their belief in the spiritual. This contrast is also a connection: It’s the harshness of physical reality that seems to push the monks toward something beyond the material realm. I love the way this is reflected in Walter Arnold’s image of the bookshelves, a visual which is so tactile and textured, and yet we know that each book we see represents a transcendent experience. The metaphor that runs throughout the poem–books wrapped in animal skins, the cerebral anchored by the physical–reaches its peak at the end with a flawlessly-crafted insight into how our faith in the divine can never fully overcome our human nature.”

---

[1] Poem shared in the week-long ceremonies preparing President Carter's inauguration in  1977.  Article about it contains reference to Robert Hayden and many others: https://blogs.loc.gov/bookmarked/2025/01/02/jimmy-carters-lifelong-love-of-poetry/

Footnotes for Langston Hughes -- from Blues in Stereo: early poems of Langston Hughes curated by Danez Smith. the famous question Hughes is known for is "what happens to a dream deferred."  As a young black poet, Smith and his friends learned that a dream could dry, fester, run, stink, crust and sugar over and even explode.  They stretched their minds to meet Hughe's imagination. This collection contains the early poems of Hughes.  It is hard not to be moved by Hughes, age 18, writing a poem where his "I" is big enough to hold all of us, and "the Negro" is both individual and all Black folks.  

The Negro Speaks of Rivers [1]became his first published poem in June 1921, in The Crisis,  the NAACP's monthly magazine edited at the time by W.E.B. DuBois. Danez Smith claims this poem changed the canon of poetry, the history and sound of American poetics.

Hughes wants us to take his poem Formula with irony.

---

[1] In Hughes autobiography he recounts about looking out at the Mississippi through a train window, near St. Louis

and started thinking about what this river meant to Negroes in the past.  "...then I began to think about other rivers in our past— the Congo, the Niger and the Nile in Africa —and the thought came, "I've known rivers" and I put it down on the back of an envelope I had in my pocket.  Within the space of 10 or 15 minutes, as the train gathered speed in the dusk, I had written this poem.

poems for March 25-6

 Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai/ Whose Doorways are alternate Night and Day,/ How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp/Abode his Hour or two, and went his way-- from the Rubiayat of Omar Khayyam 

One Today  by Richard Blanco; At the End of the World Is Forgetting by Dick Westheimer; Ghazal: Back Home by Zeina Hashem Beck; Instructions for Assembling the Miracle by Peter Cooley (both from Rattle's post on Friday 3/21) The American Abecedarian by Frankie Reiss;  excerpt from Social Norms Pop Quiz  by Ubayawardena Thebara;  The Gift Outright: by Robert Frost; Of History and Hope  by Miller Williams. 

Nutshell: I started with a reminder of poetry's gift of delving deeply into feelings through compressed meanings.   An "occasional poem", one written for a large public occasion such as an inauguration, is quite a different matter as one can see of the 6 inaugural poems from poets chosen by  4 US Presidents. I did quote part of the poem that Robert Frost had prepared for JFK's inaugural election 

As Kennedy remarked at his last speech, delivered at Amherst College on Oct. 26, 1963: "When power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses, for art establishes the basic human truths which must serve as the touchstones of our judgment."

One Today: Blanco:  We read the opening and closing stanza of his inaugural poem.  One is inclusive.  We loved the power of the verb choices:  kindled, peeking, spreading, charging... and the contrast with the silent gestures.  Have you ever looked up at a window of a stranger's house, thought of their story, silent to you, but a story nonetheless behind each one of us.  Blanco will be giving a workshop about the occasional poem-- how this is a different matter of audience and purpose.  However, this does not preclude a delivery of message and fine poetics!

The contrast with Frost's 1961 poem, he had intended to give in rhymed meter, proper support of patriotic myth of the history of our country reminds us that when we read, we are using the lens of our times.  What might someone say about Blanco's poem 100 years from now?  What kind of America will exist?  What kind of Americans?

At the End...Westheimer: Skillful poem sustaining our attention with the repeated "abandoned" and "quiet" and a predominance of O sounds,  shifts between similar words like  tomes to tones, lips to lit.  As Bernie put it, "a block of mournful dirge increasing in weight".  The poems draws on sensory details in the block of prose.  We puzzled about the final three lines.  They have a double space between and are indented -- living fragments indeed between the silent library, and those breathing, alive, reading.  Parts of speech, perhaps because a book is not complete without a reader.  Indeed, true death is when a thing is forgotten, truly no longer exists, is at risk for not existing at all since no one would know to look for it.

Below this link https://rattle.com/at-the-end-of-the-world-is-forgetting-by-dick-westheimer/ are more poems by the poet.  The poem and image elicited quite a few stories about library stacks, a mention of the danger of banning books and who is in charge of de-accessioning.  

Comment from the artist, Walter Arnold

“While reading ‘At the End of the World is Forgetting’ I am transported back to the moment in time when I captured this image. The descriptions of the ‘low hum of traffic” and the whispering dust motes help place the reader (and the viewer in this case) into the scene. As an artist I am always trying to draw people into my scenes, to have them feel like they can look around and dwell in these spaces even for just a fleeting moment. These words help complete that process in an eloquent way that adds to the emotion that I was hoping to convey in the photograph. I also particularly love the lines ‘the darkness of forgetting’ and ‘… between silence and breathing.’ I’d love to use these lines as titles of future photos, with permission from the author of course!”

Ghazal : Hashem-Beck: The repeated "back home" with its different meanings provides links as "a backbone of textures".  The stories of refugees only hinted at in each couplet are sewn  with"a fine thread of emotional tone"(Bernie's image)  connecting what might seem disparate items:  favorite food, in this stanza; memories in that.   The words between husband/wife, displaced teens, the man on the train tracks are familiar: "hold me"; "help us", we don't want to stay (in Europe).  Just stop the war." But they connect as well to the repeated home... to tow back home;  the first meeting of the couple, back home (recounted as a memory, far away from home); how they first kissed then went back home (then); how they never thought their children would be writing help us on cardboard... and the teen as if praying Grow, grow back, home.  The measure bahr as meter and sea, in the second couplet, trying not to measure sorrow back home.  The question is if one wants to return back home.  We only touched on the big question of what "home" means to each living creature on this planet.  Judith did bring up Verdi's Nabucco: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/aria-code/episodes/aria-code-verdi-nabucco   This magnificent rendition of "Going Home" by Paul Robeson  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9smSP1dq-A also came up. 

I am not repeating the ghazal, only parts of it to try to convey the power of the delivery of the message.  Seeing pictures in the news of Ramadan... celebrated in the rubble, the on-going war between Palestine and Israel, makes this piece, written 10 years ago feel as if written just now.     

Instructions: Cooley: A poem from 2007 by a poet who thinks of his poems as "spiritual tool kits". The title seems to indicate a specific Miracle.  The gold in the penultimate line seems to refer to the candle flame, whether it be a real candle or the metaphorical one of the poem.  An odd ending that leaves one hanging -- what is "all in sight" that is transfigured and into what, and why is this  "enough"? 

We did not dwell on it, but in some ways, the poet has opened questions for the reader to explore.

American ABC: Reiss: This 9th grader at SOTA shares a vibrant, savvy voice bringing us up to date in the world of a contemporary teen.  We immediately were struck  by the contrast to the bleak tone of the "At the end of the world" abandoned library poem.  Youth are not going to write such a poem, but find a way to activate! Much of the discussion was about gun violence and how different school is today from school in the 50's and 60's when an emergency drill would involve simply duck and cover.  Bernie sent this link about how 3.5% can "change the world" with non-violent action. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190513-it-only-takes-35-of-people-to-change-the-world

Marna brought up the Singing revolution in Estonia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singing_Revolution 

 excerpt from Social Norms Pop Quiz  by Ubayawardena Thebara;  We did not discuss the "grin and bear it"  but felt the  ironic tone regarding the "they" in charge who supposedly understand all that is thought and registered in the minds and lives of others. 

The Gift Outright: Frost  We ended with reading this with not enough time to discuss the Miller Williams. The poem, as I said in the beginning, is dated and if one wrote such words today, they might seem racist in their assumptions.  Deeds of war as valiant?  A land "unstoried, artless, unenhanced"?  (as if the indigenous people never existed.)

Miller: He seems to take a different stance from both Frost, and present day Trump about the American people:  "We mean to be the people we meant to be/to keep going where we meant to go."  Just who might that be?  For all our Utopianism, desire for a united states, our history has never been revealed a united view of equal rights in this "land of the free and home of the brave". 

  The second stanza follows the concern expressed in the  discussion of the abecedarian.  How do we fashion the future?  

This is worth mulling over carefully  with this from the middle: We... "who were many people coming together/cannot become one people falling apart.".

Final stanza:

It is in the hands of the children... their "eyes already set/ on a land we can never visit— it isn't there yet— /but  looking through their eyes, we can see/we can see what our long gift to them may come to be. /If we can truly remember, they will not forget.

What is true?  Bernie told a story from the PBS series, "This American Life" episode 855: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/855/thats-a-weird-thing-to-lie-about How do we perceive others?  Understand behavior?  For an autistic child, it would seem "neuro-normal" people lie all the time! They tell someone they look pretty, when that's not true.  

Rousing discussion indeed! 

Poems for March 19-20

 You know all secrets of this earthly sphere,/ Why then remain a prey to empty fear?/You cannot bend things to your will, but yet/ Cheer up for the few moments you are here! -- Omar Khayyam

Announcement: Nowruz celebration at UR on 3/23 with Rumi Specialist, 

A Plain Ordinary Steel Needle Can Float on Pure Water by Kay Ryan; The Cameo  by Edna St. Vincent Millay;  Lichen Song by Arthur Sze; Sestina: Like  by A.E. Stallings; In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa[1] by Ada Limón;  Cloud Anthem by Richard Blanco (Set to music by Oliver Caplan :  https://soundcloud.com/music-68-2/cloud-anthem-excerpt-chorus-orchestra

This is another musical reference by Michael Gilberton.https://newfocusrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/cloud-anthem-single

Supplement: I shared  Old Hundred by Lucille Clifton:skillful mix of Psalm 100 and Negro Spiritual  posted by former US Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith (thank you Eddy).  Underneath, Tracy's poem, Wade in the Water.

Reminded people of the special Nowruz (Persian New Year) event and invited all to send to me any favorite Rumi quotation or poem.  You will see I add an epigram for the poems from the 11th century Persian polymath Omar Khayyam -- you are welcome to send any favorite quotations from him and other such wise scholars!  

CORRECTIONS:

Nutshell:

Kay Ryan:  In 15 short ingeniously rhymed lines, 3 sentences laced with adjectives plain, serene, peaceful, tenderest, simple yes... and seeming non-sequiturs of rubbery for water, compared to Jell-O, Ryan enjoys painting observations from the standpoint of an observation announced in the title.  Brilliant is an understatement for her way of addressing unseen tension, with a clear sense of enjoyment and charm.  A needle on rubbery water, with a point encased /in the tenderest dimple, -- as if lying on a pillow?  How is it that things or people modify each other's qualities?  It takes the oddity of her set-up to remind us of the oddity of that!

Edna St. Vincent Millay:  (1892-50)  With her skill of sonneteer, this exquisite 16 line poem creates a vision of "love not meant to be", carved like a cameo, preserved as a gem stone.  The repetitions and choices of sounds such as the collection of hard c's

from the title, (Cameo repeated twice more), clear, [and diminished -- this combo also twice] carven... cove, cut (twice), cold, cliff, alliterations, and metaphor of the action of waves akin to the action of sorrow, crystalize and honor what had been and is no more.  A colorful addition to the  much that has been written about her, here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/05/16/how-fame-fed-on-edna-st-vincent-millay-diaries-rapture-melancholy

Arthur Sze : Apologies for the format-- Eddy brought in the book, Sight Lines from which "Lichen Song" comes.  The block of text was not lineated as it should be in the book.  To start a poem with "—Snow in the air" , and an unknown speaker who turns out to be the voice of one of the most ancient forms of life,  and employ unusual spaces and line breaks feels quite daring.  Was thousand broken into thou - sand?  Clearly, the lichen is chiding us humans, as one person says, "brings us down a peg".  We are but a "blink" -- and have not learned that we "are not alone in pain and grief"... although we have installed pain and grief... 

The poem dares us to "urge the dare and thrill of bliss"... We all agreed on the mastery of this poem and punned how we were "likin' it. 

Judith was reminded of a  tree story by Ursula LeGuin.  It is in the collection Buffalo Gals and other Animal Presences, and is titled “Direction of the Road.” As Judith says,  it is really really unusual, and as often with Ursula, dead-pan funny.  O what a magnificent writer and thinker she was.  It cannot be read even as a prose poem—that is not remotely its intention, but a gem.

A.E. Stallings: Like as final word in each line of a sestina, which invites a possible tedious chore of working with repeated end words could be a challenge for most writers.  Alicia Elspeth however, clearly not only revels in form and tosses off pantoums like confetti, but uses it with skill to explore meanings.  What does it mean to "like" someeone or something?  What did it mean before facebook?  Has conversational speech changed, replacing pauses with "you know" with pauses of "like"? Simile has  a reputation as inferior image to metaphor; "like" as simile still remains a valuable and popular tool.  Where is truth in our subjective use of "liking" or "disliking" something?  Perhaps the falseness of a virtual world doesn't allow "dislike" in its set of proscribed responses in the case of facebook, and desire  "money-like" and act cuckoo-like (pushing others out of nests) .  We admired her use of the archaic "belike" .  The poem is satire, comedy, meditation all at once.  The question might be, is it memorable?    

Ada Limon:  The How and What that goes into our memory is an important item to consider in our human history.  Is this finely crafted poem any more memorable than the sestina by Stallings?  Lovely crafting  with aba rhyme in the first tercet, eye-rhyme of "inky" and "sky", how "rain" as final word in the 5th tercet carries into the rhyme of the "vein" as final word on the first line of the 6th.  Indeed, we, as "blink" pin "quick wishes on stars" and this poem traveled on NASA's Europa Clipper.   As an occasional poem, the wishful thinking of how we, as human inhabitants on this planet, would like to be considered by other forms of consciousness in the universe seems to be the politically correct choice.  Indeed we are made "of wonders, loves, invisibles" whether these are great or small, whether indeed we can say all humans are in constant awe, this much Ada credits us with: we have a need to call out through the dark.

Richard Blanco:  This poem,is  hands down is memorable.  It uses cloud as a metaphor to explore the nature of being human.  The anaphor of until  opens a series of fragments and repeats 14 times until interrupted twice by "though" and twice by "we" of what we can do:  The first instance, we can collude into storms that ravage, is one possibility and also "sprinkle ourselves like memories" -- which makes me think of history sprinkling its repeats, both good and bad.  That last two "Untils" show us the direction.  Just like clouds, so much depends on wind, on conditions.  Originally from the 2020 project "The Crossing Votes"   Here, he reads it (Jan. 2021) https://www.facebook.com/RichardBlancoPoetry/videos/1711208562384848/

 there are several musical settings of it. For the one I gave with music by Oliver Caplan, this article explains more:  https://www.nhmasterchorale.org/post/imagining-a-better-world-the-music-of-oliver-caplan

 

 

 

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[1] “In Praise of Mystery” by Ada Limón was released at the Library of Congress on June 1, 2023, in celebration of the poem’s engraving on NASA’s Europa Clipper, scheduled to launch in October of 2024.  Limón, in addition to being national poet laureate, she was appointed in January 2025 as one of the chancellors in the American Academy of Poets. 

March 12-13

 email note w/ send out of poems:

In my blog https://kdjospe.blogspot.com/ I apologize for leaving off the crucial last 2 words of the second Merwin Poem along with a short summary of our fabulous discussions.    I include many links but  cannot figure out how to share one from Bernie  of  a letter written by one of his friends who is a dharma teacher in Thich Nhat Hanh tradition.   I agree  that a letter is a small step in activating ourselves.  This particular letter is a reminder of the need for an antidote to our tendency to "tribalize others", accusing them as being wholly immoral and evil.  I am reminded that stooping  to anger interferes with understanding and invites further harm.   Should you wish a copy of this letter or the blog,  let me know.  I am sensitive to the overuse of internet sharing.

Back to the poems!  Oh the words!  Understanding our love of them, our need, our sharing of them.  I cannot tell you how much I treasure our time together.  Share: not as a portion, a divide, a cut, percentage, but a gesture of generosity towards each other.   

For next week:   The 3rd poem was recited by Judith in response to the Gwendolyn Brooks sonnet last week.  I apologize to scrollers for my attempt of side-by-side 

of the Robert Frost and Shakespeare .  You will see a large space after the last line of the Shakespeare Youth's a stuff will not endure. Frost's Flower Gathering starts with I left you in the morning. (reference is in the footnotes).

Poems: When One Has Lived a Long Time Alone (excerpts-- first and last stanzas) full poem here

by Galway Kinnell;

Love Poem With Toast by Miller Williams; Not in a silver casket cool with pearls by Edna St. Vincent Millay; The Bracelet: To Julia  by Robert Herrick (from Robert Frost Book review ); “The World After Rain”  by Canisia Lubrin; POEM BY WENDELL BERRY:   VII; Carpe Diem (from 12th Night  Shakespeare    side by side w/ Flower-Gathering  by Robert Frost

Book review  How Robert Frost "invested in the literary tradition": note: In Maggie Doherty's review of Love and Need  by Adam Plunkett, "My appreciation of the exquisite late sonnet "The Silken Tent" did not increase upon learning that it borrows an image from this 17th century poem. In the same article,   Emerson's poem,  about Montaigne's relationship with a close friend, mentioned as an inspiration for The Road not Taken, written for the English poet Edward Thomas.

In a nutshell...  poems about aging, and love... poems which draw on "ulteriority" -- how you can love a poem without explaining the sense... Each poem offers a different spin, and we wondered,  what motivated Miller Williams to come up with "toast" in his upbeat poem?

Kinnell:  Good prompt.  Start a poem where each stanza repeats the same opening and closing line.  Try 11 of them.  Not "When one has lived a long time".  Or "when one has lived alone"... what is a long time and what is alone in the context of saving small creatures one used to thoughtlessly swat... but now offer "a life line flung at reality".  The repeat of "one", not a person, but a general reference to being human perhaps gave some the idea of a sermon, and many said, "for such a fine poet, not his best work". Others did not feel a tone of sadness, regret, but rather a meditative contemplation reflecting on the complexity of life.  The sense of life, birth to death, the gaze of the new baby looks past the gaze/of the great granny... and the unusual way of describing love with "lips blowsy from kissing, that language/the same in each mouth."  But he goes on... with a comparison of long-winded blethering of the birds.  It's not the words that are of consequence, it might seem, but the singing of daybreak, both earth's and heaven's.

Williams:  plenty of disparity in how to understand this poem which starts out logically enough about what it is we do, whether to make things happen, or trying to keep something from doing something.  He expands this idea with 6 repeats of wanting as anaphor, alternating between wanting to... and wanting not. Yes/no.  Some felt it was a poem about wanting what is beyond our understanding or control.  There's enough ambiguity to suit any reader's take.  Is it a tender love poem about two older people?  Or, two people caught in the complexity of life, pretending it makes any sense?  Lots of fun to read and re-read.

This is the same poet who was selected for Bill Clinton's second Inauguration. Of History and Hope https://poemanalysis.com/miller-williams/of-history-and-hope/ -- full poem here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47107/of-history-and-hop

Millay: Not in a silver casket... as in a jewelry case, not about death at all, only a beautiful rejection of artificiality.  The last lines say it all -- Look at me... at what I have... with all the veracity of a child.  Millay's mastery (and love) of language is clearly evident.  Judith gave a summary of a poetry session on her at Maine Media.  Growing up on farm, very poor, many of her poems are filled with vegetation.  

Herrick:  Back to 17th century... this poem apparently inspired Robert Frost in his love poem, The Silken Tent :  https://poemanalysis.com/robert-frost/the-silken-tent/  But is he sincere? His love of conceit evident... but Julia? 

Lubrin:  her book, The World After Rain will come out in October... so we have no idea if this is a complete poem or an excerpt from the book, or how it fits in.  And yet.. we thought it magnificent!  References to Santa Lucia, the strange disconnect between mother and daughter -- where the mother's reality and astonishment feels so negative, but the daughter, as the voice of the poet, lifts up with imagination, connection with a sense of a former world... 

Judith provided us the story of a mother explaining the word slippery to her son who couldn't understand it, by dumping a bucket of water filled with fish over his head.  Yes. This is that sort of poem, where we can't  quite put the feel of it into words. 

Berry:  beautiful love poem... and kindness towards one's aging self... "young, with unforeseen debilities" is so much more gracious than decrepit.  And to feel the love still of how one used to love... that is a "beautiful bomb" at the end!

We loved the idea of age being a "progression" with new stages and the optimistic tone.  Judith brought up "No one loses all the time" by E.E. Cummings : https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1628/nobody-loses-all-the-time/

Frost:   So, poets steal from poems, and roaming from the snippet of Shakespeare appears in Frost. Seize the day.  

Judith shared at the end the grace and beauty of dancers, who off-stage might have looked ready for burial, but as soon as they approached the stage, returned to their former state of supreme mastery and race. Duende... what comes up inside of you, fills you with a love of life, some might say.  

March 5-6

  

Worn Words  by W.S. Merwin; To the Words (9/17/01)  by W.S. Merwin; Chaplinesque  by Hart Crane; my dreams, my works, must wait till after hell  by Gwendolyn Brooks; Schroedinger’s Cat  by  Wanda Schubmehl; Gaia’s Dream  by David Sutton; When I Am Asked by Lisel Mueller 1924 –2020; May Perpetual Light Shine by Patricia Spears Jones

Email with send out of poems for March 5-6:  "Here on the last day of February, I started the day re-reading the preface  to September 11, 2001, American Writers Respond, edited by William Heyen, and the first three poems -- by W.S. Merwin, Tamman Adi, Ai...  Merwin's words seemed to be a timely share. I am reminded of how easy it is in the news to blame a religion, a nationality.  Let us not forget that harm to other humans no matter what the affiliation is wrong. Let us maintain dignified and respectful behavior with poems that champion The Just, as we saw in the Borgès poem last week.

I am so grateful for good discussions as we respond to careful crafting of words in poems each week.

If anyone wishes the short resume of discussion I make each week, let me know. "

Starting the session: “Stanley Kunitz: ‘Most of all, I love being alive. I love the natural world -- and caring and creative people -- and the seekers of justice and truth. Whom do I disdain? Bigots, reactionaries, self-righteous people, zealots, trimmers, bullies, and manipulators.” 

**

Nutshell:  

I usually write about the discussion going poem by poem.  This morning, reading more of Heyen's anthology, I reflect on  the difficulty we humans have with language, our tool of expression.   In Patrick Bizzaro's essay, he speaks about "Houses of History made of words";  Wendell Berry shares a 4 page, XXVII point essay that reminds us of the importance of examining ourselves, as we try to understand the words wielded by the dominant politicians, investors, those who believe their promises.

It is easy to bandy about a word like "prosperity", call peace a "beautiful thing", substitute rhetoric without acknowledging a self-righteousness that mistakenly believes "promoting American interests as primary by abrogating international treaties, and standing aloof from international cooperation on moral issues" will ensure "victory" to paraphrase Berry.  He  points out that ends obtained by violence, lead to further violence, and our last two centuries of wars that confirm this.  Calling someone an "enemy" without understanding reasons they might be in a position to hate us, is is not a solution to conflict.

I think all who gather to discuss poems each week feel our attempts to understand how the words are working as we share our collective efforts to sharpen insights are precious indeed.  I thank each and everyone of you.  Poems are not prose, are not essays, but crafted words that express deeper meanings that can help us better examine ourselves.  

Bernie shares  a letter written by one of his friends who is a dharma teacher in Thich Nhat Hanh tradition. (I'm not sure how to hyperlink it).   I agree  that a letter is a small step in activating ourselves.  This particular letter is a reminder of the need for an antidote to our tendency to "tribalize others", accusing them as being wholly immoral and evil.  I am reminded that stooping  to anger interferes with understanding and invites further harm.  

I am also aware that we all can suffer from email overload!  https://www.thensomehow.com/the-email-charter-10-rules-to-reverse-email-overload/

**

I have tried to condense as best I can the actual discussion of the 4 pages of poems on March 5-6.

Worn Words: One adjective to describe this short 10-line poem, is baffling.  The repetitions expand with a layering of meaning behind "late" as poems containing age-old wisdom, "worn" as overcoat, well-worn by use,  and of course "words", how they beckon, patiently waiting "almost in plain sight".  The binaries in Robert Graves' poem, The Face in the Mirror came to mind.  

To the Words:  This was the opening poem in the anthology edited by William Heyen, September 11, 2001 mentioned above.  Each selection is dated.  The poem also appears in the 9/30/2001 edition of The New Yorker and Merwin's anthology Present Company.  I apologize profusely -- the last two words are missing.  After and helpless ones, a stanza break then, say it.  

Is it an imperative? or continuation of what the words do... The you... (words) .in all the myriad functions and attributes described in the poem,  say it.   Yes, a statement, but also can be understand as an imperative.  What is this "it", second word of the first line, final word of the poem?

This is an example of the poem which confirms there is never one answer, one way of understanding, and what better expression of the malleable and deep implications of the adjectives chosen to describe words:  indispensable, sleepless, ancient, precious.  The poem feels like a prayer, both an invocation as well as praise for what words do.  The  pacing of  the lines, the space between stanzas accentuate the almost inexpressible power of words.  3rd line: one feels them moving through the ages, no interruption "passed on from breath to breath" , and that very passing then drops through the lines again, age/to age -- and we trust words are charged with knowledge -- but then a sense of contradiction:  knowing nothing... and indifferent .  I am reminded of the ancient wisdom of the gospels:  In the Beginning, was the Word.  

We were surprised by the adjective helpless at the end.  One thought was that words cannot decide how they are or will be used.

In the stanza, "keepers of our names" we were reminded of poetry of remembrance for BLM,  Exhibit at Stanford,  "Say their Names;  Transgender Day.  

Chaplinesque: We discussed Hart Crane (1899-1932), Chaplin's life and work... enjoyed the juicy language, the dual mention of "smirk" as noun then verb, the possibilities of the word "game" as possibly connected to the folly of capitalism.  The "grail of laughter of an ash can" an amazing image we could see, yet feel the ancient sense of "the chalice of salvation".  Why the mention of the Kitten-- is that a reference to a Chaplin film?  We also needed a reminder of the word, covert, as noun, which means shelter.  What makes something Chaplinesque -- makes us laugh at the folly of progress, and yet urges us to embrace the tenderness of our hearts?

my dreams...  Another fabulous Brooks sonnet.  The two capitalized words on line 4 -- what she "bids each lid" : Be firm until I return from hell. Last word on line 7: Wait. Such fierceness of spirit.  Discussion examined darkness, interior life, vs. outside.  The repeat of opening line with the change... hold rhymes with old -- that honey and bread...  a lasting taste, and absolutely hers.   It prompted Judith to remember Edna St. Vincent Millay's sonnet, https://allpoetry.com/Not-In-A-Silver-Casket-Cool-With-Pearls

Schroedinger's Cat:  Bart sums it up.  WOW.  Not an easy experiment, and not an easy poem about illusion, everything and its opposite all at once, here and not, rather like walking in a hall of endless mirrors.  

Gaia's dream:   If told as we were lucky enough to be, this is an amazing hommage to glaciers... you will understand those blue mystery snails in a larger light.  How to understand Gaia, Mother Earth and our place in her dream?  How to understand "Again, she cradles us with cruel love"... I like how at the end, "off for good" could be both "good" as opposed to "bad", as well as "once and for all."  Comments included concern for trees, the danger of the weight of trucks, and Bernie shared this amazing film:https://www.primevideo.com/detail/The-Hidden-Life-of-Trees/0GC1VQR9PCJTN8ICA742WKLPBF some offer rental at $3.99 https://www.tvguide.com/movies/the-hidden-life-of-trees/2030450161

When I am asked:  beautiful way to understand the power of words... back to Merwin's wisdom.

May Perpetual : Sounds like Catholic liturgy.  I will be attending a workshop Patricia is leading at Writers and Books (only open to teaching artists alas) next Thursday and ask her about the inconsistent caps at the beginning of lines like "Famine" in the 3rd stanza.  What patterns matter?