Poems for Aug. 25

 Inside by Dan Albergotti; For the Anniversary of my Death  by W.S. Merwin; From the Sky by Sara Abou Rashed; Around Us by Marvin Bell; Any Common Desolation  by Ellen Bass; How to Take a Life  by Janel Pineda; Frederick Douglass  by Robert Hayden;  Back Yard by Carl Sandburg; Driving West  by Linda Pastan; My Daughter Describes the Tarantula  by Faith Shearin

For last week's poem, Elegy by Merwin, I provided a link  to a post by Devin Kelly,  poet/professor who said:"A poem doesn’t save us from this world, and it doesn’t save the world from whatever the world might need saving from. But a poem is, in and of itself, a kind of value that someone cultivated within this world from those very needs and desires and questions."

I agree... and further agree that the kind of attention we pay to a poem  awakens our hearts and minds to appreciate what sustains us. 

Inside by Dan Albergotti is such a poem.  In an interview with Ploughshares, about it,   the poet explained   the rhythm of a 3 beat anapest (short-short-long) followed by an iamb (short long) drove the poem.  The pattern captures what lies inside a lake, a sea, soil, but also abstractions: the dark, light, and metaphors:  steel, dust, air, vessel. With the hole in the earth,  one senses burial,  and grief inside one's own living blood where the image of the one gone becomes a vessel, leaving in the trace of these four couplets, a wake.  We noted the interweaving and repetition of internal rhyme: the rhyming of the final words of a couplet carrying on to the 3rd syllable of the next first line-- I type up  the sequence of rhymes below.

shark/lark: dark  

trust/rust: dust  (memory in the dust)

soul/coal: hole   (the coal in the diamond)

quake/wake

The richness of internal rhyme such as seed, tree, steel;  head-unsaid provides further associations and interconnections of a complex tapestry of life.

 

We puzzled about how to understand In the child, the weight of years.  Perhaps the beginning of a life story and what a child will bear growing up.  We also made conjectures about how to understand In my blood, your vessel ran, which seems less awkward if you do not connect "blood vessel" although one can see the connection.  

 

We agreed it was a hauntingly beautiful poem with multiple threads to admire, hold up in multiple lights and weavings.

For the Anniversary of my Death:  Bernie provided  Dan Chiasson's short article about this in the New Yorker entitled, "The Final Prophecy of W.S. Merwin".  Chiasson summaries that the anniversary, perhaps a small Zen joke, contrasts being outlived with last week's "Elegy" -- which addresses "outliving".  For both poems, I feel a little background on the poet will help the rather enigmatic choices of Caps on first words and lack of  punctuation.

 

Theorists propose that unusual punctuation of  Merwin, like e.e. cummings, or William Carlos Williams, allows an unfettering effect.  Dan Chiasson compares Merwin's lack of punctuation to how "a jet stream must speak, or "how a crack in bedrock might introduce itself" -- but for sure, to avoid "stapling the poem to the page".   As for a theory of capitalizing, it is curious to guard that traditional practice but forego rules of punctuation.  One thought is that it  places an accent on the first words.  If you read first word each in a row, "Every When— Tireless Like Then" is an intriguing combination.  The four "And" stand out, as does the rhyme between "When" and "Then" and wren in the penultimate line.  Our brains are sensitive to such innuendoes, which also occurs with  eye-rhyme of "bowing" and "not knowing".

 

Regardless, the fact that Merwin wrote this poem when he was 33, published it seven years later in his book Lice in 1967, and again in his book The Second of Four Books of Poems in 1993, and since 2019, we can read it on the actual March 15 anniversary, perhaps provides several different angles with which to read it.  

 

I highly recommend that you spend a few minutes with these two links found on the Merwin Conservancy web page.  The first is commentary of the man who made a film about him.  The second will show you the scope of work that Merwin undertook and his Buddhist practice -- poetry, translation, essays on words  and ecology. 

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/merwinfilm/129836313

https://merwinconservancy.org/w-s-merwin/

 

Discussion of the poem:  Each of the 13 lines can be savored independently, or read as two sentences in two stanzas.  Polly brought up that this is the first summer she has not heard a wren at her cottage.  Elmer reassured us that he is hearing plenty of wrens.  Merwin captures a sense that the world is indeed a magical place.  Indeed, sensitive as he was to the man-provoked disasters and destruction of nature, writing poems such as "Even though the world is burning", or "For a coming extinction", he is able to go beyond this.  His work on Maui, creating a palm forest creates such magic.  

 

To find ourselves, "in life as in a strange garment" resonated with many of us -- embodied, not quite as ourselves, and yet, we are that self.  The humble side of Merwin is revealed in the final line.

 

From the Sky:  The poet is Palestinian-American.  Judith reminded us of the murder of Lorca and the Spanish Revolution.  Although the poem could be solely political, the opening stanza is clearly not speaking of the reality of the sky, filled with planes, space stations, warring parties and drones.  We discussed the link between the metaphorical sky burial, a heaven unsullied by war, a place of peace after life.  Using all the senses, and the perspective of looking down, the poet provides a sampling of life, rife with death.

 

Around Us:  This poem evoked many memories of camping and our need for connection to nature. 

Although "zipper" and "snap" are good onomatopoeia, many felt coupling that "a little sound of thanks" took away from any otherwise expression of gratitude, and trust in the possibility of good.

 

Any Common Desolation:  Threading the title to the first line "unstitches" the negativity of "desolation" until the wordsshot, rip, break, echo a certain violence in describing what should be beautiful.  Add the ruby neon of the liquor store, and the discombobulating effect of "all you dread, can't bear, dissolves/like a needle slipped into your vein..."  We loved the description of the socks-- that was the heat of the poem, and most of us wanted it to stop on "dissolves".    Judith brought up the parallel with the ballet Swan Lake-- where the lyric grace of dancers suddenly changes gear.  For a visual taste of this, compare the first two minutes, with the following minute in this clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btiBzU9mCgY

 

How to Take a Life : real life told -- and how we ached, feeling this story in these 13 lines.

 

Frederick Douglass: a perfect sonnet... this dream of the beautiful, needful thing.

Hold fast to dreams, says Langston Hughes. This poem reminds us to continue to make the vision of a just world, where "man, superb in love and logic" will be remembered, "fleshing his dream of the beautiful needful thing."  

 

Back Yard:  And back to nature.  I felt I was eavesdropping on Sandburg's private song sung to the moon. Hold on to such moments... 

 

Driving West: Although Linda was born in the Bronx, was Maryland Poet Laureate from 1991-5, one feels she has experienced this travel first hand.   These words would have been enough perhaps:  "We are pioneers ///  of our own histories, drawn/to the horizon as if it waited just for us" -- but she goes on with one more couplet :  the way the young are drawn/to the future, the old to the past. It's no longer about driving West, but the larger sense of life's journey. 

So many in the room who have traveled West could relate to this... but even better are the universal lines about what it is about traveling -- drawn to the horizon.

 

My Daughter Describes the Tarantula : We did discuss real tarantula -- and yes, they are quite soft will not bite unless you threaten them.  This is a wonderful snapshot of a small thing most people would shy away from knowing connected to the complexity of mother-daughter relationship.  Don't we all want to be appreciated properly, feel we have a place where we belong?

August 19+ 21

 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. 

The Science of Life

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.

The Value of an Onion

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.

The Value of a Person

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.

Why It All Matters

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.

poems for when I'm away July 15, 22, 29, Aug. 5, 12

Pictures sent:

For 7/22: sculpture called "Rubato" in front of Malmö Live (music hall complex) -- one is allowed to climb in it... 

For 7/29

Too many pictures of marvels to know which to be able to share... so a glimpse of a rainbow will have to do.  Here in the Faroes, natives think nothing of the constant shift from blustery wind, pelting rain to a a blue sky and sun shining on a waterfall dance.  We saw many "rainbow opportunities" but yesterday was the first real one

for Aug. 12 -- a picture of the Quiraing

We are about to leave the magic of the Scottish Highlands, and now starts the friends and family part of the trip. I will look forward to seeing you on Aug. 19 and 21 (Polly says: just noticed the bird in the distance! The great and the small. That got me!)

For Aug. 19

picture of modern market and St. Nicolas Church in Ghent!

 July 15 A Dream of the Future by Joyce Sutphen; Please Don’t  by Tony Hoagland; Wake Up by Adam Zagajewski; In Bed With A Book by Mona Van Duyn; Poem to Watch over You by Omotara Jamesm;

The House With Nobody In It by Alfred Joyce Kilmer;

July 22 (poems on beauty)

Poems are not going to dramatically change your life.  Do not approach them as if they do.

Poems ask you to pay attention — that's all.  A poem cannot be paraphrased.  In fact, a

poem's greatest potential lies in the opposite of paraphrase: ambiguity.

Life is Beautiful, by Dorianne Laux; No Images by Waring Cuney; Scarf  by Rita Dove; Quilt by Nikki Giovanni; The Word  by Tony Hoagland;  Retired by Faith Shearin

Judith's take: That first one was a lulu after one got through the sly presentation of it as just a mass of sentences squished together.  And like so much poetry it made a much greater impression when read aloud.  The other poem which was SO impressive was the No Images—especially when we heard it sung by Nina Simone—o my o my o my.  The only thing I can compare it to was Kathleen Ferrier singing Ben Jonson’s “Have You Seen But the White Lily Blow.”  And what warmed the cockles (and muscles) of my heart was Simone’s gorgeous pronunciation!  No mumble and she pronounced her “t” which nobody in America does anymore—just as I cringe when I hear “bewdy” for “beauty”…

 

So the Rita Dove poem presented after just could not hold its place—because ANYTHING would have been a let down after that prior experience.  We liked it very much but it had to suffer in that lineup.  Quilts was much appreciated also.  Neil spoke of having all his late wife’s slogan T shirts laid out like a quilt, which went over well as he was wearing a Gorey sweatshirt about books…Kathy thought that the kings and queens in the penultimate stanza sort of did not fit the poem’s style—I agreed with her.  Lots of people liked the lines about the coffee grinder and the spare tire.

 

It was a rousing session! 

July 29

This selection in the Year of the Horse, (2026)   is from Poem-a-Day selections 10 years ago.

Galway Races by W. B. Yeats 1865 –1939; Tender Buttons [Nothing Elegant] by Gertrude Stein; Letters by Ralph Waldo Emerson; Electrons by Ruth Madievsky; Any Common Desolation  by Ellen Bass;

Accepting Heaven at Great Basin by Nathalie Handal; Eros by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Jack-in-the-Pulpit by Kimiko Hahn (side by side w/ poem that inspired it) Queen-Anne's-Lace  by William Carlos Williams

Horses  by Witter Bynner

August. 5 poems related to food; You might enjoy more here: "Feast on this smorgasbord of poems about eating and cooking, exploring our relationships with food.

We Eat Out Together by Bernadette Mayer; Eating Alone  by Li-Young Lee 1957; Churning Day  by Seamus Heaney; The Rambutan Notebooks by Aimee Nezhukumatathil; Butter by Elizabeth Alexander

 Meditation on a Grapefruit by Craig Arnold 

Aug. 12: To Prisoners Gwendolyn Brooks; Poems from "Poetry and the Creative Mind" :  celebrating National Poetry Month, April 2026 https://poets.org/2026-poetry-creative-mind

 One thing is easy / to keep, your old language I use for poems / and pillow talk.”-- from New Tradition/新传统 by Evan Wang   https://poets.org/poem/new-traditionxinchuantong;   

Devotion by Tracy K. Smith;   The Fisherman  by W.B. Yeats;   The Dancing by Gerald Stern;  Telephone Booth (number 905 1/2) by Pedro Pietri  The Geometry of the Uninvited by Gregory O'Neill

Aug. 19

 Food by Brenda Hillman; (one very long, but segmented poem); 3 short poems. Elegy by W.S. Merwin;

one stanza ghazal - by Agha Shahid Ali; Poem by Langston Hughes;  (I loved my friend.); A Bowl of Fruit by Stephen Dunn; The Traveling Onion  by Naomi Shihab Nye

Judith reports: Meanwhile, back at the ranch—dressing, I guess with this collection.  Barbara happened to have brought lunch in the form of yogurt with maple syrup on it, but the rest of us were helpless under your relentless attack.  We really really got into these poems.  Graeme had Eddy read the one which he had sent to you—and for once in a way (to be blunt) his reading was good.  Maybe because he intimately relates to this poet more than some others.  By the time we got to butter we were in a fairly rollicking mood—Graeme asked me to read it, which I did with proper—unction.  But then I exploded that we would all have to go home and have our cholesterol meds, and pointed out that we could Not enjoy the grapefruit poem because of those meds!  Bernie asked how many were on statins and at least 2/3 of those present raised their hands!  So they are deprived of grapefruit too.  (And why are oranges and lemons not a part of this ban???) I then told them of the discussion group I had belonged to before Covid broke it up and how I had teased an earnest young fellow by describing how I ate one pink grapefruit a year at New Year’s, as a special treat because I LOVE grapefruit and am forbidden it.  the poor kid used to get SO flustered—it was a riot and I was so mean—it was a hoot to see a very young fellow react to an elderly witch be erotic over a damn pomelo…So Graeme said go ahead and read this poem too—so I did—reeling and writhing in my most Method Manner.  It was very enjoyable.  So we went home happy if rather peckish and I tried to stanch my estomac with an open face toasted cheese sandridge.  Indifferent success.  

 

What a hoot!

July 8 + 10

There Never Was Time, by Byron Herbert Reece; The force that through the green fuse drives the flower  by Dylan Thomas; The Question Ever  by Wndy Videlock; The Talker by Mona Van Duyn; Fidelity by William Ward Butler; Mutability by William Wordsworth; The Secret in the Mirror by Alberto Ríos

Nutshell

The first two by poets were born only 3 years apart (in 1914 and 1917) and both died before the age of 40. There never was time could be a philosophical thought about time as some resisting definition, and not to be confused with age.  To end the poem by repeating the title, adds heft to the thought that time refuses "completion", and that living in fact is an ever-unending and unfinished business.  We appreciated how a poet, only 35 years old when he wrote the poem, captured the tone of a wise old man.

The poem has some beautiful lines and sounds, for instance, the first two opening lines , and then the 13th line:  The roughs of knowledge that wanted scaling/Loomed — there was time to be a sage;  The three short parenthetical sentences sum up the problem:  1.  There was time for youth to pass; 2. Time enough for a man to age; 3) Never time for everything.

We discussed TB and the impact on a life knowing there is no cure for it.   

How different in tone the energy of Dylan Thomas: The force that through the green fuse that drives... first the flower, his green age; then the water, and his blood.  We discussed the repeated 4th line, And I am dumb ... which at each instance seemed to have a different connotation.  sorry, loathe, unable, ignorant, speechless, stymied...   The poem is haunting with its unusual syntax, with a wildness of images to paint contractions of the interconnections between life and death. We agreed, this is a poem to be voiced outloud where the  power of delivery is more important than trying to ascribe sense to the words. 

It came up how Thomas was quite the alcoholic, and how "drinking like a fish" applies to the fish in salt water, who actually gulp water as opposed to freshwater fish who absorb it through their gills, skin. The Handbook for lightning strike survivors. also came up.  The author Michele Young-Stone has written two other books available in the MCLS. (Monroe County Library System).  It's listed as 2010 in the audiobook version Bernie has which is available through Hoopla via the Brighton (or likely any other MCLS library), and also in Libby. He found it a good listen.

The question ever:  No matter the contradictions, human beings share common ground in trying to understand fear, especially if it doesn't seem "reasonable".  We enjoyed the poet's short note as much as her poem, if not more.

 

The Talker:  Coming from a book "If it be not I", the poet plays with a persona poem style, in this case, a  a portrait of a blustering borderline bloviator.  Her line breaks are delicious, particular with the long enumeration of subjects on which the person talks, comma, line and stanza break, as if renewing energy with a deep breath to emphasize the endlessness with "of everything".

Bullfrogs triggered many associations such as what Warty Biggins might have to say https://goldenstate.wordpress.com/2010/04/28/1719/.  Jim offered a story about the silent observation of bullfrogs watching him while camping.  We all know people who could profit from some restraint in being the loudest voice.

 

Fidelity:  Although the note doesn't say anything about LGBTQ, the reference to pronouns as a way to declare identity, or a "he" having a hysterectomy as reference to transgender, and the general difficulty of society to accept alternatives to socially acceptable classification points to it.  Starting with death, and pronouncing a cut carnation as dead, the poem proceeds to definitions and theories then pulls out Judith slaying Holofernes.  We felt the poet is angry about political tyranny.  Changing one's "pronouns" is a way to protest.   

 

Mutability:  a beautifully phrased  philosophical musing about the constancy of  the unpredictable shifts and changes of life.  How to recognize that even awful music is part of the sound of truth.  

Difficult to understand exactly what he might have meant by the unimaginable touch of Time.

 

The secret in the mirror:  delightful combination of sound and a humorous take on who and what it is we see in the mirror when we look.  

 

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10162845725930922&set=pcb.1509821157506415

more events at Rundel and Kate Gleason Auditorium at Central Library  regarding American History: 

 

July 1

 Because of the July 4 holiday, there was no session July 3 at Writers and Books.

The Human Constitution  by Jim Armstrong; Spell by Katherine Gale DaCosta; I, Too by Langston Hughes; Ghazal: The Dark Times by Marilyn Hacker; The Andalusian Dog Finds Answers Pablo Medina; Bells in the Rain by Elinor Wylie; Fire and Sleet and Candlelight by Elinor Wylie;

extra: Anaphora Using Wilfred Owen’s Line “If you could hear, at every jolt”  and A Bowl of Spaghetti by Kimiko Hahn

(click on hyperlinks for the poems) by Kimiko Hahn (click on this hyperlink to find out more about Kimiko, the current NY State Laureate and one of the readers at the Flower City Poetry Festival in June in Highland Park. 

NUTSHELL:  

A general comment that comes up with the weekly discussion of poems is that often, reading them by oneself, one's opinion of them might skirt a negative view with an urge for a rapid dismissal.  However, reliably, and perhaps equally rapidly, there is a redemptive quality about discussion in person with others, which often results in appreciation for having encountered them. 

Poetry has as many flavors and forms as languages in which it is written to respond to the circumstances of being human.   The first two poems, seem to address our "Human Condition" and desire for some magic "Spell" by their title alone.  Both are from the group Just Poets, founded in 2004 as an offshoot of Rochester Poets, where the word "just" means both "fair" but also, "without pretention" and the annual anthology is called "Le Mot Juste" the French for the "most accurate word".  

The Human Constitution:  We started out enjoying the alliterations (fettle of you fusing), free speech muscles wither to whispers, but soon felt the poet was administering an overdose of cleverness,  The anger provoked by abuse of  a Bill of Rights was clear as was the analogy of an amputated legal document to our human body, both of which are best served with humane treatment.

Spell:  In a similar fashion, the play on title as the act of creating letters and a sense of magic was also clever and original.  However, some felt it was too laborious, lacking in emotion and one called it an OTR (One Time Rave).  On the other hand, all of us agree, there is something akin to magic in the power of words.  Note, the poet was careful not to use that word, magic, but showed one way in which to craft it.

I, Too : from Weary Blues (1926) 

We have discussed this poem before, but it felt fitting to bring it to attention a few days before the 250th celebration of the this country on "Independence Day".  It is ironic that the founding fathers were not exempt from the mistakes of Old Europe, and poorly disguised a feudal slave state.  The eloquence of Langston Hughes expressed in simple terms, underlines an innocent, almost childlike insistence that "tomorrow" (a word isolated on one line) will be different from "then" (also isolated on one line, and can refer both to the past, but also what will happen next.  The tone is complex and strikes straight at the heart.  We spoke of the implications of "ashamed".   One person brought up Rita Bell's (b. 1925) Bell Ringer show, and her courage to set an example, advocating for women in broadcasting during a time when female on-air talent was rare.  Another brought up Don Shirley whose story is told  in the 2018 film Green Book,  the name of a travel guide for black motorists in the segregated United States.

In the Dark Times:  Hacker uses a line from Bertold Brecht in his poem "Motto" in her title and first couplete of this ghazal.  One person asked, what point out it is a ghazal in the title?  It's a good question, but could possibly be putting emphasis on a form adopted by Western culture.  She also uses Arabic ya akhy which means my brother in the 3rd couplet before the end. Likewise, some did not know the word menhirs, an ancient monumental stone in different parts of the world. Brecht's poem in German, is on 4 lines so that the repeat of  "In the dark times" stresses the change of the first word "About the dark times". Note that Hacker repeats this line as refrain.  

In the dark times, will there also be singing?

Yes, there will be singing.

About the dark times.

In den finsteren Zeiten,

Wird da auch gesungen werden?

Da wird auch gesungen werden.

Von den finsteren Zeiten.

 The poem was written in 2017, and with the second term of Trump, the final question is as pertinent as ever to address what each of us does, or fails to do.

You come home from your meeting, your clinic, make coffee and look in the mirror

And ask yourself once more what you did to bring about the dark times.

The Andalusian Dog Finds Answers Pablo Medina:  I hyperlinked the poet, so you could see his Cuban background.  I told the group that I did not chose the poem because of the 1929 Silent French movie Un Chien Andalou but because of the opening line: God likes to be played like a piano.  When dealing with surrealism, your guess is as good as anyone's to arrive at anything that ressembles "accurate" understanding.  How do you understand that opening line and how do you relate the poem to the title?

It would seem Medina has chosen images from the movie with its shocking, disjointed imagery and dream-logic narrative. As one person put it, reading the poem  is like going to a modern art museum specializing in surrealist works.

two poems by Elinor Wylie:  I was sad that Judith was not part of the discussion, as she had recommended them as examples of good anti-war poetry.  

We have discussed Wilfred Owens before and his powerful "Dulce et Decorum Est".

Wylie uses a different approach.  The Bells in the Rain indeed would seem to be the title of a lyrical poem that has nothing to do with war... even that first quatrain seems to entertain that "peace" is available and possible.  

Sleep falls, with limpid drops of rain,

Upon the steep cliffs of the town.

Sleep falls; men are at peace again                             

While the small drops fall softly down.

How beautifully she carries forth and repeats  Sleep... and it is the grass which is  peaceful and the rain falls so softly on stone. 

To snap you out of any reverie, the final stanza slaps you with a horrifying pivot .

The other poem, longer, ends with a cryptic note... again "sleep" as what one does buried (although many soldiers do not have a grave).

Straight as an arrow

    You fall to a sleep

Not too narrow

    And not too deep.

I brought up as an addition a poem by Kimiko Hahn Anaphora Using Wilfred Owen’s Line “If you could hear, at every jolt” . It comes from the final stanza of the Wilfred Owens poem.  I immediately thought of If by Rudyard Kipling -- such a small word... which such large sequels.

 

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

 

To end on a cheerier note, I read A Bowl of Spaghetti by Kimiko Hahn.  You might enjoy reading more of her work: more poems by Hahn:

 https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/161139/against-opulence

her poem side by side with Thomas Hardy's which inspired hers.