January 18, 2010
Oh Snodsy, thank you for your poem "Looking" and thank you Garrison Keilor for posting it.
What was I looking for today?
Lovely stanzas of six with lines 3+5; 2+ 6 rhyming.
rugs, drugs; chairs, stairs;
Everywhere I was, was wrong...
then, again; door for...
Where did the rest of the time go?
recall, all; last, past.
Clever, fun -- can be read in lots of different ways.
What do we really want? Is that what we really want?
Poetry saves me again and again.
I lost things, printed things, lost them again, tried to organize all morning... and then,
it really didn't matter. I discussed 4 wonderful poems with 10 wonderful people and we had ideas flying all around us
and who could have more fun than that...
Other Snodgrass poems discussed in O Pen: We had a really good time with his book, "De-Compositions" in March, 2009.
In February 2009: from his Selected Poems : The Lovers Go Fly a Kite : p. 90 (1963 – publ. in New Yorker)
Matisse: The red Studio : 105
If Birds Build with your hair. 175
198
201
213 //222
A darkling alphabet.
Heart's Needle. :
from the Middle-Irish Romance, The Madness of Suibhne
Your Father is dead : I’m sorry
Your mother : All pity for me has gone out of the world
Your sister: the mild sun rests on every ditch; a sister loves even though not loved
your daughter is dead: an only daughter is the needle of the heart
your little boy who used to call you Daddy, he is dead. Aye… that’s the drop that brings a man to the ground.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Denise Levertov
January 18, 2010
Today's O Pen included two poems by Denise Levertov:
Come into Animal Presence
Matins
Jim mentioned a book he's just finished: "The Beak of the Finch" which explains evolution and how homo sapiens took "the thinking nitch"...
In this two stanza poem, we humans are invited to come into animal presence: to reconsider the serpent, observe the white rabbit-star-silence; the dignified llama, the insouciant armadillo. The word "joy" comes up three times -- After the 3rd sentence, line 10 of the first stanza, as a question, "What is this joy" to start the second stanza and "an old joy" in the final line.
The serpent is guileless, has no blemish. Who made up that story in the Garden of Eden? How do we judge animals, determine that a llama disdains or that an armadillo would roll into a prickly ball at the sight of us? Levertov assures us, that a llama mildly disregards human approval, the armadillo doesn't quicken his trotting, but rather has his own intention to pursue in the palm forest. The rabbit is enigmatic whether a star twitching its ears at the rain, inspecting his surroundings.
Each animal is replete doing what it knows it must do. And this is joy. This is holiness and our reminder of holiness, and this presence is perhaps captured in a bronze statue or like bronzed baby shoes, etched into our memory. It isn't that anything changes, only that our vision and perception might falter. And would you not want to be in this archaic animal presence, this whole and connected holiness?
Matins is a poem filled with "Aha" moments! Kathy mentioned "moment of grace that we cannot summon" --
and we thought of Ellen Bass' poem "Pray for Peace" in part V.
7 sections, the words, " The Authentic!" starting out sections i. ii, vi, with a doubling of it in section 2. Shadows, dreams, Plato's cave, a sense of Gide's "authentique" and the early pre-dawn meditation of matins in a rhythmic, incantatory style.
Where is truth -- verisimilitude and we follow through, follow through, follow/transformations of day/in its turning, in its becoming. (part iv) part v and the child and rushing to save his clear sight by following him to give him his glasses...
and how the Authentic rolls just out of reach. Myth enters, perhaps a Greek layer of Poseidon and sea/horse/sacrifice.
An incantation to "Marvelous Truth!" a plea to know all sides of joy.
Discussion of Life at War :
I was given the chance to read this outloud with one of my poet colleagues, George Wallace, I believe just a year ago, or was it two...
and I remember the feeling resembling "lumps of raw dough" as if I had been the child helping on baking day... and wondering how contents of a heart can feel like a formless lump -- and the cringe of feeling grits of war pocking my lungs -- and it's not just war, it's all we do (myself and by extension, others do) as humans, that sits heavy in the gut, numbs feelings into doughy lumps, our actions that spit like shards of ice cutting our breath. But that's only to repeat Levertov's images. And then again, see how her spirit and love "jostle for space" and that word joy is mentioned again, and we have the knowledge that "our language imagines MERCY, LOVINGKINDNESS, and belief one another mirrored forms of a God we felt as good --", and that gives me such conviction to say the last three lines, to repeat that "nothing" until it feels possible, to strive for that deep intelligence, to work to turn words and actions into living peace.
Levertov Poems discussed in 2009 :
Dog of Art
A Map of the Western Part of the County of Essex in England
Poems from "This Great Unknowing" (discussed for Jan. 26, 2009)
From Below
For the Asking
Celebration
Patience
Ancient Stairway
First Love
Beyond the Field
The Metier of Blossoming
A Hundred a Day
That Day
Elephant Ears
Poems discussed 2/9/2009
O Taste and See
To The Snake
The Great Black Heron
The Ache of Marriage
Talking to Grief
September 1961
In Mind
Untitled
Aware
Once Only
The Jacobs Ladder
Variation on a Theme by Rilke
Today's O Pen included two poems by Denise Levertov:
Come into Animal Presence
Matins
Jim mentioned a book he's just finished: "The Beak of the Finch" which explains evolution and how homo sapiens took "the thinking nitch"...
In this two stanza poem, we humans are invited to come into animal presence: to reconsider the serpent, observe the white rabbit-star-silence; the dignified llama, the insouciant armadillo. The word "joy" comes up three times -- After the 3rd sentence, line 10 of the first stanza, as a question, "What is this joy" to start the second stanza and "an old joy" in the final line.
The serpent is guileless, has no blemish. Who made up that story in the Garden of Eden? How do we judge animals, determine that a llama disdains or that an armadillo would roll into a prickly ball at the sight of us? Levertov assures us, that a llama mildly disregards human approval, the armadillo doesn't quicken his trotting, but rather has his own intention to pursue in the palm forest. The rabbit is enigmatic whether a star twitching its ears at the rain, inspecting his surroundings.
Each animal is replete doing what it knows it must do. And this is joy. This is holiness and our reminder of holiness, and this presence is perhaps captured in a bronze statue or like bronzed baby shoes, etched into our memory. It isn't that anything changes, only that our vision and perception might falter. And would you not want to be in this archaic animal presence, this whole and connected holiness?
Matins is a poem filled with "Aha" moments! Kathy mentioned "moment of grace that we cannot summon" --
and we thought of Ellen Bass' poem "Pray for Peace" in part V.
7 sections, the words, " The Authentic!" starting out sections i. ii, vi, with a doubling of it in section 2. Shadows, dreams, Plato's cave, a sense of Gide's "authentique" and the early pre-dawn meditation of matins in a rhythmic, incantatory style.
Where is truth -- verisimilitude and we follow through, follow through, follow/transformations of day/in its turning, in its becoming. (part iv) part v and the child and rushing to save his clear sight by following him to give him his glasses...
and how the Authentic rolls just out of reach. Myth enters, perhaps a Greek layer of Poseidon and sea/horse/sacrifice.
An incantation to "Marvelous Truth!" a plea to know all sides of joy.
Discussion of Life at War :
I was given the chance to read this outloud with one of my poet colleagues, George Wallace, I believe just a year ago, or was it two...
and I remember the feeling resembling "lumps of raw dough" as if I had been the child helping on baking day... and wondering how contents of a heart can feel like a formless lump -- and the cringe of feeling grits of war pocking my lungs -- and it's not just war, it's all we do (myself and by extension, others do) as humans, that sits heavy in the gut, numbs feelings into doughy lumps, our actions that spit like shards of ice cutting our breath. But that's only to repeat Levertov's images. And then again, see how her spirit and love "jostle for space" and that word joy is mentioned again, and we have the knowledge that "our language imagines MERCY, LOVINGKINDNESS, and belief one another mirrored forms of a God we felt as good --", and that gives me such conviction to say the last three lines, to repeat that "nothing" until it feels possible, to strive for that deep intelligence, to work to turn words and actions into living peace.
Levertov Poems discussed in 2009 :
Dog of Art
A Map of the Western Part of the County of Essex in England
Poems from "This Great Unknowing" (discussed for Jan. 26, 2009)
From Below
For the Asking
Celebration
Patience
Ancient Stairway
First Love
Beyond the Field
The Metier of Blossoming
A Hundred a Day
That Day
Elephant Ears
Poems discussed 2/9/2009
O Taste and See
To The Snake
The Great Black Heron
The Ache of Marriage
Talking to Grief
September 1961
In Mind
Untitled
Aware
Once Only
The Jacobs Ladder
Variation on a Theme by Rilke
O Pen
January 18, 2010 -- A Look at Henry Reed
Each Monday, a group of us meet to discuss poems... It started in February 2008, with 6 people showing up, for a six-week trial period at the local library in Pittsford, NY. Now, with a roster of 45 people, we continue to meet every week...
Today's problem: How to organize two years worth of poetry and poetry discussion?
I've decided to jot down a few notes by poet author...
January 4, 2010
Henry Reed : The Naming of Parts from Lessons of War http://www.solearabiantree.net/namingofparts/namingofparts.html
The epigram is from one of Horace’s Odes, “For ladies’ love I late was fit,/And good success my warfare blest.”
January 11, we read part six of "Lessons of War"
and today, the 18th, we read his clever satire of TSE, Burnt Norton. "Chard Whitlow". Human kind indeed cannot bear very much reality, and we get caught up in time. Is anything different from then? (section 3: "Distracted from distraction by distraction/Filled with fancies and empty of meaning/Tumid apathy with no concentration/ Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind/That blows before and after time,/ Wind in and out of unwholesome lungs/Time before and time after.)
Words after speech, reach/Into the silence.
It is good to meditate on blasts of heaven such as the hurricane in Haiti -- the wind within a wind unable to speak for wind;
**
How different his "Naming of Parts". It is read with two voices which accentuates the tension between the drill sargent and the natural images of Japonica, branches holding silent eloquent gestures in the garden, blossoms, bees fumbling the flowers, almond blossoms.
This five stanza poem also addresses time opening and closing both the first stanza and poem with the line "Today, we have naming of parts" repeated three times in the first stanza.
Today is sandwiched between daily cleaning of yesterday, which perhaps is the same as tomorrow's
"what to do after firing". Swivels, for parts you will have or never will have; safety catch; bolt; spring are explained.
Strength of thumb, sliding. We have not got point of balance and piling swivels.
The second Part: Judging Distances is also time related: "Not only how far away, but the way the you say it / Is very important. Perhaps you may never get/The Knack of judging a distance, but at least you know/How to report on a landscape.
We discussed the sixth and final part, "Returning of Issue". What is issued to a soldier -- what does he return if he does not rejoin? To what does he return? What is restored? The item a soldier is allowed to keep, "his shirt. And whatever you wear underneath."
How would you feel, choosing "to learn once more the things I shall one day teach: /A rhetoric instead of words; instead of a love, the use/ Of accoutrements, impedimenta, and fittings and military garments,/and harlots and riotous living.
On a different note, we discussed Reed's "A Map of Verona" -- whose epigram is from Rimbaud, "Villes" .
Here, the 2nd and 4th lines rhyme in each of the 12 quatrains. Verona, river-embraced, setting of a the best -known love story, Verona as Green Earth, home of Mona Lisa, Verona, as an open map waiting exploration.
Naples, the youthful chapter, and plans, as in the French "plan" or city map, is an indication of place, "not time, nor can they say the surprising height and colour of a building, nor where the groups of people bar the way."
Arms -- as in embracing arms, arms as in armed and ready, capital A Arms, as if arms of God or death.. What propitious hour restores a region "from whence my dreams and slightest movements rise."
Each Monday, a group of us meet to discuss poems... It started in February 2008, with 6 people showing up, for a six-week trial period at the local library in Pittsford, NY. Now, with a roster of 45 people, we continue to meet every week...
Today's problem: How to organize two years worth of poetry and poetry discussion?
I've decided to jot down a few notes by poet author...
January 4, 2010
Henry Reed : The Naming of Parts from Lessons of War http://www.solearabiantree.net/namingofparts/namingofparts.html
The epigram is from one of Horace’s Odes, “For ladies’ love I late was fit,/And good success my warfare blest.”
January 11, we read part six of "Lessons of War"
and today, the 18th, we read his clever satire of TSE, Burnt Norton. "Chard Whitlow". Human kind indeed cannot bear very much reality, and we get caught up in time. Is anything different from then? (section 3: "Distracted from distraction by distraction/Filled with fancies and empty of meaning/Tumid apathy with no concentration/ Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind/That blows before and after time,/ Wind in and out of unwholesome lungs/Time before and time after.)
Words after speech, reach/Into the silence.
It is good to meditate on blasts of heaven such as the hurricane in Haiti -- the wind within a wind unable to speak for wind;
**
How different his "Naming of Parts". It is read with two voices which accentuates the tension between the drill sargent and the natural images of Japonica, branches holding silent eloquent gestures in the garden, blossoms, bees fumbling the flowers, almond blossoms.
This five stanza poem also addresses time opening and closing both the first stanza and poem with the line "Today, we have naming of parts" repeated three times in the first stanza.
Today is sandwiched between daily cleaning of yesterday, which perhaps is the same as tomorrow's
"what to do after firing". Swivels, for parts you will have or never will have; safety catch; bolt; spring are explained.
Strength of thumb, sliding. We have not got point of balance and piling swivels.
The second Part: Judging Distances is also time related: "Not only how far away, but the way the you say it / Is very important. Perhaps you may never get/The Knack of judging a distance, but at least you know/How to report on a landscape.
We discussed the sixth and final part, "Returning of Issue". What is issued to a soldier -- what does he return if he does not rejoin? To what does he return? What is restored? The item a soldier is allowed to keep, "his shirt. And whatever you wear underneath."
How would you feel, choosing "to learn once more the things I shall one day teach: /A rhetoric instead of words; instead of a love, the use/ Of accoutrements, impedimenta, and fittings and military garments,/and harlots and riotous living.
On a different note, we discussed Reed's "A Map of Verona" -- whose epigram is from Rimbaud, "Villes" .
Here, the 2nd and 4th lines rhyme in each of the 12 quatrains. Verona, river-embraced, setting of a the best -known love story, Verona as Green Earth, home of Mona Lisa, Verona, as an open map waiting exploration.
Naples, the youthful chapter, and plans, as in the French "plan" or city map, is an indication of place, "not time, nor can they say the surprising height and colour of a building, nor where the groups of people bar the way."
Arms -- as in embracing arms, arms as in armed and ready, capital A Arms, as if arms of God or death.. What propitious hour restores a region "from whence my dreams and slightest movements rise."
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