poems for June 13 and 20

Poems for June 13

Ezra Pound said that poetry was “news that stays news.” William Carlos Williams added a warning: “It is difficult / to get the news from poems / But men and women die every day / for lack / of what is found there.” The great Renaissance poet Sir Philip Sidney, who wrote that “the poet nothing affirmeth, and therefore never lieth.”
What is news? How is it told?
This is a very enjoyable interview with Philip Levine: http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/poetry/levine.htm


For June 13, enjoy these poems from
Philip Levine: (from News of the World)

Our Valley by Philip Levine
A Story by Philip Levine
Love and Other Disasters by Philip Levine
Before the War by Philip Levine
Fixing the Foot: by Philip Levine
this comment by David Young, Poetry Daily, on the prose poem: “The choice of prose for this anecdote helps highlight the rhythms of the experience. The prose movement is of a piece with the circumstances, where the speaker, overhearing and not knowing the language, must intuit the circumstances from the rhythms of the speech rather than its content. The deprivation—he is unable to see the doctor, child, or parent—is what makes his imagination lively and attentive.” http://poems.com/special_features/prose/essay_young-d.php

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Poems for June 20:
“... it seemed to me that Machado was able to validate these very basic experiences that we all share -- and that we begin to think of, in our busy lives, as marginal. But Machado brings them into the center of his experience and his poetry. And I thought, Oh, what genius that was, to take what we've marginalized and pull it into the center and make it what sheds light on everything else.” Philip Levine

The following 3 poems came from: http://www.poemhunter.com/antonio-machado/
which gives a little background. We may have discussed them before, and there are different translations – but certainly the images come through.
Has My Heart Gone To Sleep? by Antonio Machado
The Wind, One Brilliant Day by Antonio Machado
Last Night as I was Sleeping -- by Antonio Machado
Gospel by Philip Levine


for more poems by Machado: http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Spanish/Machado.htm
I saw this translator’s Rimbaud work, which was OK, but not totally accurate. I can’t vouch for his Spanish.