poems for lunch Oct 27

The Vampire Conrad Aiken, 1899 – 1973
The Haunted Oak by Paul Lawrence Dunbar (June 27, 1872 – February 9, 1906)
All Souls' Day by Frances Bellerby (1909-1975)
Theories of Time and Space by Natasha Trethewey (b. 1966)

“Of calling shapes, and beck'ning shadows dire,
And airy tongues that syllable men's names.”
— John Milton in 1634 from Comus, a mask


How is it that only part of a poem will start people? In this Halloween selection, these comments just about the Aiken:
Langston Hughes: Harlem Renaissance
what was before my eyes, but made me see it.
5 ladies to dance. Geoffrey Holder
http://www.express.co.uk/news/obituaries/521511/Obituary-Geoffrey-Holder-Actor-August-1-1930-October-5-2014-Aged-84

Carmin de Lavalade
The creation...

negative anima... la belle dame sans merci..
war goddess: Gamoragon...
war as ultimate temptress...
conjure up an enemy...
“All the Light we Cannot See”... WW2... We lost 2 million in the first war; they lost a million and a half there will not be another war.
What is war to you... what kind of job do you do in war... embrace war or not.
result the same: people still dead...
finding meaning in agression.
Green Table: Ballet.. Kurt Joose


0:59 / 1:56
The Green Table (Kurt Jooss)(Joffrey Ballet Chicago) DVD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaZQsZUsytc

Vampire – what sucks and takes...
succubus
Aiken discovered his father who shot his mother and himself. age 11.
Short story: Secret Snow, Silent Snow

from Kathy: this 14 stanza poem gets more frightful as it goes on! http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/vampire

The Vampire Conrad Aiken,

**
The Bellerby is subtle, extremely sad... How is the craft disguised? Is there a hint of sentimentality, or intimacy?

The Trethewey start with a provocative title. Does it work?
I think it does, especially with the opening line, like a student responding to an academic lecture.
There is journey, what we might/might not remember and undertones of tomb as tome..
comments from group:
Embarkation of Cythera (Watteau – thin silks)Aphrodite
time waits for no photographer

random blank pages – what we might not remember... but also... that black prisoners not noted although white were...before Katrina -- 60 miles away from New Orleans
Ship Island split and washed out to sea.
Consider me a colored boy – Langston Hughes
Once nobody, now me.
Here is a case of knowing the context of the poem, which enhances it.