It's been another wonderful year of sharing poems...
On January 6 David Sanders will lead a discussion about the “biblical-modern interactions”: from The Gospel According to Matthew: 2. 1-12 and TSE's Gift of the Magi. The notes on the opening line:
"Adapted from a Nativity Sermon by Launcelot Andrewes at Winchester on Christmas Day of 1623: “A cold coming they had of it at this time of the year, just the worst time of the year to take a journey, and specially a long journey in. The ways deep, the weather sharp, the days short, the sun farther off, in solstitio brumali, the very dead of winter.”
Why do certain images recur, charged with emotion?
In this season of winding up the old, preparing the new, I sent "A Short Testament" by Anne Portera for your private reflection. I will be glad to use it Jan. 12 as well!
For Marcie, I shared this poem, with condolences for the passing of her sister Salli over Christmas. Marcie arrived in time to find her awake and aware. In Marcie’s words: "We took her to an amazing Hospice facility - looked like an upscale resort - on Sun where I stayed with her until she died on Wed am."
I share with you the poem, Curtains by Ruth Stone, that makes me think of Marcie’s feisty spirit, and the loyal bond she has with her sister, the difficulty of digesting the fact that Salli’s long bout with cancer is over.
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Thursday, December 10, 2015
December 10
Happiness by Raymond Carver (also Dec. 9)
Paradoxes and Oxymorons by John Ashbury (12/9)
Sanctuary by Jean Valentine (12/9)
Major to Minor -- by Andrea Cohen (12/16)
Inspired by O Antiphons, a Dreidel, Shiva’s Third Eye, Peace Flag Symbol (12/9)
A Poem by Rumi (12/16)
Pelicans in December by J. Allyn Rosser (12/16)
This is a fine season for meditation. I received this one today.
“Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.”
― Thích Nhất Hạnh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life
See Dec. 9 for the first 3.
For Sanctuary: it might be an interesting ice breaker to ask "What is it like for you... ask where "there" is, ask what fears.
We were running out of time, so only read quickly the poem from the New Yorker. I like the play on major/minor and how we distinguish them, and how observant we are of shifts and subtle chance. Twin beds, two ice bergs -- even July doesnt know how to melt.
We also read quickly the Rumi -- the importance of each person as part of a larger whole, but precious and unique.
Imagine if everyone would sing a love song to your existence!
The final poem evokes endings... the gawky pelicans, rickety... "old-world feathers"... weary of calling out... like an old couple...
it is difficult to stay dignified... gulls, scattered sand... quietly lodged complaints.
We'll need to start the year with a stork!
Paradoxes and Oxymorons by John Ashbury (12/9)
Sanctuary by Jean Valentine (12/9)
Major to Minor -- by Andrea Cohen (12/16)
Inspired by O Antiphons, a Dreidel, Shiva’s Third Eye, Peace Flag Symbol (12/9)
A Poem by Rumi (12/16)
Pelicans in December by J. Allyn Rosser (12/16)
This is a fine season for meditation. I received this one today.
“Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.”
― Thích Nhất Hạnh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life
See Dec. 9 for the first 3.
For Sanctuary: it might be an interesting ice breaker to ask "What is it like for you... ask where "there" is, ask what fears.
We were running out of time, so only read quickly the poem from the New Yorker. I like the play on major/minor and how we distinguish them, and how observant we are of shifts and subtle chance. Twin beds, two ice bergs -- even July doesnt know how to melt.
We also read quickly the Rumi -- the importance of each person as part of a larger whole, but precious and unique.
Imagine if everyone would sing a love song to your existence!
The final poem evokes endings... the gawky pelicans, rickety... "old-world feathers"... weary of calling out... like an old couple...
it is difficult to stay dignified... gulls, scattered sand... quietly lodged complaints.
We'll need to start the year with a stork!
Poems for December 9
Dec. 9:
Happiness by Raymond Carver (thank you Carmin)
A Christmas Carol – by Christini Rossetti (Thank you Mary)
Introspection Leaking Out by Judith Judson (her original)
A Puzzler by Paul Brennan (his original)
Paradoxes and Oxymorons by John Ashbery (Thank you Don)
Sanctuary by Jean Valentine (Thank you Kathy)
Inspired by O Antiphons, a Dreidel, Shiva’s Third Eye, Peace Flag Symbol by yours truly
Carmin picked the Carver poem as she was reminded even when there is so much bad news in the world, if you stop to pay attention, you find good things. We were reminded of his poem, "Last Fragment" -- And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so?
That "even" is such an important word and reappears here, towards the end, in that minute, where "death and ambition, even love" don't enter. So, the given (we all die); the drive and "how" of engagement (ambition) and even the universal sacred without a contradistinction, cannot touch a singular moment when one feels a sense of "oh boy" (Judith's reference to Kipling's expression for the inexpressible "wow", part eureka of discovery, part delight without any strings attached).
Just as the boys "come on", so does "happiness/
unexpectedly and goes beyond, really"...
and back to the early morning talk, the usual early morning stuff milling in the mind.
The observation of the two boys hints at their happiness, but it is more a projection of the speaker of the poem.
There they are, delivering newspapers, together, perhaps an implied jauntiness with the caps and sweaters, one with a bag on his shoulder... and regardless if the reader is male or female, a memory of innocence, an idealization of childhood,
comes to mind. The boys are more alive than the news in the paper, deliver something extraordinary in the ordinary act of their job. Grace comes unbidden... Maura reminded the group of Dag Hammarskjold's remarks: a chase after happiness is like pursuing a butterfly-- the harder you seek to capture it, the more it eludes you.
At Rundel, Jim brought up the juxtaposition between the ordinary [newspapers (the headlines, the drudge of fact)], and the extraordinary, of an unbidden moment allows us to leave our "umwelt" of a private bubble to experience how we imagine the feeling we project onto the blithe togetherness of the boys. Oh Boy!
Mary's choice of the Rossetti, known in the setting of the music as a popular Christmas carol, was to offset the commercialization of Christmas with the original circumstances of Christ and the story of his birth. Indeed, what is the best gift we can give? Our hearts.
The next two poems speak to the spirit of amity and friendship. The context was merely that Paul was still talking when we started up discussion and Judith took his comment "... oh it’s just “introspection leaking out” to cummings-eque heights, replete with a dramatic performance. As he put it, Judith has provided him with the most artful way he's ever seen for being told to "shut up".
His poem reflects a fascination with puzzles and palindromes -- who can resist "racecar" as a symbol for life... Opening with "somebody" reminds me of Dickinson's "I'm Nobody who are you" -- or Cummings, "Everybody? Never met him."
From wit to surrealistic challenge. Ashbery in his inimitable way, plays with language, so the entire poem is a paradox, built of smaller paradox... The poem is concerned with language... but one step further -- concerned with language on a very plain level. However, he doesn't stay there. He plays with "it" as pronoun, with several possibilities of "you" (speaker to himself; understood you; you the reader of the poem; you the poem itself; an I in the second stanza, and the final stanza embracing both I and you, but still teasing... Try reading the poem backwards, and it makes just as much, if not better sense. The longer one spends with the words, the more one feels on the edge of understanding and yet, the rational part of the brain has difficulty with this...
How can you "pretend" to fidget? And how does this choice fit with a look out a window when "it" talks to you-- and which "it" is it? the poem, language? Is "it" the same throughout, or just as slippery as language, the poem and you? How do we change in our subjectivity and attitudes?
Unlike "happiness" is there something important or insubstantial being put into words? Is the main point the steam and chatter of putting it into being? Delightful, annoying, intriguing or perhaps maddening... but one takes away questions about what anything is "deeper outside", inside, dreamed, doubted, now you see it, bird in the hand, now you don't, the hand is the bush...
Kathy's pick of Sanctuary also picks up on the pronoun "you" -- who is speaking, and how does the "other" listen, or is it a divided self. Without the title or epigram would you find it a scary poem? Each word becomes a house, without one's own constructed house. Scattered appears three times -- twice in reference to the Antiphon 12 "Spare O Lord, your people so we do not scatter the voices" -- and the risk of "scattering life", not having listened, not having asked...
To die without having lived is to die without having created relationship.
My little poem is a gift of an ornament -- lots of numerology there -- but also, combining 4 religions and symbols
in this season of light and miracles as yet more unrest continues on the memorial of Pearl Harbor and this year the shared celebration of Diwali and Armistice Day.
Happiness by Raymond Carver (thank you Carmin)
A Christmas Carol – by Christini Rossetti (Thank you Mary)
Introspection Leaking Out by Judith Judson (her original)
A Puzzler by Paul Brennan (his original)
Paradoxes and Oxymorons by John Ashbery (Thank you Don)
Sanctuary by Jean Valentine (Thank you Kathy)
Inspired by O Antiphons, a Dreidel, Shiva’s Third Eye, Peace Flag Symbol by yours truly
Carmin picked the Carver poem as she was reminded even when there is so much bad news in the world, if you stop to pay attention, you find good things. We were reminded of his poem, "Last Fragment" -- And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so?
That "even" is such an important word and reappears here, towards the end, in that minute, where "death and ambition, even love" don't enter. So, the given (we all die); the drive and "how" of engagement (ambition) and even the universal sacred without a contradistinction, cannot touch a singular moment when one feels a sense of "oh boy" (Judith's reference to Kipling's expression for the inexpressible "wow", part eureka of discovery, part delight without any strings attached).
Just as the boys "come on", so does "happiness/
unexpectedly and goes beyond, really"...
and back to the early morning talk, the usual early morning stuff milling in the mind.
The observation of the two boys hints at their happiness, but it is more a projection of the speaker of the poem.
There they are, delivering newspapers, together, perhaps an implied jauntiness with the caps and sweaters, one with a bag on his shoulder... and regardless if the reader is male or female, a memory of innocence, an idealization of childhood,
comes to mind. The boys are more alive than the news in the paper, deliver something extraordinary in the ordinary act of their job. Grace comes unbidden... Maura reminded the group of Dag Hammarskjold's remarks: a chase after happiness is like pursuing a butterfly-- the harder you seek to capture it, the more it eludes you.
At Rundel, Jim brought up the juxtaposition between the ordinary [newspapers (the headlines, the drudge of fact)], and the extraordinary, of an unbidden moment allows us to leave our "umwelt" of a private bubble to experience how we imagine the feeling we project onto the blithe togetherness of the boys. Oh Boy!
Mary's choice of the Rossetti, known in the setting of the music as a popular Christmas carol, was to offset the commercialization of Christmas with the original circumstances of Christ and the story of his birth. Indeed, what is the best gift we can give? Our hearts.
The next two poems speak to the spirit of amity and friendship. The context was merely that Paul was still talking when we started up discussion and Judith took his comment "... oh it’s just “introspection leaking out” to cummings-eque heights, replete with a dramatic performance. As he put it, Judith has provided him with the most artful way he's ever seen for being told to "shut up".
His poem reflects a fascination with puzzles and palindromes -- who can resist "racecar" as a symbol for life... Opening with "somebody" reminds me of Dickinson's "I'm Nobody who are you" -- or Cummings, "Everybody? Never met him."
From wit to surrealistic challenge. Ashbery in his inimitable way, plays with language, so the entire poem is a paradox, built of smaller paradox... The poem is concerned with language... but one step further -- concerned with language on a very plain level. However, he doesn't stay there. He plays with "it" as pronoun, with several possibilities of "you" (speaker to himself; understood you; you the reader of the poem; you the poem itself; an I in the second stanza, and the final stanza embracing both I and you, but still teasing... Try reading the poem backwards, and it makes just as much, if not better sense. The longer one spends with the words, the more one feels on the edge of understanding and yet, the rational part of the brain has difficulty with this...
How can you "pretend" to fidget? And how does this choice fit with a look out a window when "it" talks to you-- and which "it" is it? the poem, language? Is "it" the same throughout, or just as slippery as language, the poem and you? How do we change in our subjectivity and attitudes?
Unlike "happiness" is there something important or insubstantial being put into words? Is the main point the steam and chatter of putting it into being? Delightful, annoying, intriguing or perhaps maddening... but one takes away questions about what anything is "deeper outside", inside, dreamed, doubted, now you see it, bird in the hand, now you don't, the hand is the bush...
Kathy's pick of Sanctuary also picks up on the pronoun "you" -- who is speaking, and how does the "other" listen, or is it a divided self. Without the title or epigram would you find it a scary poem? Each word becomes a house, without one's own constructed house. Scattered appears three times -- twice in reference to the Antiphon 12 "Spare O Lord, your people so we do not scatter the voices" -- and the risk of "scattering life", not having listened, not having asked...
To die without having lived is to die without having created relationship.
My little poem is a gift of an ornament -- lots of numerology there -- but also, combining 4 religions and symbols
in this season of light and miracles as yet more unrest continues on the memorial of Pearl Harbor and this year the shared celebration of Diwali and Armistice Day.
Wednesday, December 9, 2015
Poems for Dec. 2
Pittsford:
Perfect for Any Occasion by Alberto Rios (and Rundel)
Thanks by W.S. Merlin (and Rundel)
At Rundel we also discussed poems by attendees whereas at Pittsford we also discussed
The People of the other Village, by Thomas Lux
Not Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, by Jennifer Hecht
**
A perfect post-Thanksgiving poem, and think about what it is we do, what we say... Perfect for Any Occasion -- whether it be Thanksgiving, Winter Solstice, any time we celebrate some ritual, any time we don't... How many expressions do you know with "Pie"? Easy (simple) as... apple pie order... pi... American as apple pie... pie in the sky...
and what do we do with pies? bake, eat, throw in a face, throw together whatever there is and cover with a crust...
Rios takes all these meanings of pie and organizes a two part poem. As one person said, it's a free-ride on acceptance, and part 2, of rejection; an exploration of fitting in or not, anthropomorphism of a pie as immigrant...
There is so much that is pleasing about this poem. We know immediately Mr. "I-can-do-no-wrong" and how funny he is a pecan pie... Think of Marie Antoinette in the French Revolution saying, "let them eat cake" -- although a pie has the rounds of a revolution, the 3.14 circular existence, sliced in so many ways.
Merwin's poem is much harder to follow as he provides a disturbing mix of "thank you" both like a prayer or supplication, and automatic habit, like the polite smile we paste on when we're scared. First stanza, we have no problem with the general, generic thanks... but the second stanza, thanks seems to be about personal survival, third, the news of the day, perhaps a "thank goodness it wasn't me", and by the fourth stanza, with the entire earth falling apart, as chaos of growing cities, felled forests, and no one listening, the darkness of such disconnection still has the ember of "thank you"... Gratitude is a powerful gift... what allows us to continue, sustains us. How do you read it-- as Candide filled with optimism in face of all the cruelty in the "best of all possible worlds" or as a Kafka-esque dirge where thank you is the one salvation... Listen.... we are saying thank you //... nobody listening...we are saying thank you...
How do you feel about saying "thank you" now? How do you feel about being more attentive?
"The People of the Other Village" starts out with an observation of someone not of that village... simply, "they hate us".
Three times the formula of doing this/that is repeated, but with a subtle change of pronoun:
We do this, they do that.
They do this, we do that.
We do this, they do that.
What happens before this is said? Both sides do harm to the other side. The final line:
Ten thousand (10,000) years, ten thousand
(10,000) brutal, beautiful years.
10,000 years spelled out; written as numbers; doubled B of the paradoxical brutal/beautiful -- without any example of the beautiful-- this is a dark poem, in which "beautiful" is nothing more than a word which has not stopped, will not stop the brutality. And how will you act after reading this?
Not Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening by Jennifer Hecht gave me pause, until I read more about her, her work to help people contemplating suicide. Brilliant parody of Frost, a hint of Dante's dark woods, and deft turning of words.
David gave us some insight with this background: "Stopping by woods" was written in June on the anniversary of the death of his 4th child who died after a few days... Originally titled “New Hampshire” the long original turned into the familiar rhymed verse we have come to know.
Hecht takes it a step further, by deforming the familiar "promises to keep" to the opening "Promises to keep was a lie."
That it ends on "It doesn't matter where I sleep." stresses the fact that "home" as focal point is not the goal. Staying alive is.
"On Reaching the Age of Two Hundred" announces a mythical situation, reinforced by mention of the Sibyl at Cumae.
What is he trying to say?
What happens if you live forever...
perhaps it is a curse along the lines of "may you have 100 mansion with 100 bedrooms"
Given what happens to the speaker of the poem, living to age 200 requires either a large amount of acceptance or denial to want to continue another minute.
Dec. 3
The Rundel group admired Mike's long poem "Full Circle 2 -- Connectivity". Using the conceit of "one to one";
man to man' toe to toe, eye to eye, face to face, moment to moment, hand to hand, he takes us through a life, ending with dust to dust.
His poem, "And He calls Himself a Father" is a touching anecdotal poem with a surprise twist.
We saved Kathy's poems until she returns.
Perfect for Any Occasion by Alberto Rios (and Rundel)
Thanks by W.S. Merlin (and Rundel)
At Rundel we also discussed poems by attendees whereas at Pittsford we also discussed
The People of the other Village, by Thomas Lux
Not Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, by Jennifer Hecht
**
A perfect post-Thanksgiving poem, and think about what it is we do, what we say... Perfect for Any Occasion -- whether it be Thanksgiving, Winter Solstice, any time we celebrate some ritual, any time we don't... How many expressions do you know with "Pie"? Easy (simple) as... apple pie order... pi... American as apple pie... pie in the sky...
and what do we do with pies? bake, eat, throw in a face, throw together whatever there is and cover with a crust...
Rios takes all these meanings of pie and organizes a two part poem. As one person said, it's a free-ride on acceptance, and part 2, of rejection; an exploration of fitting in or not, anthropomorphism of a pie as immigrant...
There is so much that is pleasing about this poem. We know immediately Mr. "I-can-do-no-wrong" and how funny he is a pecan pie... Think of Marie Antoinette in the French Revolution saying, "let them eat cake" -- although a pie has the rounds of a revolution, the 3.14 circular existence, sliced in so many ways.
Merwin's poem is much harder to follow as he provides a disturbing mix of "thank you" both like a prayer or supplication, and automatic habit, like the polite smile we paste on when we're scared. First stanza, we have no problem with the general, generic thanks... but the second stanza, thanks seems to be about personal survival, third, the news of the day, perhaps a "thank goodness it wasn't me", and by the fourth stanza, with the entire earth falling apart, as chaos of growing cities, felled forests, and no one listening, the darkness of such disconnection still has the ember of "thank you"... Gratitude is a powerful gift... what allows us to continue, sustains us. How do you read it-- as Candide filled with optimism in face of all the cruelty in the "best of all possible worlds" or as a Kafka-esque dirge where thank you is the one salvation... Listen.... we are saying thank you //... nobody listening...we are saying thank you...
How do you feel about saying "thank you" now? How do you feel about being more attentive?
"The People of the Other Village" starts out with an observation of someone not of that village... simply, "they hate us".
Three times the formula of doing this/that is repeated, but with a subtle change of pronoun:
We do this, they do that.
They do this, we do that.
We do this, they do that.
What happens before this is said? Both sides do harm to the other side. The final line:
Ten thousand (10,000) years, ten thousand
(10,000) brutal, beautiful years.
10,000 years spelled out; written as numbers; doubled B of the paradoxical brutal/beautiful -- without any example of the beautiful-- this is a dark poem, in which "beautiful" is nothing more than a word which has not stopped, will not stop the brutality. And how will you act after reading this?
Not Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening by Jennifer Hecht gave me pause, until I read more about her, her work to help people contemplating suicide. Brilliant parody of Frost, a hint of Dante's dark woods, and deft turning of words.
David gave us some insight with this background: "Stopping by woods" was written in June on the anniversary of the death of his 4th child who died after a few days... Originally titled “New Hampshire” the long original turned into the familiar rhymed verse we have come to know.
Hecht takes it a step further, by deforming the familiar "promises to keep" to the opening "Promises to keep was a lie."
That it ends on "It doesn't matter where I sleep." stresses the fact that "home" as focal point is not the goal. Staying alive is.
"On Reaching the Age of Two Hundred" announces a mythical situation, reinforced by mention of the Sibyl at Cumae.
What is he trying to say?
What happens if you live forever...
perhaps it is a curse along the lines of "may you have 100 mansion with 100 bedrooms"
Given what happens to the speaker of the poem, living to age 200 requires either a large amount of acceptance or denial to want to continue another minute.
Dec. 3
The Rundel group admired Mike's long poem "Full Circle 2 -- Connectivity". Using the conceit of "one to one";
man to man' toe to toe, eye to eye, face to face, moment to moment, hand to hand, he takes us through a life, ending with dust to dust.
His poem, "And He calls Himself a Father" is a touching anecdotal poem with a surprise twist.
We saved Kathy's poems until she returns.
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