Poems for July 13

John wanted to share this link of Richard Blanco — there’s a nice introduction and he reads his poem “America” starting at 6:06 to 9:44.
http://youtu.be/iab4PwyYIeQ

We started with
Roadside Attractions with the Dogs of America by Ada Limón
skipped Poem to my Litter by Max Ritvo

For the Perillo poem, some of you might want to reference with Auden’s poem “Musée des Beaux Arts” with Breughel’s painting: http://english.emory.edu/classes/paintings&poems/auden.html

Rebuttal by Lucia Perillo (review Auden: Musee des Beaux Arts)
“Dona”[1]by Lucia Perillo
God and Me (continued) by Edward Hirsch
Ode to Some Lyric Poets -- Gregory Orr
... certain poems in an uncertain world
(this one, we read all the parts around in a circle to get the idea of a long lyric Ode.)

Good Bones BY MAGGIE SMITH

**
Discussion:
The first poem by Ada Limón has the ease of a Neruda Ode along with a pleasurable sense of sound that captures not just "dogness" but what it means to live in America and how to imagine three very different slices of pies.
The first sentence, 8 lines "angel-footing" on borrowed houses holds as much promise as the world's "nicest pie". Do you recognize yourself as one of the wayward and word-weary?
and the word-weary.
Perhaps its a sense of "By-bye Miss American Pie" and snap shots of good ol' boys and the sense of marvel that we keep on going without slipping out of the "national net of “longing for joy.” A sense of old-fashioned aprons worn at church suppers slips in,with the next pie -- of birds, ocean water and grief I’d like to wear an apron for you
whose ingredients don't seem possible to make the "prettiest pie".

Indeed, in these times, "of everyone wanting to make their own kind
of America, but still be America, too.", there's a hint of danger -- a hint of wanting to belong, to have the happy-go-lucky freedom of a dog with ears in the wind, but recognized as the best dog of the lot...

The first of the two Perillo poems left a few confused about what the quarrel is. Certainly there is a sense of the rebellious-- why paint things this way, old masters? Auden's satire of pre-WW2 attitudes perhaps is too intellectual -- the rebuttal says, make the suffering big, unmistakeable, instead of minute and tiny, even the "content-with-being-tiny" -- instead of people avoiding confrontation.

The second brought up a few memories of girl scouts-- as Judith put it her "involuntary servitude as a brownie"
Martin brought up the point that if a poem makes him think of something he wouldn’t otherwise have thought about.... then it's a good thing.
The language, pacing, parsing and rephrasing of the minimal choice presented by the Baez song
feels urgent,where a deathly word like "abattoir" becomes an irresistible image of a French kiss. Mockery, a bit of self-mockery and acceptance of a certain amount of passivity which carries a certain danger. The power of a group... both good and bad...


I wish I had thought of the title of the Hirsch poem -- how brilliant to have a conversation with God as an ongoing saga -- with the permission of "continued" -- it has been going on for a while and will continue!
The humor of a line like this:
"Every plant is holy every leaf etc."
every leaf (implied is) etc. no need to go on.
Yes, the world unpredictable... tragedy everywhere, but life goes on...
cataclysm, everything ending all the time, beginning all the time...
how immense the drowning when you’re the one who’s drowning... and yet, it's all right and told with just the right conversational tone...

The Gregory Orr poem was difficult as I would have had to do a lot of typing to share it.
Why did APR decide to have a long section like this? The group saw the "first part" and we passed the paper around to read each subsequent part. Orr has written wonderful books and perhaps this is part of the bones of yet another one to come.
Poetry as Survival...River inside the River...
It is an ambitious undertaking to speak about lyric poets -- which ones would you include in your ode? How do you understand the world? through whose words
what is beloved.
how to understand the references... ?

poets uncover same truths from different angles...


we closed with Maggie Smith -- I love that my daughter liked this -- the play of "what we keep from our children" because, we are trying to sell them the world... it could be a beautiful place, right?