no o pen October 19

but these poems to share with Bernie.
A Time to Talk -- Robert Frost**
The President Has Never Said the Word 'Black' by Morgan Parker**
It Means Shadows by Pablo Neruda
Be Glad your Nose is on Your Face — Prelutsky
Life is fine by Langston Hughes**

First ten to sign up:
David Emily
Don Rich
Carmen Jan
Elaine Olson Bernie + his friend Michelle
Paul

**Discussed at Rundel, October 27

I love Frost's easy-going rhyme and colloquial rhythms which don't hit you on the head.
Sure, "road/hoed", walk/talk; around/ground what is it / friendly visit, tall/wall.

a,b,c, a,d,b c e, e, d
10 lines, and at exactly the half-way point, the pattern is broken, partly resumed (b,c,)
the hoe and wall rhyming, sharing as their functions do, farmland references.
The title, repeats, couched in the negative "no, not that there is"... and yet, that very title
wins out -- just as there is a time to sow, a time to reap... there's a time to talk... even if one
does so ploddingly, hoe stuck in a clod work-side up.

David sent a PS to the discussion of the idea of "hoe" as general tool for fertility...
how, thrusting it in blade-end up makes it not only easier to find, but more easily ready to use.
A Hoe is also in "A Time of Cloudburst"... the stone wall... here, a place for a friendly time to talk... as in Ecclesiastes, where everything has a season... as opposed to Mending Wall, where a neighbor can't manage.


Both groups enjoyed the President Has Never Said the Word "Black", where the title seems to run into the first stanza. Each couplet contains a different thought... What's broken? Insinuations of brass knuckles, breaking open pocketbooks and teeth with and brass tacks...
Twice the colloquial use of "like"... In Stanza 3, "bleep-hand side" an amusing way to indicate silence; Stanza 4, the omission of "black" and spoken in black and poor style; Stanza 5, lofty language and omission of black between "fellow / Americans". Stanza 6. Great divide between President and us. Is "us" part of the US? The play nobodies as moveable / and "feasts". Television, color vision, and visions -- no black and white...
Color... the absence of which is black... as is the unspoken, the void in which you find that last image of starving chameleon.

For Rundel, Life is Fine followed, which was highly effective.
People were reminded of Langston Hughes poem, "I too sing America" which ends on the line,
"I am America"

What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun...
or explode.

The crafting of the poem is compelling... The almosts, and repeats... the survival from belief that "for living' I was born... though you may hear me holler (which he did in the cold, and the thought of the suicidal jump). The cry so strong.

**

The Prelutsky was a perfect antidote for the Neruda.
Jack Prelutsky was the first poet laureate of children’s literature...who says
doggerell is the twinkie of poetry... Imagine -- no nose on your face -- no eskimo kisses...
How different from Neruda. Of course, in translation, you miss the sounds...I did give 3 of the Spanish words in the opening stanza.
omen, presagio
helplessness desamparo
stars of death estrellas de la muerte

The group had a sense of a slow receding sense of self...
but at peace with the idea... last 2 stanzas.
his work... will bear witness... and stimulate the same conscience...

What is “it”... ?
Tantalizing poem... just out of reach and yet one senses its importance...
image of desolation... hoping to find permanence in impermanence.