Pittsford -- Poems for March 15

WE like March, his shoes are purple by Emily Dickinson
The Ides Of March by Constantine P. Cavafy
The Ides of March A.D. 1896 by Emily Mary Barton
Ghazal: The Dark Times by Marilyn Hacker
Making History by Marilyn Nelson
Sweater by Jane Hirshfield
What I Know by Lee Robinson


A group gets together... reads a poem aloud. Discusses, shares.
It's all a good thing. Generosity of reading to understand; generosity of listening; it's not about
showing off what one knows so much, although the extra knowledge is always welcome.

What do you find most pleasurable when visiting a museum? The time to contemplate, silently, a work of art,
or having someone hustle you through threading themes of what is available.
The same with poetry. There are many ways to understand, access, appreciate, come to terms with a poem.
The beauty is in the sharing.

Pittsford discussion March 8; Rundel, March 23 (snow day 3/16)

poems below discussed at Pittsford on March 8


Rondel was going to discuss them March 16, cancelled because of snow. the notes in parentheses were for the Rundel group:
Dear March - Come in - (#1320) Emily Dickinson, 1830 – 1886
(What is the effect of the m-dashes. Where does she leave them out?)

The earth is a living thing Lucille Clifton, 1936 - 2010
(note how the title carries into the poem... 2 tercets, a couplet
and then six lines, each one starts with “is a black” except for the couplet, “is a fish black blind in the belly...” with its heavy alliteration of b’s in both lines. Note as well how “discarded” in the second tercet could be an enjambment to include the fish with a reversal of verb-subject... How does the final stanza contrast with that?)

What It Feels Like to Feel Like Me by Selima Hill
Cow by Selima Hill
note the title of the source of “The Cow” – real poems for unreal times.
(Why would this be a good poem to include in such an anthology?)

My Generation Reading the Newspapers by Kenneth Patchen
(Discuss “loss” and the multiple layers of “these”—
how both reading and recording are addressed – is the advice as pertinent now as almost 90 years ago?)

A Small- Sized Mystery by Jane Hirschfield
(What tone does Hirschfield create? Does her parable touch you ? How or how not.)A sense of quiet reassurance.
This poem brought up a lot of associations -- a Turkish film at the Little; the association of e=MC2 as smooth energy,possessed by a cat... First, one invites the cat, who needs no excuse, does not have to explain, or pretend. The cat knows how big it is,
and how to fill it. The enigmatic end... we have much to learn from this cat...

The Idea of Living by Joyce Sutphen : the poem begs the question, how are you living? Are you in a visual abstraction,
or in touch with your body?

Pittsford Discussion
Dickinson:
What is it about March, and its hinges of Spring, with wild winds and contrary temperament, that Dickinson would want to dwell with it, and shut the door on April? Perhaps the last vestiges of winter in March, allow the kind of meditative reflection we associate with winter, and the wildness of March provides us with a marvelous energy to prepare us for rebirth...
Rundel: March as lover... rhymes : grew/Hue/you... why no m-dashes "He (April?) stayed away a Year to call...
but trifles look so trivial/as soon as you have come-- and to end on this confusion of blame/praise, where the triffle is blame...
and the flip side, Praise, as a novel way to forgive?

Clifton:
The repetition of "black", the alliterative B's (repeating blind) the repetition of circling... the shambling, ruffling, circling, gives a view of Earth alive, through animals, but also child, giving equal weight to being
black as a race... the language is filled with a sensuous a bigness that spans air, sea, and a sense of a planet spinning in space. The brilliance of the poem is how black changes.
Rundel: sense of wildness, and heavy-voiced B's -- black to back, burying, bones, blind, belly, (repeated)and ending
with "brushing it clean"...

Selima Hill:
We read the 4 lines of "What it feels like to feel like me" then, "the cow" to get a sense of the voice of this delightfully eccentric poet.
We then re-read the 4 lines. One interpretation is to think of the author who does not want to be domesticated... some sort of quilt, decorated with appliqués-- an idea of a field... and yet... inferring
the possibility of being something expansive and nurturing...
Do listen to the poet reading her poem "Cow" -- her sense of humor is clear, and will dislodge any idea
that she is complaining about her lot in life preferring the large, fertile and female-nurturing image of cow.
https://youtu.be/WO1aQfJppYs
"Cow" comes from: Staying Alive: real poems for unreal times. Both poems point to survival techniques.

Rundel: First 4 line poem: "felt ears" -- overtones of whimsy and domestic detail taken out of proportion -- how can soft felt "trample"? What kind of field -- one thinks of sowing, ploughing--- an outer world of possibility.
The second one, gives a feel of comfort in this large, dozy creature that is counted by the cowman, and loved on this farm.
To whom is she speaking? Wanting here, invites the poetry to act as poultice.

Patchen:
I am not sure when this poem was written, however, the date might be important...
The opening line, "We must be slow and delicate" is repeated, "hard it is to be slow and delicate in this,"
where "this" is the framing of words... a sense of regret, countered by a sense of being in the moment;
One person thought it might be a eulogy, or an obituary, referring to Patchen's little sister hit by an
automobile and killed. : Thinks of Hitler... Mussolini... the repetition of "slow and delicate" -- first "we must be this way..." and the repeat, "funny how/hard it is to be slow and delicate in this..."-- he is speaking of grave matters,the result of wars where
"casualties" are unwarranted loss of lives.

Maura (Pittsford group) read her letter she wrote in the voice of the grandfather she never knew at this point.


In the Hirschfield poem, quite a discussion of cats ensued with examples of those cats who if not
saying “Excuse me" seem to say, "I'm sorry". The poem is not really about mercy, nor the pondering of the universe with an Einsteinian mind... but rather points to the fact that we are alive, on an earth where all is living... with a bit of an implication about our need for connection, engagement...and small-sized mysteries...
The cats are really just an excuse to talk about being human...


Sutphen: Back to "this earth" -- the grounded and sensuous details, contrast with the "hammered gold" -- Donne's image in his poem, "Valediction" where he explains to his wife their love will not be severed by his going off on a voyage. The poems is an exercise in understatement...

Is it about living... contrasted with the idea of living or simply an exercise in mindfulness?

Poems for March 1-2

‘I never seen such days as this’ by Sholeh Wolpé,
Other Fugitives and Other Strangers by Rigoberto González
The Soldier of Mictlán by Rigoberto González
Casa by Rigoberto González
Mimesis by Fady Joudah
Author’s Prayer by Ilya Kaminsky
The undertaker’s daughter by Toi Derricotte


"American poetry as a body is best when it reflects America's inherent pluralism and defies
the monoculture America never truly was>" Danielle Legros Georges

It is good to be reminded by poems, that "news" does not contain the reminders of our humanity,
and what it is to be human.

Each one of these poems shares a dark slice of life that I have not experienced. I appreciate the poems
for providing me another lens, and appreciate the discussion of how the poems touched both groups.

Taking the words of a 14-year old held in an Afghan prison as title, then repeating them as final line,
with just one added word: "Father". The poem spans the distance between the son, his story, and the father
hoping to earn money to pay his ransom... The opening stanza, which explains why ragged, hungry boys
would join an army... like the promises of the fox in Pinocchio... the unfinished sentences matching the age
of a victim and the number of people raping him...

The next three poems by Rigoberto Gonzáles, not only are eye-openers into the details of a Mexican-born, gay man's life, but also stunning examples of craft. Normally when we say, "I trust"... there is an implicit
understanding between the "I" and the "you" to which it is directly. Here, the poem starts with night, with unsettling details of a nightclub's neon lights, "red with anxiety", and the "I trust" applied to the anonymous drivers of cars, whose headlights are "white as charcoal", "not the swerve". Each "I trust" introduces a deeper angle of what it is like to hook up. "I dance, I drink, I follow>" Like Veni, vidi, vici... and "trust" becomes increasingly a demonstration of the opposite of what we would expect it to be. All traces will be gone; one stranger replaced by another. The fugitive however, leaves the reader wondering from what one flees... a mixture of loneliness, intimacy. The layers of anger burn in the headlights...the f's piling up of "fender, fury, false"
A stranger's tongue is trusted not to make connection, give promises. Trust acts as counter balance to pain/desire. The group remarked that the poem could be written by a woman.

The Soldier of Mictlán employs "soldier" as the last word on each line. Mictlán as underworld... the pied piper effect of the first poem returns in the penultimate line, as the rattle that summons a soldier to death... The emptiness, no promise ever of comfort. Soldier is applied as adjective to boots, word, nose, heart, palm, eyes, love, head, life... The "mayor of Mictlan" seems to show compassion, at first glance, but it turns into a request... that the newly-arrived soldier teach wonder and kindness... and the search for a moment, one moment
of "soldier bliss". Just as futile a request, as the request of the soldier for bread, cheese and wife.
from Unpeopled Eden. Copyright © 2013 by Rigoberto Gonzalez
One hears the soldier’s boots stepping-- in fact you can see a video of González reciting the poem, marching in place. The futility of being a soldier reminded David of the Odyssey – when Odysseus goes to underworld...and in order to speak must have some living blood. He concludes, "I would rather be a slave in world above than king of this underworld..."

Casa is a persona poem where the house is seemingly indifferent. The neutral position is so counter to how we would like to imagine the ideal "home" ... and yet there is something lovable about this house... sometimes cryptic, sometimes funereal, addressing "whatever launched this grim parade/ of exits. Quickly denying any feeling of abandonment with believable bravado. After dismissing the possibility of a house being any sort of wish, or provider of any attachment of value, the last line is enigmatic:
"a structure without soul for those whose
patron saints are longing and despair."
It leads the reader to contemplate what would give a house a soul...


The next poem by Fady Joudah is one of those simple constructs that confirms "less is more". A girl, a spider web in her bicycle's handlebars; a father telling her to get rid of the web so she can go on to play ... and the wisdom of the girl understanding web as home, and its destruction the way we treat refugees. Such a cursory
summary hopefully we make you want to read the poem...

We closed with The Undertaker's Daughter (Rundel didn't have enough time for the "Author's Prayer"-- which echoes the importance of writing). Like the Joudah, Derricotte uses a light sketch-touch... a little girl whose father deals with preparing people for burial, like Anubis except there is more here about the father...
just as there is more about all of us, not wanting to share fears and shames... just as there is a universal longing in all of us for a sense of nurture... just as also, we all have vulnerable spots others are not supposed to see...

Workshop notes for February

The fun of a poem, for me, is how it engages words, communicates something I would otherwise not have thought of..

Title... "Can you hear my smile" -- the title suggests the poem is about faking a smile to get through a horrendous interaction... the structure of the poem treats the smile as a response to...
diction... synesthesia strong; how "telling" undoes a lyrical moment.. if the tone is jaunty, sarcastic, does that serve an emotional truth better than a tone that is sincere... is the reader given surface clarity for time/place?
Noise vs. silence.
The second workshop, a revised poem without the song the nursery rhymes about blind mice, humpty dumpty who had a great fall alternated prose and shorter lines. It was suggested to use "reading of letters" as the set up and include other ones.

In the article by George Saunders,
( https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/mar/04/what-writers-really-do-when-they-write?CMP=share_btn_fb )
he describes the process of writing prose, starting with a snapshot of Lincoln
losing his son Willy. It's a great idea... filled with emotion but such an enormous grief, it is hard to know how to write it... He uses the metaphor of the writer being the juggler who throws pins up in the air and then sees which one to catch-- circles around a subject until the pins are spot on.
Always consider the reader looking for discovery, transformation...

There is something wonderful in feeling the presence of the writer within you, of something wilful that seems to have a plan’ … George Saunders.

BF Fairchild: Mrs. Hill. Narrative. first memory of Battle Creek, MI, home of cereal fabrication...
sets up a domestic battle... a lyric moment... soldiers, ladies in flower hats... a cut-away moment
marriage ceremony language... the cigar box as tomb for ashes... return to the initial subject...
Every word counts... heroism is not about collecting medals...

Bill Knott: to read: Laugh at the End of the World.

Two poems based on current events; "On the turning up of Unidentified Black Female Corpses" by Toi Derricotte is a response to Henry Taylor's "Landscape with Tractor"

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Mt. Imbabura... invited to go on a trip to Ecuador... and we find out the speaker is scared of heights...
Frida Kahlo -- her self portrait with heart. What details do we see that suggest a broken soul... one arm sticks out like a brown twig, the white blouse sleeve is empty... How does the poem leap into the more universal area
of how we become "numb to the scenarios of life", handless and helpless... empty clothes hang by a thread,
stretch to the sky, the life-span of a woman's heart...

Fire Safety: -- catalogue of possessions... things that matter... what do you choose if there's a fire?
emotional truth of parents, of course, always there...

Review Gregory Orr: Poetry as Survival... the 3 powers: Story (what if)
if not enough, shift to symbol (inferred meaning)
if not enough, rely on incantation.

If the metal is hot, what do you try next?

Safety Concerns: credibility-- a sense of a voice of authority...
"Somewhere in the country, a girl is trembling..." -- line... is it propulsive? mimetic... how choose the pacing...

Paha Sapa: Lakota: political poems run the risk of standing on a soap box... preaching...editorializing.
What do readers want to hear? Poetry is not the "what" but the "how" we say it. If a lament, we will listen, vs. ranging.

Ask poems, what is engaging? encourage writers by saying, "you have written an ambitious and important piece"...
where is the narrative jolt..

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Einstein: no worthy problem ever solved in the plane of its original conception.

What are the pins I'm going to throw up in the air? Which ones seem necessary as they tumble down?
How will I put them back together...

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Craft. The vessel that takes us to our edges.

Everything for the final impact.

Marianne Moore. Only have as much clarify equal to your reticence.
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Ask

1.What is a line from your favorite poem or song?
2. Draw a small portrait of your first pet.
3. What 3 objects include your mother’s favorite colors?
4. What scent best embodies who you are?
5. What is your favorite three word sentence?
6. Explain how you got a scar on your body.
7. Come up with an imaginary definition of your last name.
8. How did you come by your first name?
Instructions: answer these questions and give to the person on your left.
You will write a poem using the information you receive.
a) offer one counter argument. (ex. It is a mistake to think... Don’t think for a minute.. a counter argument never has a conclusion.)
b) describe the drawing in one sentence.
c) use the three word sentence at least twice.
d) title the poem “A Poem by (person whose answers you received)
e) 5 obstructions: (2003 film: remaking The Perfect Human five times, each time with a different "obstruction" (or obstacle) imposed by von Trier.[1]