Poems:
Some Extensions on the
Sovereignty of Science -- by Alberto Rios** discussed 9/14/17 at Rundel
Letter to Someone Living Fifty Years from Now by Matthew Olzmann
Things I will Tell my Children about
Their Destiny by Cynthia Manick
Double Exposure by May Swenson (1913 – 1989)
Nomenclatures of Invisibility by Mahtem Shiferra
The Tradition by Jericho Brown
The Shapes of Leaves
Arthur Sze, 1950
The first poem, we had discussed
in June 2009! At that point, I believe I had recently been to a workshop with Rios in Arizona, and quite taken with his style of poetry, his manner and teaching. I love the poems by Rios and it was a joy to "re-visit" this one.
Normally, a poem with 5 parts would not be my cup of tea, but this poem, written shortly after the death of his father, does not feel bogged-down with length. What he has to say feels important, or if not important, engaging. First stanza... why not look for an extra kidney while you're healthy? Indeed, nature's sleight of hand invites us to look for the opposite... and that may be just the ticket... We all laughed in the third part, where the fact of remembering "terminal moraine" was more important than looking at one... Of course, the one sentence of stanza 4, is memorable -- not because it is true: "The reason you can’t lose weight later on in life is simple enough./
The Pittsford group this time brought up Jungian therapy… confront or avoid our vulnerabilities…
Normally, a poem with 5 parts would not be my cup of tea, but this poem, written shortly after the death of his father, does not feel bogged-down with length. What he has to say feels important, or if not important, engaging. First stanza... why not look for an extra kidney while you're healthy? Indeed, nature's sleight of hand invites us to look for the opposite... and that may be just the ticket... We all laughed in the third part, where the fact of remembering "terminal moraine" was more important than looking at one... Of course, the one sentence of stanza 4, is memorable -- not because it is true: "The reason you can’t lose weight later on in life is simple enough./
It’s because of how many
people you know have died,
And that you carry a little
of each of them with you.
And then, the 5th stanza, and a return to noise, as a magnet... and the smallest muscle of the body,
and a sense of a great metaphor... and the respect of not hurrying its impact... knowing "words have the weakest hold on the world." the "joke" of the smallest muscle, which senses out the sound of thing... and the weakness of words.... and yet that's what we have.
The Pittsford group this time brought up Jungian therapy… confront or avoid our vulnerabilities…
our doubleness… The Rundel group noted the three singleton lines at the end of the 2nd*, 3rd** and 4th stanzas(you carry a little of each (who have died) with you. point out the "unpinability" of understanding as something that can be finalized or permanent.
The enjambments also support this sense of "lost and found/hide and seek".
(in part 2)
The enjambments also support this sense of "lost and found/hide and seek".
(in part 2)
to find/an edge in the middle...
But who is looking/(line and stanza break) /The other way
the real/ Thing that's happening is in the other hand
(*Or behind or above or below or inside us)
(in part 3)
But if it was scary, it was sweet/
In the mouth, too. In a larger picture, one way or another,/ (stanza break)
**The Ice Age glacier was still a force to be reckoned with.
To end up with the smallest muscle -- the importance of sound, how we "hear" (understand, interpret)
and words as our weakest hold on communicating indeed is a "great metaphor" -- one not easily summarized.
**
What would you write in a letter to someone living 50 years from now? Would it matter if the person has not yet been born? Interesting perspective on "now" -- what treatment makes someone think something (animal, person or thing) is hated? And what are we leaving behind as we poison the air, water and soil? Are we capable of joy? Will we be able to list one day all the things viewed from and on this planet ? Night sky, forests, lakes,"There were bees back then, and they pollinated a euphoria of flowers" and the last line... Then the bees died. Direct, honest, not reprobatory... but does get me wondering where we're headed.
The Manick poem is similar... using names which are enjambed rag, becomes rag-time; bird, bird-song.
Swallow as noun becomes verb... our shadow, both the one seen because of light... and the darkness we
are spreading as a human race... "see yourself outloud"... and the mysterious repeated line, "I like your smile unpenned"...
Dear Humans of New York.... this is a cautionary poem...
But who is looking/(line and stanza break) /The other way
the real/ Thing that's happening is in the other hand
(*Or behind or above or below or inside us)
(in part 3)
But if it was scary, it was sweet/
In the mouth, too. In a larger picture, one way or another,/ (stanza break)
**The Ice Age glacier was still a force to be reckoned with.
To end up with the smallest muscle -- the importance of sound, how we "hear" (understand, interpret)
and words as our weakest hold on communicating indeed is a "great metaphor" -- one not easily summarized.
**
Letter to Someone Living Fifty Years from Now by Matthew Olzmann
Things I will Tell my Children about Their Destiny by Cynthia Manick
Double Exposure by May Swenson (1913 – 1989)
Nomenclatures of Invisibility by Mahtem Shiferra
What would you write in a letter to someone living 50 years from now? Would it matter if the person has not yet been born? Interesting perspective on "now" -- what treatment makes someone think something (animal, person or thing) is hated? And what are we leaving behind as we poison the air, water and soil? Are we capable of joy? Will we be able to list one day all the things viewed from and on this planet ? Night sky, forests, lakes,"There were bees back then, and they pollinated a euphoria of flowers" and the last line... Then the bees died. Direct, honest, not reprobatory... but does get me wondering where we're headed.
The Manick poem is similar... using names which are enjambed rag, becomes rag-time; bird, bird-song.
Swallow as noun becomes verb... our shadow, both the one seen because of light... and the darkness we
are spreading as a human race... "see yourself outloud"... and the mysterious repeated line, "I like your smile unpenned"...
Dear Humans of New York.... this is a cautionary poem...
The Double Exposure by May Swenson (1913 – 1989) starts out this way in couplets...
Taking a photo of you taking a photo of me, I see
the black snout of the camera framed by hair, where
The poem is cleverly arranged, keeping the reader on edge with the enjambments, and the pleasure of alliterative sounds...
what is it we try to capture? What will the photo show?
Who,
or what, will it
be—will I be, I wonder? Can’t wait.
Swenson captures an intimate state of being together…-- how the camera, we rely on for a faithful representation of what we see... gets in the way...
Let me show you the pictures of what I didn't experience…
camera… what gets in the way…. It reminded Judith of two poems by
Robert Graves… http://kuny.ca/blogs/2010/262/poems/robert-graves-2-poems/
The next poem has a mysterious title, repeated in the body of the poem. What is "nomenclature of invisibility" -- is it about a wandering people, refugees? Displaced Person? The sorrow of being split from "home" -- the physical torments endured, and yet, the poem ends recognizing what is burnt, drowned, "or swollen, or bleeding/ and purple—this kind of language we know,/
naming new things into our invisibility/and this, we too, call home.
The final poem also starts with a list -- of trees. Less engaging.... statement:
" our emotions resemble leaves and alive
ALOVER SINCE CHILDHOOD
Tangled in thought am I,
Stumble in speech do I?
Do I blunder and blush for the reason why?
Wander aloof do I,
Lean over gates and sigh,
Making friends with the bee and the butterfly?
Stumble in speech do I?
Do I blunder and blush for the reason why?
Wander aloof do I,
Lean over gates and sigh,
Making friends with the bee and the butterfly?
If thus and thus I do,
Dazed by the thought of you,
Walking my sorrowful way in the early dew,
My heart cut through and through
In this despair for you,
Starved for a word or look will my hope renew;
Dazed by the thought of you,
Walking my sorrowful way in the early dew,
My heart cut through and through
In this despair for you,
Starved for a word or look will my hope renew;
Give then a thought for me
Walking so miserably,
Wanting relief in the friendship of flower or tree;
Do but remember, we
Once could in love agree,
Swallow your pride, let us be as we used to be.
Walking so miserably,
Wanting relief in the friendship of flower or tree;
Do but remember, we
Once could in love agree,
Swallow your pride, let us be as we used to be.
THE THIEVES
Lovers in the act dispense
With such meum-tuum sense
As might warningly reveal
What they must not pick or steal,
And their nostrum is to say:
‘I and you are both away.’
After, when they disentwine
You from me and yours from mine,
Neither can be certain who
Was that I whose mine was you.
To the act again they go
More completely not to know.
Theft is theft and raid is raid
Though reciprocally made.
Lovers, the conclusion is
Doubled sighs and jealousies
In a single heart that grieves
For lost honour among thieves.
With such meum-tuum sense
As might warningly reveal
What they must not pick or steal,
And their nostrum is to say:
‘I and you are both away.’
After, when they disentwine
You from me and yours from mine,
Neither can be certain who
Was that I whose mine was you.
To the act again they go
More completely not to know.
Theft is theft and raid is raid
Though reciprocally made.
Lovers, the conclusion is
Doubled sighs and jealousies
In a single heart that grieves
For lost honour among thieves.
naming new things into our invisibility/and this, we too, call home.
perhaps
a
system that abstracts the idea of naming..
The next poem, an unrhymed sonnet, works with trios: It starts with 3 flower names: 2 syllable, 3 syllable, 4; It ends with 3 names of black men killed at traffic lights; 3 syllables; 4 syllables; 2. The flower names that end the first quatrains are both 3 syllables. Star Gazer; Baby's Breath. The first followed by Foxglove, source of digitalis; the second preceded by Cosmos.
What is the tradition? The irony of bloom as cutting down of men cuts hard.
The Tradition by Jericho Brown
Aster. Nasturtium. Delphinium. We thought
Fingers in dirt meant it was our dirt, learning
Names in heat, in elements classical
Philosophers said could change us. Star Gazer.
Foxglove. Summer seemed to bloom against the will
Of the sun, which news reports claimed flamed hotter
On this planet than when our dead fathers
Wiped sweat from their necks. Cosmos. Baby’s Breath.
Men like me and my brothers filmed what we
Planted for proof we
existed before
Too late, sped the video to see blossoms
Brought in seconds, colors you expect in poems
Where the world ends, everything cut down.
John Crawford. Eric Garner. Mike Brown.
to their shapes we are nourished."
Two questions, have you...? I have... and then a series of I statements which don't confirm the sense of the common "we" as the poet assures us he is living at the edge of a new leaf...
It feels presumptuous to say "I feel what others
are thinking and do not speak".
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