Poems for Nov. 15-6

According to the Gospel of Yes  by Dana Levin

Bird Song, Cannon River Bottoms by Joyce Sutphen

Facing It by Yusef Komunyaaka    

The Owner of the Night by Mark Doty

Firstborn Brother  by Jules Nyquist

I have picked two poems that have “notes” attached…I’d like to suggest you read the poems without them, jot down a few notes for yourself,

and if time, re-read with the notes.  If you do this, how is the reading different? 

I was reminded of Philip Levine’s comment  in his introduction to “Don’t Ask” , where he is interviewed by eight different people.  He reminds us that his views change — so the interviews may seemingly contradict each other.  He prefers that you read his poetry — “a far clearer record of what I believed on those days during which I was most myself.”  

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A lengthy note about Joyce Sutphen is in Writers Almanac which quotes her saying:  Poetry makes the world real for me... in the end, it isn't hard.  When I sit down to write a poem, one thing just leads to another. 

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Discussion:

We look forward to the Gospel of No!  From the first ambivalent line where "thrill of saying no" could be both a temptation renounced or embraced, the poem adopts a querulous tone... Yet there is a note of humor, for instance in the in the big voids embracing   "no" but also "the cherry" tumbling after the word "pit".
The deft treatment of a larger question of how a Gospel of yes, interprets No, includes spellin:

"N, head of Team Nothing,

and anti-ovum O."

the ending:
 "the hole             (-- line break)
No makes.

Mary made sure we said NO and rounded our lips...

The Sutphen poem put us in nature, perhaps rocking on a porch, looking out at Cannon River Bottoms... surrounded by bird song. The poem is  an abbreviation of everything in Keats' ode "To Autumn", although only the end is mentioned
and alluded to and the bird reference is carried into song.
Comments included appreciation of how the poem and  autumn slow us down… the juxtaposition of

modern elements ( cars, rollerblades, sirens…) doesn't seem to interfere with appreciation of the birds.. as if to prove

that we are attentive to what we want to be there …

There is sound all the way through… listening… Kathy pointed out, a foreground and background... a sense of rise and fall is in Keats -- as David pointed out the Romantic convention of something "arresting" a moment... as a walker wanders along. Martin juxtaposed Keats and Sutphen, as a   commentary on it…. the ending, "language of lark" made people

think of the lark as spirit... and a little Vaughan Williams, "Lark Ascending."

The Komunyaaka was admired as the poem has the same effect as the memorial…Reflection of a shining black surface... 

fleeting and empty images…. This memorial allows us to conjure up our own images, memories, involve our reflections with those of others around you... everyone connected as human. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_Veterans_Memorial

Black and White … with a touch of Red…from a bird. 

 Bly has said America is a country that doesn't know how to grieve.

Many referred to the recent Vietnam series… how the memorial makes you feel as if you are in Vietnam, in the peaks of hills…

 I was reminded of the quote under a picture I recently saw in the New Yorker of the last living man born into slavery:

** To know that in oneself, waiting to be found, there is a light.

What the light reveals is danger, and what it demands is faith"

-- James Baldwin

The Owner of the Night   by Mark Doty beautifully captures an owl -- but so cleverly disguised, it took many to

recognize it.  What is it to "possess" -- and how do we do so?  Apparently here in Rochester, there is  "Owl Woods" - a park… and on the "owl prowl" you can see sleeping saw-whit owls.

First Born Brother, brought forth a few stories of people who have experienced learning they were not the firstborn...

and the sense of not knowing why they felt a sense of obligation, having to be more than themselves...

In this spare poem, the pain of loss, the role of secret, the tenderness of the butter knife preparing the flowers

around a grave make a poignant and lasting impact.