poems for Dec. 20-21, 2018

1. Just Delicate Needles ---by Rolf Jacobsen

2. A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy's Day by John Donne

3. Lines for Winter by Mark Strand
4.  Basho Haiku

5. Winter is Good (1316). by Emily Dickinson

6. A Spell Before Winter    by Howard  Nemerov

7. Birds At Winter Nightfall (Triolet) by Thomas Hardy

8.  Departed Days by Oliver Wendell Holmes
9.  Winter Complains  by Ogden Nash

1.  Just Delicate Needles

Such a beautiful poem… but written by a nazi supporter in Norway.  So… does the poem change once we know that fact?

What if he wrote it before the war -- or what if he revised his stand?  I wish I knew the actual Norwegian version-- whether

"Just" is adjective, as in, "fair" with the paradoxical "needle", (sharp, perhaps painful ) and "delicate" (as in fine, a sense of seeing through beautiful stitchery of pine needle).  

The poem immediately corrects any implication in the title.  This is a poem about light-- needles of light, 

in the huge vastness of dark...  Be gentle with "it" -- cherish "it", focusses on a way of being.  "We hope" as last line

can stand independently, and is associated with this gentle cherishing that makes hope possible.

2.  A Nocturnal:   Difficult poem -- perhaps more understandable knowing Donne was in his metaphysical stage...having a romp with negativity?

I had the group respond with a question for Donne... why are you writing this?  What is this really about?  What do you

want us to understand?  St. Lucy: light; and Lucifer, the angel cast out of heaven... again, dark and light.  

Martin proposes the "I" of the poem is the voice of the old year passing, and St. Lucy the hope of the new year.

3.  Lines for Winter:

 Strand seems to have taken the idea of dark, to write to "you", perhaps his friend for whom he wrote the poem, perhaps the reader, perhaps himself, encouraging "us" to go on.  Our positive messages to ourselves help us survive.  Carmen shared a story of her friend who used this technique -- when things fall apart, really fall apart, and it feels nothing is left -- the body has fallen apart, everything 

one loves to do is no longer possible, everything one has is taken away... you still have the power to

"tell yourself... that you love what you are."

4. "When the winter chrysanthemums go,// there is nothing to write about// but radishes. 

Basho seems to be tongue-in-cheek.  Visual beauty gone, but you can still eat Daikon.

Perhaps up to us to make even the lowly root vegetables a  worthy subject? 

5. Winter is Good

 Winter is good - his Hoar Delights

Italic flavor yield 

... a certain slant of light... critique of "good"... contradictory quality 

Generic as a Quarry                       

And hearty - as a Rose - 

6.  A Spell Before Winter 

I love how the first two stanzas weave a magical "spell" and end with

The old hills hunch before the north wind blows.

The abrupt transition from "nature" to  our human nature, with the arrival of a capitalistic Santa Claus is jarring.  Our human need to believe in him 

Conceals the thinness of essential hunger, brings out our own

Vanity and the void.

The 4th stanza with the prism-like meanings of suffer, as in pain, but also to invite, 

and overtones of Christianity, is followed by a vicious couplet which stabs at corruption

of religious intent -- as if to confirm the mention of the Bishop of Myra degraded into the fat gift-bringer in the preceding lines.

7. Triolet

The form and Hardy's treatment, give a light treatment of winter from a bird's point of view.

I love the description of the indoor human as "crumb-outcaster" and  different treatments

of "flakes fly faster" and all the berries gone -- same words, but the arrangement and punctuation make all the difference!

8.  Departed Days

Chosen by guest editor, Carmen Giménez Smith,  who curated the Poem-a-Day series for December.

Final line asks the perfect question on which to meditate: Day breaks,—and where are we?

The poem suggests that memory cannot restore old hopes as we are  drawn further away from ourselves… Discussion included mention of the Native Indian vision pit:  when come out… have your name.

9.  Ogden Nash

How to have fun-- let the winter cold speak!