Poems for Feb. 13

How It Seems to Me by Ursula le Guin
American History by Michael S. Harper
Coherence in Consequence by Claudia Rankine
A Brief History of Hostility  by Jamaal May (excerpt)
 apologies!  Only PART of A Brief History of Hostility was shared.  See the full poem (and do scroll down!!!) here: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/brief-history-hostility.  It is a 5-part poem.
On Being Brought from Africa to America by Phillis Wheatley
Won't you Celebrate with Me by Lucille Clifton

Please do read the commentaries of the poets commenting on each poem here: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/12-poems-read-black-history-month

You will also find poems we do not have time to explore.  Robert Hayden’s Middle Passage, for instance, which expands on the details of the incident Michael Harper

refers to.  

The discussions are rich and hopefully will continue.  Harper calls on the fallacies in what is called “American History”, conveniently sinking truth out of view.

Rankine’s poem leaves a feeling of struggle between black and white — and at least three ways to read the final stanza, where one senses the antonyms of coherence at work.  I did call the Phillis Wheatley library to find out if they might have any of her original manuscripts.  I gather from the commentaries, that the italics used are here’s. 

**
Pittsford discussed the poems above as well as
Lost Dog by Ellen Bass
("joy does another lap around the racetrack/of my heart")... loss opens us to greater appreciation.
One Way Gate by Jenny George
(vivid language: "It was cold and their mouths steamed like torn bread."  It is the month of January, but the herd can only face one way, unlike Janus.  One fate for them.  Perhaps at the end, it is the 
girl leading them to the slaughterhouse telling herself to "get on..." do the job she must do.  A richly
layered poem.  

**
Brought up in discussion this Mary Oliver poem.

I Go Down To The Shore

I go down to the shore in the morning
and depending on the hour the waves
are rolling in or moving out,
and I say, oh, I am miserable,
what shall—
what should I do? And the sea says
in its lovely voice:
Excuse me, I have work to do.

**
Le Guin has braided self, soul over time, like strands of DNA... the grounding of the ethereal soul in the rock, the transformation. from before time to after.  The O sounds.  Omega… slowness, the liquid l's,
softness of the sibilants increase the pleasure of this poem, which embraces our appearance,  allows acceptance of our eventual disappearance.

Last book by LeGuin: So far so good.  One of her stories… “Slow time”

Also recommended: 

Stroke of Insight:  Jill Bolte Taylor

.The Golden Helix – by Theodore Sturgeon

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers 1st Edition by Mary Roach (Author)

(task of spiritual journey, to get rid of hardening into our selves. ) 

**
The commentaries of the black poets on the work of black poets are wonderful.  What I loved about
each group discussion was the organic nature of working towards understanding.  In the Rankine, Martin brought up "being vs. not-seing"  in the first stanza as a way of understanding how we are if we cling to our rigid orthodoxy of belief... how can we arrive at knowing the other, if we don't see them?

3 ways to phrase the final stanza.
Were we ever to arrive at knowing the other,
as the same pulsing compassion,
___  would break the most orthodox heart.  (this knowing, as the unstated subject?)

Were we ever to arrive at knowing the other as the same pulsing,
compassion would break....

Were we ever to arrive at knowing,
the other as the same pulsing compassion,
would break the most orthodox heart.

The fact is, the  struggle between whites and blacks has been one of unfair treatment,
insidious and unaddressed abuse of power...
we each have a pulsing heart... the possibility of compassion that comes from knowing
the other...
The poem begs us to examine what undermines coherence, unity, face what we avoid...

In The Phillis Wheatley, I loved that Jim coined the phrase, "the bi-directional sentence" --
"once I redemption neither sought nor knew" --
regulating the syntax to
"Once I neither sought nor knew redemption" precludes the rhyme with "too" is excluded...