How to Be a Poet BY WENDELL BERRY
Breathe. As in. (shadow)by Rosamond S. King
Border Town Graduates by Anthony Seidman
Calling On All Silent Minorities by June Jordan
lifedance by Charles Bukowski
How It Seems To Me by Ursula LeGuin
I love how a group of 17-22 people animates the words on the 4-6 pages of poems, bringing
different perspectives, experiences, background. Yesterday's discussion of these poems seemed
more filled with stories than usual, which left me with a sense of entire worlds unfolding.
How to be a poet:
This could be a manual about how to live... and indeed reflects Wendell Berry's world, living
on his farm in Kentucky, his ecological activism, and his religious views.
After the title, Berry's small parenthesis (to remind myself) gives a touch of humility, and sets the tone of an honest conversation in the three stanzas, each marked by i, ii, iii.
I felt compelled to google the reference " like prayers prayed back to the one who prays" which refers to both the art of listening and the attentive presence of a Divine figure. The poem gives a sense of deep reverence, not attached specifically to Christian tradition, however, I further googled Wendell Berry + Christianity, and stumbled on many articles which criticize his viewpoints... Here is one such: https://www.plough.com/en/topics/faith/discipleship/the-hole-in-wendell-berrys-gospel
How It Seems To Me by Ursula LeGuin
I love how a group of 17-22 people animates the words on the 4-6 pages of poems, bringing
different perspectives, experiences, background. Yesterday's discussion of these poems seemed
more filled with stories than usual, which left me with a sense of entire worlds unfolding.
How to be a poet:
This could be a manual about how to live... and indeed reflects Wendell Berry's world, living
on his farm in Kentucky, his ecological activism, and his religious views.
After the title, Berry's small parenthesis (to remind myself) gives a touch of humility, and sets the tone of an honest conversation in the three stanzas, each marked by i, ii, iii.
I felt compelled to google the reference " like prayers prayed back to the one who prays" which refers to both the art of listening and the attentive presence of a Divine figure. The poem gives a sense of deep reverence, not attached specifically to Christian tradition, however, I further googled Wendell Berry + Christianity, and stumbled on many articles which criticize his viewpoints... Here is one such: https://www.plough.com/en/topics/faith/discipleship/the-hole-in-wendell-berrys-gospel
The group all admired how carefully he lays out his thinking and demonstrates what a poem can do to sort out complex thoughts and feelings. Poetry, whether written to be "a momentary stay against confusion" (Frost), a source of inspiration, comfort, a connection with someone else, can be an effective way of enhancing understanding.
Below this paragraph, I reproduce the first stanza so you can observe the way Berry crafts his thinking.
Note the first three sentences, how even though they are short, they are not curt, but inviting.
Note the highlighted qualifier on what we must depend on that divides the first four qualities from the last four. This placement invites reflection on the importance of affection, reading, knowledge, skill ... perhaps inspiration and work also are in league... but the shift to the inevitable, "growing older" and the most important quality of all-- patience...comes as a surprise, especially with the reassurance that this joins our (limited) time to eternity.
We all chuckled at the last sentence. What a wonderful combination of being tongue-in-cheek, with a tinge of humility in this ability to poke fun at oneself.
Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill—more of each
than you have—inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your poems,
doubt their judgment.
The second stanza is clearly witty:
"Breathe with unconditional breath /the unconditioned air."
and although the 2-D life of TV, computers is implied in the "screens", the choice of word
brings to mind the barriers that keep us from a rich and fulfilling 3-D life. Unsacred is a word
you will not find in a dictionary-- which reinforces the non-existence of "unsacredness" and
indisputable sense of sacred in everything.
The final stanza addresses a mindfulness as unconditional as breathing, a participatory rather than petitioning act. "petition with prayer", as opposed mindful breathing.
Martin brought up genetics... how women like men who are witty -- and Claudia echoed that we all
have "divine DNA"... and David A. recited another Wendell Berry poem by heart.
Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear
of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Breathe. As in. (shadow)
The poet explains how she works. We discussed the placement of the periods -- first mark on a line,
so one might pronounce "period" -- and the vernacular use of emphasizing by saying, "period".
It corroborates the picture of the eye (homonym for I). This witty poem uses repetition, overlays, slips of language (golden/gold in; spectacle/spectacular; mundo/mundane/centeroftheworld) The placement of "As in" and the periods is not distracting, but rather intriguing. I love how the period, is the final mark of the poem.
Understanding that the poem was written as a response to Eric Garner's murder by police, increases the impact. Imagine that.
The silence in the last two sentences is deafening. You have the right to remain
.
Imagine
that
.
Breathe
. As in what if
the shadow is gold
en? Breathe. As in
hale assuming
exhale. Imagine
that. As in first
person singular. Homonym
:
. As in subject. As.
in centeroftheworld as in
mundane. The opposite of spectacle
spectacular. This is just us
breathing. Imagine
normalized respite
gold in shadows
. You have the
right to breathe and remain
. Imagine
that
. As in what if
the shadow is gold
en? Breathe. As in
hale assuming
exhale. Imagine
that. As in first
person singular. Homonym
:
in centeroftheworld as in
mundane. The opposite of spectacle
spectacular. This is just us
breathing. Imagine
normalized respite
gold in shadows
. You have the
right to breathe and remain
. Imagine
that
.
**
The Gregory Orr:
This gem of a poem demonstrates what metaphor does… and poetry: it remakes the world. Someone remarked, "it helps us survive the original chaos to bring order."
David S. quoted Shelley:"Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar."
The words themselves. use the word as in the way it was first used.
Mark Doty: We are assuming that the book in question is Whitman's Leaves of Grass. Whether or not, the poems engages the function of words, and how some feel they "settle things". A rose is a rose is a rose... whereas a writer knows, draft after draft after draft, how difficult it is to capture
what compels him to write in words.
David S. brought up the delightful anecdote of a conversation where one man remarks to another,
that the sound of the bird they hear belongs to the nightingale and proceeds to translate it into
French, German, Turkish, etc. and yet, with all these colorful sounds of words, none of them
explain the nature of the bird.
Elaine O followed with a story about an anecdote of sharing with foreigners how different languages render their sounds. When it came to the rooster, they fell down laughing at the English
"Cock-a-doodle-doo" which sounds not at all like a rooster!
The next poem: Graduates can be a verb as well as a noun.
I chose it because of the opening sentence of this evocative sketch of a border town in 10 lines.
Although we're closer to feeling the grass
pulled over our lips forever,
we still bare our dirty teeth and laugh.
The author has quite a bio! http://www.versedaily.org/2019/aboutanthonyseidman.shtml
June Jordan's poem is written in loud capital letters
We know about the silent majority... but she calls on the silent minority.
pulled over our lips forever,
we still bare our dirty teeth and laugh.
The author has quite a bio! http://www.versedaily.org/2019/aboutanthonyseidman.shtml
June Jordan's poem is written in loud capital letters
We know about the silent majority... but she calls on the silent minority.
exhortation… an address or communication emphatically urging someone to do something. Nuns telling the true story. Judith recalled the song by Burl Ives, Nicodemus…
Nicodemus, the slave, was of African birth, /And was bought for a bagful of gold, /He was reckon'd as part of the salt of the earth, /But he died years ago very old. /'Twas his last sad request, /so we laid him away /In the trunk of an old hollow tree. "Wake me up!" was his charge, "/at the first break of day, /Wake me up for the great Jubilee!"
Legacy... the bars that once held Jackson Brown... embrace us...
We need June's loud letters to change the way we treat people in prison, use prisons. period.
Listen to Dylan... read about Black Power, watch Black August. 1971: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2WfzlskjYc Black August https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_August_(film)
We need June's loud letters to change the way we treat people in prison, use prisons. period.
Listen to Dylan... read about Black Power, watch Black August. 1971: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2WfzlskjYc Black August https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_August_(film)
For the last two poems, I suggested they swap titles... and see if that changed the feeling
lifedance by Charles Bukowski. (9 lines)
How It Seems To Me by Ursula LeGuin. (10 lines)
Bukowski, angry, caustic, bitter and beat. Is there an area dividing
brain and the soul? What happens when you lose your mind? Why if you lose both are
you "accepted"? Are these the only choices: insane, intellectual and accepted?
Is this "how it seems to him?" Why the title "Lifedance"? What a brief and unsatisfying life.
LeGuin, on the other hand, uplifting, as she explores soul and self in a spiritual, uplifting way making a short poem version of Genesis as Bernie puts it.
I love the tone of "How it seems to me" -- which is a life dance...
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