poems for August 7

from Be Recorder by Carmen Giménez Smith. (excerpt:  read  http://blog.pshares.org/index.php/be-recorder-by-carmen-gimenez-smith/)
Puerto Rican Obituary by pedro pietri
Still Waiting by Harryette Mullen (response to Alison Saar's work: https://www.otis.edu/ben-maltz-gallery/alison-saar-still
A Supermarket in California by Allen Ginsberg
"Out of the rolling ocean the crowd" BY WALT WHITMAN

This week's selection includes older poems, such as the 1973 Puerto Rican Obit, and Ginsburg’s 1955 “Supermarket in CA” and  Whitman’s “Out of the Rolling” which made its first appearance in 1860 Leaves of Grass and brings to mind both “timely” and “timeless” qualities poems voice.  

The first poem, is only an excerpt, and I recommend the Graywolf review below to enhance the appreciation of the appeal to the reader to be “recorder, embody witness. 

 http://blog.pshares.org/index.php/be-recorder-by-carmen-gimenez-smith/

I also recommend looking at Alison Saar’s work to which Harryette Mullen responds in her poem: https://www.otis.edu/ben-maltz-gallery/alison-saar-still. (The MAG has Saar’s maquette of the giant statue of Harriet Tubman on 103rd St. in NYC

The first poem is an excerpt-- from a book entitle  Be Recorder and a long enough to fill three-quarters of the book.

It is not fair to judge a long poem by an excerpt... not perhaps to compare, as well did the contemporary excerpt with a poem written in 1973--

however,

For the last two poems, I was absent for the discussion.  Apparently...

 both Bernie and David had seen him in person.  Is Ginsburg's poem  a love poem to Walt Whitman? The topic  of homosexuality came up, both Ginsberg’s openness and Whitman, more closeted.  

The group appreciated both poems, talked more about their meaning, symbolism of the grocery store and the ocean, etc

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I love the title of the first poem:   Be Recorder.  How  (and what) do we "record" ?  We only read an excerpt from this very long poem which is the title poem of a book of the same name, and occupies three-quarters of the book.

There is no punctuation, as Carmen weaves repetitions and repeated variations which speak from the hard work of bones to the hard work of the soul.  

The entire poem by Pedro Pietri contains the same kind of organic pulse...  definitely the power of the spoken word, where fragmented speech accentuates the pain in telling the history of his people, with repeats of first names  -- Juan, Miguel, Milagros, Olga, Manuel.  They could be any john, mike, tom, dick, harry equivalent , caught in the slavery of work where the pay-off is to die. after they turn" the other cheek by newspapers

that mispelled mispronounced

and misunderstood their names

and celebrated when death came

and stole their final laundry ticket

They were born dead

and they died dead 

Incantatory, much in the style of first thought best thought.  Comments included appreciation of the hints of humor in this tale of survival... the pulse of the rhythms.  Like Paradise Lost:  no man wished it longer... not the greatest because not the first.   (Johnson)Someone else quoted Robert Graves:  You can't go full strength all the time.

The Harryette Mullen brought up the general idea of  ekphrastic responses...   Jan summed it up as a stunning encounter with a quite surreal and provocative work of art  The  repetition of the B's in black, bear, blacken the blues, bucket of blood, basin of tears... 

the litany of  questions:

Do you think you can handle these bodies of graphite & coal dust?

Would you mop the floor with this bucket of blood?

Would you rinse your soiled laundry in this basin of tears?

Would you suckle hot milk from this cracked vessel?-- sound

Would you be baptized in this fountain of funky sweat?

We spoke of white privilege and how what may sound like an invitation to "approach"
must be understood with the multiple layers of  "with care".
The end line certainly has more than one meaning:  let the oppresser come carefully... and treat the oppressed with care...  How do we touch another?  How are we touched?  

The last two poems summarized by Barbara:

There was a lot of discussion about Alan Ginsberg, both Bernie and David had seen him in person.  Then it was the question of whether it was a love poem to Walt Whitman, and the idea of homosexuality, both Ginsberg’s openness and Whitman, more closeted.  

The group appreciated both poems, talked more about their meaning, symbolism of the grocery store and the ocean, etc. It was a very good discussion.