poems for September 25-6

September by W.S. Merwin
Monologue for an Onion by Suji Kwock Kim

I'm Working on the World by Wislawa Szymborska

Before I Was a Gazan  by Naomi Shihab Nye - 1952

For Keeps  by Joy Harjo - 1951-
Don't Go into the library -- by Alberto Rios
Shikwah by Khaled Mattawa


The first poem was written by Merwin in 1976, (age 73) before he lived in Hawaii, in a collection called. Writing to an unfinished accompaniment.

Paul noted that the first 11 lines describe  nature images,  quiescent as opposed to the  motion in next 11 lines.

Each object is an eye. 
Reminded David of other Autumn poems, like Keats' Ode, and Wallace Stevens, 

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/13261/sunday-morning

A beautiful weaving of everything together.  Poetry without punctuation invites the reader to try
to make sense of the words, how to interpret lines, enjambments.  We struggled with
"month of eyes" -- it is an apostrophe?  the "you" mentioned that puts your hand /in my hand?
John sees "eyes" in September -- which has three of them... We also wondered about "boats of the spirit"  --- and yet, without knowing, that didn't change the appreciation of imagining the turning
from night to day, the wandering mist in early morning-- never to come back--
which heightens an appreciation for the "what is now"... where or whatever the shore is, there is a sense of  drawing to a close of a voyage in an incessant journey.
What governs a day under its own king?

We loved the Monologue for an Onion.  With the title one expects the speaker not to be an onion,
which allows for a clever personnification of the onion.  What great verbs that describe what we do
to an innocent onion... no wonder it makes us cry... we are exposed for what we are... deluded,
filled with desire, chopping and weeping idiots.  Is this the way to go through life?
What relationship do we seek in union... or with onion.  The world seen through veils.  Of course!
and we?  hungry to know where meaning is... but the poet uses enjambment... where meaning/
lies with a double entendre of "resting" and "not being truthful."  The line "whatever you meant to love, in meaning to// does not find solution in the next line, but is interrupted...
a core that is// not one.
Someone quoted Sandburg:  Life is like an onion.  You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.

The craving we all have, the fantasy,  to peel away layers thinking then, we will understand… 

intellect fails.  

What do you get when you peel back an onion?  An onion! 

The Szymborska poem is brilliantly translated and we speculated if the translators felt the same delight they created for us in English, working with the Polish.  So, the world is a book... one we can revise, improve... with chapters... for instance on speech... How it can make you feel quite extraordinary when trading a "hi there" with a fish... suspected meanings...  time, suffering, death... 

The poem by Naomi Shihab Nye was a beautiful example of what could be everyday... 13 lines

about a math homework problem, 6 short lines of a world subtracted.  An 19 line sentence followed

by one more in two lines:  And now, I would do anything/for a problem I could solve.

What problems can we solve?  How do we deal with unsolvable?

The Auden, in 4 nicely rhymed quatrains seems perhaps a bit contrived, a bit light.  His deft use

of "stars that do not give a damn"... We concluded that happiness comes from feeling you love sufficiently…   There's a reassurance in that although human, we are born with the capacity to love.

The title is more enigmatic that pinning down one person... but the bigger concept of being more loving 

when in relationship as a goal... the ending line, is so cleverly understated... as if to sound almost silly,

and yet, it is dead serious:  when all is dark, empty, just the IDEA of finding that sublime, eventually,

can only come by exercising the heart.

For Keeps reminded us of other "dream" poems -- Martin Luther King, Langston Hughes, 

Short sentences, and then two two-line sentences that are about relationship.  Mystery.  And we are part of it.

Don't go into the Library had us in stitches!  History has pegged . knowledge as dangerous Ah... burn the books... keep the people ignorant..!  Paradoxical intention a wonderful ploy... and the great suspension of

couplets... Don't go in.  If you do....  couplet break, another couplet, another couplet break, another line...

you'll come out of there/holding something in your arms.

Sight, touch, smell, taste... Ah yes that dangerous library, full/of answers... and then the clincher...

how it changes us... 

We ended on Shikwah, a poem filled with questions... for more about the poet: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/khaled-mattawa
Hard not to think of Arab Spring... of the partition of Pakistan, reading this complaint to God...
And like Auden, can we be the more loving one?  We must praise God... perhaps God won't care,
just as the stars won't care... but we could care enough to wonder how God might feel if we cut him out of our life... 

poems for September 19 (Rundel)

see the line-up and discussion of 9/18.

SWIMMING IN A WATERING CAN—  by Bruce Bennett

WORDS FOR THE STRAY by Bruce Bennet as response to

 Don Kimball's, Burial for a Stray

Degeneration

ON RECEIVING A NOTE AND PICTURE FROM A FORMER STUDENT ANNOUNCING SHE HAS BECOME A GRANDPARENT
MY LIFE
side by side of Dylan Thomas “Do not go Gentle”  with your “Go Gentle”…
I read outlaid at the end of the session: At Rose's Range by R. S. Gwynn. 

I had written this to Bruce:

For me, I’d love to know more about what inspires your “loose cannon” in the canon!
Indeed, he has taught each author parodied.  We didn't get to finding out more of 

This Is Just To Say  // This is just to confess and A Time to Talk (Frost) and No Time to Talk — Bruce Bennett

“The Cult of Eating” and Elizabeth Bishop “The Art of Losing”  or
 first line match-up of Ezra Pound's Portrait d'une Femme                                             

 and your Portrait of a Neighborhood. 
or whether he was  thinking of Goethe, in Gaming Parnassus? 

**
The Rundel group did indeed discuss the side by side villanelles... noting that the younger Dylan Thomas, raging,
and asking his father to rage against the dying, was appropriate, whereas the more balanced, kindly "why rage, it's
what it is" comes from a longer life filled with experience.   One was pure emotion, the other a sermon from an old man filled with questions.  Why not?  Why rage?  May it not make sense...?  Fight no more?  Pass on with dignity? Obey
the clear command?  We stumbled at the light-/ line-break to - en.

We also discussed the "On Receiving a Note" etc.  We enjoyed the form... and the fabulous enjambment over
a stanza break between the 3rd and 4th stanza.  "what they take from her/

that makes me part of them...

A lovely sense of family... re-connection. 

September 18

SWIMMING IN A WATERING CAN—  by Bruce Bennett

At Rose's Range by R. S. Gwynn.  (from Texas

WORDS FOR THE STRAY by Bruce Bennet as response to

 Don Kimball's, Burial for a Stray

Degeneration

ON RECEIVING A NOTE AND PICTURE FROM A FORMER STUDENT ANNOUNCING SHE HAS BECOME A GRANDPARENT

MY LIFE

We were honored to have Bruce come visit the Wednesday session and not only read the above poems, but answer questions about them and give us more background.

He mentioned how exciting it is to come to a group who have read-- and appreciated his poetry! 

Background:  1973-2014 at Wells.  went co-ed in 2005.  Visiting writers series. (Merwin, Mary Oliver…);  has taught all the writers parodied. He was  called to poetry… as was his mother (b. 1907) a poet from Amherst. He  knew Robert Frost who came into her father’s store (haberdashery).  Bruce  writes every day like so many well-known poets, like  William Stafford who reminds us, "your standards can never be too low…).  His mother wrote also in form and it comes naturally to him.  Great advice from his 3^rd grade teacher: Mrs. Worthy:  don’t wait for inspiration.  Just write every day.  

He spoke at length about the Sonnet form -- named long after it had been established.  Asked why one could call the first 14 line poem a sonnet, since it doesn't rhyme he explained, it has   the spirit of a sonnet... The octave sets up the situation, the volta indeed turns the situation with two questions.  

We remarked the quiet sounds of the repeating words... the inner rhymes of 

stuck, lump, stuff... the labials piling up to 3 times "little by little by little"

of this little lump of a mouse... paddling and paddling (also repeated 3 times)

and the final two words.... all alone.  

Who is I?  It could be the author... indeed, it is... but the reader can put him or herself in I's shoes.  

He explained why he enjoys teaching Rose's Range-- to show more about the Sonnet, and also how to elicit empathy using this form in which to create a

dramatic monologue.

Words for the stray -- his poem is a response to the Don Kimball poem cited as epigram which he didn't feel was finished.    He uses the triolet form, where the cleverness of the repeating lines is handled so it doesn't feel trite or dull, but

on the contrary, heightens ones engagement and reinforces their impact.  Indeed,

one feels great empathy for homeless, for victimes... and the speaker's empathy for them.  

Sonnets build up to the last couplet, but in the poem Degeneration, the poem builds, first 3 quatrains, then a sestet with the contrast between the girl with ALS

and her friends looking forward to college, the hopes, the promises...

Then suddenly delivers the punch of a one liner.  

These are the things that she is bound to hear.

Then, resuming a quatrain that starts with the question:  What must she feel? That’s what I keep on thinking. 

A repeated solo line, repeating how her teacher says she's "optimistic".

The final couplet ends on a universal note that leaves you feeling doubly 
filled with admiration for the girl, and broken-hearted, -- that invisible 
courage that "must be enough to break a stone god's heart!."

We did not discuss the next poem on Wednesday, but on Thursday at Rundel,
where we noted the rhyme, and the powerful enjambment that falls after
3 quatrains before starting the last 3.  

I barely know from year to year
who leaves, or what they take from here

that makes me part of them enough
to make them want to share the stuff 
that happens.  

Within the stanzas there are also enjambments -- which emphasize the story. 

now I forget...
her joy.../about
stuff / that happens
cherish / the thought that...
keep track / of all
I choose / not to be sad

The "Other" Bruce Bennett: 
He explained that in his class at Harvard, there was indeed another Bruce Bennett, one who was very lucky with the girls in fact.  I told him I had googled him only to find quite  Bruce Bennetts out there.  
I like this poem, as  we are quite a collection of selves inside of ourselves.

In "My Life", it's a lovely tribute of how to live one's life... aware
of the unconscious stuff

that something dark and other’s there

that often calls the shots and lies    

beneath my mannerly disguise,

And does not know a thing about                     

                                  itself.  

Our lives like a little canoe tossed on ocean of unconscious. 
We think we know ourselves…  “pry open the lid, but not too far…”

He quoted Frost,
A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.

poem:  so much accomplished in short.. 
Brevity is the soul of wit. (Polonius… Hamlet)



Judy asked if Tim’s room (discussed Aug. 28) was a poem about a boy with special needs.  BB c confirmed, explaining how he had to view 
a film about the dangers of speeding -- and Tim's story was shown.  and speeding tickets and seeing a movie… 



What a special treat!

At Rundel, we compared the villanelle by Dylan Thomas, Do not go gentle into that good night, with BB's villanelle, Go Gentle.  The one filled with emotion,
of a young man losing his father... the other more like a sermon of a wiser man,
filled with questions.

September 11-12

O Pen
Oh Demeter by Ellen Bass

 Garden Notes by W S Merwin

Family Storiesby Dorianne Laux

My Mother's Van  by Faith Shearin

     The Word by Tony Hoagland

     Rewind by Caroline Johnson

  Took out Metronome by Jeffrey Morgan...

In O Pen, we started with Judith reading:  An Ending—Howard Nemerov

After the weeks of unrelenting heat

A rainy day brings August to an end

As if in ceremony. The spirit, dry,

From too much light too steadily endured,

Delights in the heavy silver water globes

That make change from the sun’s imperial gold;  *               *gold, green red of Sarejevo

The mind, relieved from being always brilliant,

Goes forth a penitent in a shroud of grey

To walk the sidewalks that reflect the sky,

The line of lights diminishing down the street,

The splashed lights of the traffic going home.

we also had time to listen to Muldoon's poem, Position Paper

 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/09/09/position-paper

The first two poems were left over from Elaine's selection from a prior week. the first... a beautiful example of a poem that carries an old myth, as Kathy said,  not in a callous or cynical way, but one that is "experientially resonant".  We brought up in discussion Ellen's book, Mules of Love, and her poem to her 21 year old daughter... which ends on the burden of  this flesh must learn to bear, like mules of love.how fierce the love is between mother and daughter: how, as O Demeter tells us, the unspoken part is how we face going/keeping on no matter what...  

She had chosen the Merwin not just  because it is beautiful, but it gives a sense of who Merwin was. 

comments included:      appreciation for how it  begins in silence… soul speaking.  wishing for a death as peaceful as leaf falling… Jan.   Compared to speed reading zen stories-- how the poem reminds us of the  story of flute player who stopped playing b/c listener gone.   Kathy:  grace and gentleness… no edge of "don’t smoke and piss at same time".  life of a leaf.  3 parts… you don’t learn the sounds… form…  unconscious intention a little perfume of Walt Whitman… The Title, garden notes:  nature does not hesitate. Just does.  Just is.  David: buddhism:  being part of… not separate from nature.  accept things as they are.

Laux:  This poem veered into a lot of sharing of stories... the pros and cons of families who share visible anger, vs. those whose emotional detachment can only embrace elephants in the room... what is normal?  what happens until you see other family’s normal? The perennial question:  how is this a poem?  We appreciated the irony, and especially that image of the  gorgeous battered ship of  a 3-layered cake where, in the unforgettable last lines, we can relate to "the smoking candles broken, sunk/  deep in the icing, a few still burning. "-- each in our own way.  The length of the discussion is testimony to the power of a few lines to bring out stories, and how we understand, remember them.

Shearin:  Lovely personnification of the Van for a tribute to a mother and all this particular one sacrifices...   Compared to a one stanza block, this one in aerated tercets gave us breathing 
space to take in the portrait.  

Hoagland:  Who else but Hoagland would put in something as real as a coffee grinder (to describe how real love can feel) next to a sketch of the kingdom of the heart, so at risk for sentimentality,
but weaving it into the image of sunlight, as a gift, ending with it, as that place where one can sit, to listen.  Always the poignant punch.

Rewind: I liked the set-up of the poem, how it addresses a father who once held the speaker of the poem as baby, who ends by holding the father, now reduced to the babyhood-state of dementia. 

September 12 -- Rundel

For Rundel I had   replaced the first two poems for Sept 11 above with two by  Joy Harjo, appointed as US Poet Laureate in June.

            Eagle Poemby Joy Harjo - 

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46545/eagle-poem

Perhaps the World Ends Here —  by Joy Harjo 

: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49622/perhaps-the-world-ends-here

Listening the Joy Harjo read her poems gives a prayerful feel to her words.  The first poem,

feels like a translation of "Eagle Spirit"  to instruct us on how to pray, connect to the circle of life.

The circle image continues -- circles of sound of inner voice, motion, Eagles, and wind-swept hearts cleaned by its sacred wings.   You may not have thought about what a "true circle" of motion is,

or the "rounding out the morning/inside us".  How do you pray in beauty?  

Say this poem!

Perhaps the World Ends Here:  feels like receiving a sermon by a wise woman.  We spoke of how the words infuse us with a spiritual presence, rich layers of meaning, such as the word, "terrible" which like "awful" used to mean something worthy of awe.  What does it mean to be human?  How do we connect with dreams, with each other, put our "falling-down selves" back together?  

Like the Tony Hoagland poem, we must not forget to put a word like "Sunlight" on our lists of things

we say we must do.

Rundel: Poetry Oasis, September 5

The Charm Of 5:30 by David Berman
Maps  by Yesenia Montilla
Questionnaire by Wendell Berry

Weather by George Bilgere

Tim’s Room by Bruce Bennett
Emily on the Net by Bruce Bennett 

The first and last two were discussed 8/28 at O Pen.

What does a title matter?  Everything~  sets down... associations... what does charm mean?  Are we at 5:30 am or pm? Why charm? 
You want to say the weather is pleasant.  say -- it's too nice a day to read a novel set in England...
You want to talk about mindfulness?  think about something irritating your eye on your contact, what it's like to raise a glass of cola into the sun to see the red tints... how sunglasses change a sense of a time of day... 

Look at the one-liners.  "You know what I'm talking about"...  :"In fact I'll bet you something"
fellowship... the shy guy with his sign "but I kinda liked Reagan"...  the mini narrative about a girl he makes up.  Friendly tone.  Fun.  First impressions:  prose; recognition of a variety of places, activities... 


Maps was harder.  Who uses maps anymore?  Blue borders are outdated.    What's with all the ampersands... distracting -- her way of abbreviating "etc."?  A trail marker.. ? the poem gives you the feeling of reading a map...   Why is a map a useless prison? a delusion of safety?  
Rochester is one of the most segregated cities in the nation, says Doris.  The Media doesn't cover what's next, says Martha.  Why the last line, "crushed by thirst"?  that desire for freedom.

Wendell Berry speaks for himself.

Bilgere: the specifics in the first part -- 3 generations... bittersweet... what's in the future for the speaker's son looking already "beyond the man" ?  How's the weather up there... innocence... and the strength needed for the everyday of down here... 

Tim's room: visceral : see 8/28
Emily: see 8/28:  pithy... cool to imagine Emily digging the net, using it... spreading her thoughts...

September 4

Comforts

Bruce Bennett: “David Berman, who had two poems appear in last winter’s issue of Rattle, was the first reader of my poetry for more than 55 years, and for most of that time I was the first reader of his. We met in Archibald MacLeish’s English S at Harvard in the fall of 1961, when I was a first-year graduate student in English and he was in his second year at Harvard Law School. He passed away in June 2017.” Note: For more on formalist poet David Berman, watch Rattlecast #3—

From sonnets “for David Berman, 1934-2017

Longing

Nobody Told

Small Town Haiku

The Princess of War, the Queen of Nowhere

Just Another Day in Just Our Town 

Swimming in a Watering Can

The White Duck

We spent 40 minutes on the beautiful sonnet,, “Comforts”:   admired rhyme scheme, the parallel enjambments of “Distilled desire/attended”

and "proclaimed desire”/attained (with appreciation for the nuances of the choice of adjective… the progression from “distilled” to “proclaimed”; how “attended” provides expectancy and “attained” points to the end…

 the difference between “the snow” as last words on the first line and last words on the final line — how snow changes context… piles up like the years… can bury us… yet poems live on.  The use of “THAT snow” in the first tercet giving a whole new metaphor and meaning… 

The form is so exquisite — allows the comfort of creating something memorable, to honor what /who is no longer.  The meditative quality, not interrupted, but

enhanced by the break in regular rhythm, etc.

 The Sonnet for David Berman brought up quite a discussion about “writing something personal, and whether it should be made public”… Life is painful… and some felt it is the role of the artist to expose rawness, vulnerability, and appreciate reading  something that echoes with a highly personal experience.

 We thoroughly enjoy the dramatic monologues!  

In Longing: after a long discussion, we returned to the title… what is longing who is longing for what?  what longings come out in the reader.

We loved how the vignette provided a snatch of a life; the  short sentences and periods in middle of line like bullet points about the girl. The unfolding of memory at work-- a bit at a time.  A sense of back and forth. the double impact of “lived” — then, and still going on.

Nobody Told:   one person said “this is the shortest long story” !  Wonderful technique of how to tell a story…( I’ll never know but I’m sure. like witnessing a scene out of a play.   is this a real story?).    Judith, who is known for her amazing "encyclopedic storage” recalled  “And all night God has not said a word.”  Browning https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46313/porphyrias-lover

We were wondering if there were a specific reason for including The Brothers Karamazov.

Small Town Haiku, was also a huge hit!  I love that it is not “traditional” haiku, and only can slide in on the tails of justifying its name of haiku by the 17 syllables.  So much is said about small towns… and about the character in these 3 lines.  Is there  a pun of “Hi” in haiku, which is ignored by the “hello” ?  We were wondering “why the quotes”?  Who is this character? 

The Princess of War, the Queen of Nowhere.  We were wondering if these were titles of books that perhaps this genius of a Grandson who proclaims at age 2 “I am tragedy” happened to know about?  Delightful vignette, and we enjoyed the contrast of long words with the rhythm of smaller words.

David provided us with a glowing portrait of your wife as Mayor!  

For your title poem, Just Another Day in Just Our Town ( a triolet?)   

 love the soothing bedtime story quality of the poem… reminded us of  Wilder's “Our Town…”

Note to myself:  (I LOVE the  use of the word  “just” — in “Longing” — just a girl…btw… curious how  the evolution of “just” (morally correct) to “exactly”  and on to “merely”  happened... completely at odds now with the 16th c. meaning of “entirely”.)

We had to hurry through The White Duck. There’s that word “just” again!  I know he’s just a duck… David filled us in on details.

We didn’t have time to spend on Swimming in a Watering Can— So that might be a nice one to read and discuss.