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.