The Dying Garden by Howard Nemerov
Soprano by Rita Dove
Rhapsody by Aditi Machado
Author's Prayer by Ilya Kaminsky
Danzsirley/Dawn's Early by Gloria Muñoz
Small People by Naomi Shihab Nye
Poem for Ugly People by Abby Murray (from Hail and Farewell https://www.perugiapress.com/wp/books/hail-and-farewell/
Reasons to Love Us, by Abby Murray
Jim thought this article might provide insight into Ilya Kaminsky’s Dancing in Odessa which came up in discussion
So many wonderful poems... so many conversations within each one, as we noted with the two Nemerov selections Judith suggested. Forgive the typos... you can doublecheck by referring to
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=33179
The first two poems are a timely seasonal reminder -- but not just one season, or just "weather" --
but reflections on how we traverse passages through time. As several people pointed out in different ways, the rich blend of sounds matching the depth of the thinking. An almost sacred feel to "litanies of change", and Chrysanthemums (flowers to commemorate the dead) consenting with the winter...
An entire seminar could be held discussing the inner conversations and echos of Wallace Stevens, Robert Frost... Although published almost 50 years ago, I love the timelessness, that sense of a Western Gate, the setting horizon as time marches on.
In the Dying Garden, the long inner sentence, pausing between semi-colons, colons, does not feel as if the season is dying, but rather, captures what the Fall is. I love how both the second (long) and third (short) sentences start with And. The chime of the "four o'clocks with phlox, hollyhocks"
sets up the lowing vowels alternating between "om", "em", "um" threaded in the "m's".
One person wondered if he didn't come up with that last sentence, then build the poem around it!
Judith brought up the "ember days" as fasting days. Someone else mentioned-- it's "right out of "everybody", as in common experience, which brought up the practice started by Morgan O'Hara of gathering people to handwrite the Constitution and Declaration of Sentiments. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Sentiments
For the next three poems, I selected them from "American Poets" Vol. 57, Fall-Winter 2019 the journal of the Academy of American Poets.
Rita Dove was the Wallace Stevens Award Winner. Chancellor Ellen Bass writes :"The depth of her insight is astonishing. She sees into our most complex relationships and renders those truths with startling precision. She delivers us to ourselves. With technical virtuosity and luscious music, her poems torch us with beauty and brutality, innocence and ruin. Fiercely political and exactly intimate, this is brilliant poetry at its height." She quotes the first 4 couplets of "Soprano" -- and continues, "Rita Dove could be describing her own poetry."
I asked the group to ask the poem questions. Why the title? Why the parentheses around the 4 specifics", why the thin lines of the couplets pouring out the one sentence which ends as question.
Again and again, we discover there are not answers... but the richness of details we notice call forth associations... Soprano... the highest voice... and David thinks of In Paradisio (Faure Requiem) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sT5Lws5QTgk
Soprano, as the "spokesperson" poet; the parenthetical possibilities of the room you don't need,
the "thin" lines allowing the pouring "clean as moonspill" --
I don't know if it's a question of just body or mind or who "goes home" gives up... but the combination of question tucked in after 10 couplets "seeding the path" of the voice is highly effective!
Rhapsody or rhubarb -- is a delightful choice set up by the title. Aditi Machado was awarded the James Laughlin prize (for a second book) for Emporium. I'm not sure if the poem is from this book, which "deftly builds up into a critique of capitalism and its plundering." Further on, the poems are described as "work that comes from the margins-- and from many of them simultaneously... leaving us with an emporium of possibility made by a magician's hands and a visionary's eyes".
Hmmm. OK. This doesn't help, whether the poem was from Emporium of not. The poem we read overplays sound... we did not care for the gratuitous Indian script we think means "juice" and the rather flip teen-age tone "like/I get I'm out of tune." Too much I, and hard to fathom depth if there is any.
Judith reminded us that "rhubarb" is what you have actors mumble, if you want to create the sense of a crowd mumbling.
She has two poems called "Rhapsody" in the following journal: https://www.lanaturnerjournal.com/v/vspfiles/downloadables/Lana_Turner_No_11.pdf
preceded by a rather heady assemblage of ideas in an article about what is objective and what's figurative.
Ilya Kaminsky was awarded the AAP Fellowship , and a general eloge paid to his work. I selected thus, a poem from his 2004 book, Dancing in Odessa, but made a note about his book, The Deaf Republic a highly inventive "unfinished manuscript". The group didn't feel the poem convinced us that Kaminsky is "a tremendous broker for the poetic arts in our world today."
Danzsirley/Dawn's Early by Gloria Muñoz, won the Ambroggio prize for a ms originally written in Spanish, with an English translation.
The group wanted a longer poem! One person offered "for si las moscas" means "just in case"--
which makes sense for being prepared for anything -- from flies to whatever metaphor they stand for.
Small People came from Naomi Shihab Nye's book, The Tiny Journalist -- it does have stanza breaks... one after the first 5 lines, another after the next 4. The power of her last stanza, with its clear image of "riding on every train to better history... and what we weigh... the three words...
fog, suitcase, tomorrow... -- what is it, unnamed, that has already left... Haunting poem which
invites further reflection.
We ended with two poems by Abby Murray which were satisfying and provided us a sense of being in a conversation with an authentic, human character. No pretense. Certainly craft... good sounds and images, and paring down ugly to the undisguised u.g.l.y. No extra vowels. If we're honest, see past appearances, understand there's a link between what is considered ugly and the beauty of what we might not otherwise admire.
Beauties of Yesteryear: Villon.
Rodin: She who was once the beautiful helmet maker’s wife. we dismiss. beautiful… we might become involved.
longer stanza… coherence. not interrupted.
imagery so strong. gum on the tongue; dotted.
Beauties of Yesteryear: Villon.
Rodin: She who was the helmet maker’s once- beautiful wife
Reasons to love us: We loved the smoothness, how like Rita Dove's one note, reassurance spindles
down the skinny lines. We were reminded of the Taoist story of the Chinese farmer, who gets a horse.... it runs off... comes back with another... the son rides it and breaks a leg... but what is bad news, since the Emperor is calling up all able-bodied men to fight in the army... Taoist theology emphasizes themes such as naturalness, peace, effortless action, detachment and receptiveness.
The farmer's tale captures many of those. In short, it reminds people that it's best not to get too upset -- or attached -- to what happens to us. Even something that seems dark and confounding can turn out to be an opportunity.
Abby's poem delivers that kind of wisdom with an extra dose of empathy.
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